We Are Not Our Ghosts

He walks through the front door.

Boots heavy from work, shoulders sagging with exhaustion.

There’s paint on his sleeves, a scratch on his wrist,

A lunchbox under his arm and hope in his eyes.

He looks at me and smiles.

But I don't smile back.

Not today.

I’m still standing in the kitchen,

Tight in my chest.

Tighter in my jaw.

The pot for dinner still untouched —

Because the pans are in the dishwasher.

Still full.

Because he said he’d empty it this morning.

And he didn’t.

Before me stands the man I love.

Kind. Patient. Quiet.

But at this moment, I don’t see that.

All I see is what he didn’t do.

“You didn’t empty it,” I say,

Not harsh. Not cruel. Just flat.

But the silence that follows?

It’s enough to cut.

He closes the door behind him.

The dogs wag their tails, but he doesn’t pet them.

The cat brushes against his boot, but he doesn’t bend.

His eyes fix on me, wounded.

“I just got home,” he says,

Soft but sharp.

“I work ten hours in boots that hurt my feet,

And that’s the first thing you say to me?”

I fold my arms.

I feel myself preparing to defend.

To fight.

“If you cared, you’d remember the little things.”

He flinches.

Not dramatically —

Just barely.

But I see it.

“Unbelievable,” he mutters.

“I work to give us a better life and you think I don’t care?”

I can’t stop now.

The argument’s taken root.

“I manage everything else. The lists. The schedules. The mental load.

All you do is leave and come back.”

The dogs are no longer wagging.

Their tails are low now.

The cat disappears behind the couch.

He walks past me toward the hallway.

“I’m not doing this,” he says.

But I follow.

“Of course you’re not. You never do anything hard!”

His voice breaks.

“I’m trying, damn it!”

We’re not yelling now.

We’re cracking.

Something deeper than sound.

And then, suddenly —

He stops.

In the bedroom.

Hands in his hair.

Face flushed with hurt and rage and something I hadn’t seen in years.

Fear.

He reaches for his overnight bag — the same one he uses for weekend work trips —

Starts stuffing it with socks, shirts, whatever’s nearby.

And I panic.

I drop the towel in my hand.

I reach out to stop him.

He jerks away like I’ve burned him.

And then I see it.

For just a second,

He’s not a grown man anymore.

He’s a child.

Tiny. Fragile. Trying not to cry.

I don’t see my husband.

I see a scared little boy who once flinched when his father came near.

The kind of boy who learned that raised voices meant danger.

That storms at home were not about weather.

And he?

He looks at me,

And I know he doesn’t see me either.

He sees a woman he once knew.

A mother who left too often.

Who forgot birthdays.

Who promised love but delivered silence.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

I fall to my knees.

“I’m scared too.”

He pauses, backpack hanging from his arm.

His face begins to soften.

“You think I want to be this way?” I ask.

“You think I don’t carry ghosts too?”

He crouches.

He touches my hand.

“I know you do.”

We sit there, floorboards cold beneath us.

Both of us small again.

Haunted.

“We're not fighting each other,” he says.

“We're fighting memories.”

I nod.

“I know. I just want them to stop winning.”

And in that moment —

For just that moment —

The ghosts go quiet.

His hand in mine.

His backpack forgotten on the ground.

The kitchen untouched.

Dinner still uncooked.

But it doesn’t matter.

What matters is this:

We stayed.

We sat.

We didn’t run.

The house is still haunted.

But so are we.

By childhoods we didn’t choose.

By wounds that still throb without warning.

But now,

We name the ghosts.

We speak to them.

We tell them, “Not today.”

He leans his forehead against mine.

“I will never leave you.”

And I whisper back,

“I’ll always stay.”

We may falter.

We may break.

But we will rebuild —

Brick by brick,

Word by word,

Touch by touch.

We are not our ghosts.

We are the love that survived them.