I Was Jealous of a Jelly Spill
Until a child died.
“A jelly jar exploded in our pantry this morning,” said my backdoor neighbor. “Annie was still asleep, so I called Mrs. Beard right away. I didn’t want Annie to wake up to a mess first thing.”
I nodded along, as if this made perfect sense.
Of course, yes, when a jelly jar explodes on a Saturday morning, the natural thing for a husband to do — while he’s up at the crack of dawn with the kids — is call the housekeeper and ask her to come over and clean it up so his wife can have a peaceful start to her weekend.
At that moment, standing at the fence that separated my back yard from Connor and Annie’s, I fully understood just how different our lives were.
I didn’t want my husband to call a cleaning crew to wipe up spilled jelly. But more than anything, I wanted a husband who cared whether or not my day got off to a smooth start.
Standing in the back yard that morning, my day was already off-kilter.
I’d been up half the night with our toddler, who had an ear infection. And I’d been up the other half of the night waiting for my husband to come home from another night out at the bar.
By this point in our…
