4. Dulcie
DULCIE
The roof of the cardboard house won’t stay on.
Its owner has tried tape, then glue, then pressing both hands down so hard that one wall buckles. Now he is crying with the outraged exhaustion of somebody whose work has betrayed him.
I pull a chair beside him rather than crouch. Getting down is easier than getting back up now.
“Show me where it keeps coming loose.”
He points. I look at the two pieces without touching them.
“What if we gave it something underneath to rest on?”
“A ceiling.”
“That might do it.”
He sniffs. I offer a strip of stiff paper, and he folds it with the fierce concentration he had been spending on his tears. Five minutes later, the roof stays where he puts it.
He doesn’t thank me. He runs to show another child. That is usually how I know I have helped properly.
On the wall behind him, paper rectangles are pinned beneath the words OUR FAMILIES.
A few hold drawings already: enormous cats, tiny parents, a baby sister represented by an angry red circle.
We are making a book about the people in each child’s home.
There is no model page. No required number of people.
I want them to recognize their own lives when they open it.
One girl has asked whether her grandmother can have a whole page because she tells the best stories.
I have said yes. We’ll keep adding drawings while I’m away with the baby, then finish the book together when I return.
I have left a whole folder of blank pages for the things that will happen while I’m gone.
The director appears in the doorway while the children are washing for lunch. She waits until my colleague takes them through to the next room.
“Have you got five minutes?”
“Of course.”
I gather the loose paper scraps as I follow her. My hands know what to do here. The shelves are low enough for the children to reach. Things they make are allowed to be crooked. I can see a problem and try to solve it without first deciding how my concern will sound to somebody more important.
In her office, the director shuts the door.
For a moment I think I have done something wrong.
Then she says, “I wanted to check with you before I answered your husband.”
The scraps crumple in my fist.
“What did he say?”
“He contacted me yesterday about your leave. He said you won’t be returning afterward.”
I stare at her.
“He described it as something the two of you had decided. But you and I haven’t discussed a resignation, so I told him I needed to hear from you directly.”
“I haven’t resigned.”
“All right.”
“I’m not resigning.”
She nods once, as though this is a perfectly sufficient statement from a grown woman about her own employment. My eyes sting with a gratitude I don’t want to feel for something so basic.
“We’ll keep your agreed leave arrangements,” she says. “If you want to change anything later, you can speak to me.”
“He shouldn’t have contacted you.”
“You don’t have to explain your marriage to me.”
That nearly finishes me.
I look down at the paper. There is a little yellow triangle stuck to my thumb.
“He thinks I won’t want to work when the baby is here.”
“What do you think?”
“I think I will.”
“Then we plan for that.”
She turns her screen so I can see the message. It is brief, assured, polite. Magnus thanks her for everything the school has done for me. He writes about my departure as though he is acknowledging the end of a pleasant arrangement already completed.
There is no question in it.
“Will you forward that to me?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“And please keep any employment conversations with me.”
“I will.”
I remain in the chair a moment after we are finished. Through the wall, I hear a child arguing that soup can be drunk from a spoon even if it is not technically a drink. A familiar small absurdity. The sound gives me somewhere to put my attention until I can stand up without crying.
Back in the classroom, the cardboard house sits drying by the window. Its roof is still on.
I touch the edge of it very lightly.
Magnus gets home while I am putting clean laundry away.
The cup disappeared from the hall two days ago. When I asked where it had gone, he said his mother was keeping it. He didn’t say the name had changed. I have not mistaken its absence for an answer.
Now I set down a folded shirt and hold out my phone.
“You contacted my director.”
He glances at the screen. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“To give her time to find someone permanent.”
“My leave already gives her time to arrange cover.”
“This is different.”
“I know it is. You told her I was leaving my job.”
He removes his jacket. “You’ll have a newborn.”
“I know what I’m having.”
“Then why are you pretending your circumstances haven’t changed?”
I lay the phone on the dresser before I drop it. “Because being pregnant doesn’t mean you can resign for me.”
“I didn’t send a formal resignation.”
“You told my employer I wasn’t coming back.”
“I was helping her plan.”
I want to throw the clean shirt at him. It is such a childish impulse that it steadies me. I put both hands flat on the dresser instead.
“You could help me plan by asking what I want.”
“I know what you earn.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“Dulcie, be sensible. You’ll be leaving our son in someone else’s care so you can spend the day looking after other people’s children for a fraction of what I can provide.”
The ease with which he reduces it to that makes me feel naked.
“I’m a teacher.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looks at me with open impatience now. “I’m not going to debate the title.”
“It isn’t a title I use to make myself feel better about being paid less than you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
He hangs his jacket inside the closet. “My wife doesn’t need to go back to that work after giving me an heir.”
Giving him.
I look down at the curve of my body in the mirror. I look at the place my hand has gone without asking me. There are things I have allowed to pass because fighting over every word makes a person tired. Tonight I hear this one too clearly.
“I’m having our child. I’m not completing a job for you.”
He turns. “Don’t twist what I said.”
“Then listen to what I’m saying. I’m going back.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
“I know you don’t get to announce otherwise.”
We stand on opposite sides of the room. A basket of his clean clothes sits between us. I feel foolish for noticing it, for remembering that I put aside the shirt he likes for an early meeting, for having made one more small preparation for a man who had made a much larger one without me.
“The director is expecting me to return,” I say. “I told her to speak to me about my employment.”
His face changes. “You made it sound as though I had no idea what was happening in my own household.”
“I told her the truth about my job.”
“Was that satisfying?”
“No.”
The answer comes out rough. I hate that he can hear how close I am to tears.
“No, Magnus. I would have found it much more satisfying not to be asked whether my husband knew something about my life that I didn’t.”
He takes the folded shirt off the basket and disappears into the bathroom. The door closes with a quiet, precise click.
I finish putting away my own clothes. I leave his where they are.
Downstairs, I save the director’s forwarded message in a folder on my phone. Then I open the banking app I have barely looked at since the last automatic transfer from my wages.
My savings balance is smaller than a month of the expenses Magnus never has to consider.
I look at it for a long time.
For the first time since I married him, I calculate what it could buy without his help.