The Sound of the Latch

The silence in this house is a physical thing, tasting of ash. For twenty years, I prayed for a moment of peace amid the chaos of soccer games, school projects, and bedtime stories. Now I have an ocean of it, and I’m drowning in its depths. I haven’t moved from these sheets, the scene of my sin, the evidence of my betrayal tangled around me like a shroud. You didn’t yell or fight; the light just died in your eyes when you flipped the switch. ‘I guess I wasn’t enough,’ you said, your voice a quiet blade that cut deeper than any scream could.

That sound—the latch clicking shut as you pulled the door closed—echoes in my soul like a final judgment. It wasn’t just the front door shutting behind you as you walked into the night; it was the door to our shared life slamming on its hinges. All these years, I’ve been your devoted wife, the one who made suppers and babies and memories, yet in one reckless night, I shattered it all. I told him to leave, watched him slink away, but the damage was done, a chasm I carved with my silence and unmet longings. How did we drift so far, Anonymous, when our love once felt unbreakable? I see now how my refusal to speak my heart widened the gap, even as you kept providing, steady as ever.

Now I’m a ghost in my own home, wrapped in this robe, arms hugging my shame close, waiting to see if you’ll return to this wreckage. The emptiness the kids left was vast, but this void is apocalyptic, born of my choices and our complacency. I’ve longed for you to see me again, the woman beyond the mother, desired and alive—but I sought it in the wrong arms, blind to the love still anchoring you here. Can we reckon with this shattered vow, Anonymous, you and I, through quiet talks or counselor’s wisdom, earning back what I’ve nearly lost? Or will the latch’s echo be our elegy? I pray there’s still a spark to rebuild from these ruins.