A Sunday Promise and Wet Plates

He dried the plates on Sunday the way he had on Monday: standing side-on to the sink so he could see the door. The dishwasher had been dead for three weeks, the repairman had promised Thursday and hadn’t come, and he washed by hand every evening, his fingers red from the hot water. I sat at the table with my tea and watched the clock over the stove. Twenty to eight. At eight I had promised we would talk.

I had promised on Monday, in this same kitchen. He’d been drying a plate then too; I set down my cup and said:

“Sunday evening we’ll talk.”

“About what?”

“You’ll see.”

He didn’t turn around. Only the plate in his hands stopped for a second, and the towel went over it once more, over the already dry surface. He knew what for. On Saturday I had found messages on his phone with a colleague he hadn’t shown me — nothing serious, jokes — but we have a rule: the phone is open, and whatever I want to see, I see without asking. He’d forgotten to tell me. Forgotten — his word. I didn’t discuss it. I named the day.

Six days

On Tuesday he got up half an hour before me. When I came into the kitchen the rubbish was out, the table wiped, the coffee on the timer. He sat on the stool by the wall and waited for me to sit so he could pour.

On Wednesday he ironed everything hanging in the bathroom, including what I hadn’t asked for. On Thursday he asked how my report had gone — he never asks about my work; I hadn’t trained him to. I answered briefly. He nodded and left it.

On Thursday evening, kneeling by the bath while I lay in the water, he asked whether he could skip dinner on Sunday. I asked why. He said he didn’t want a heavy stomach. You’ll eat dinner, I said. He wanted to prepare for it in at least one way, and I didn’t leave him even that.

On Friday I came home late. Dinner was ready, he asked whether I was tired, and without waiting for an answer took off my shoes. Then, from the floor, looking at my knees:

“May I take the rubbish out now, not in the morning?”

“You may.”

He went out and was back in a minute. The bin was a third full. He needed to leave the kitchen so as not to look at the clock.

On Saturday he came back from the shop with the apples I like and never put on the list. Set them on the table, went to dust the hallway. There was no dust there.

All week he talked less than usual and moved more carefully, as if the cage had got heavier. The cage was the same. What had got heavier was what I hadn’t told him. I never once reminded him. There was no need: he checked himself every morning — how he got up, how he answered, how he set down the cup. I lived as usual and watched.

I liked it. There was something else too: by Thursday I thought he’d already had everything I meant to give him, and that Sunday would be one thing too many. I thought it — and left the day where it was. You can only cancel what has been set.

Eight

At five to eight he finished the plates, hung the towel straight along its fold, and stood by the table. Didn’t sit. Arms at his sides, fingers red. I finished my tea. The clock over the stove moved to eight. I didn’t hurry: put my cup in the sink, wiped the table though it was clean. He watched my hands and waited.

“Kneel.”

He went down on the tiles at my feet, facing me. I stood, opened the drawer under the oven and took out the strap — the one that lives there for this, wide, leather, no buckle. Laid it on the table beside my cup. He looked at the strap, then at the floor. I saw him swallow.

“You know what this is for.”

“Yes, Mistress. The phone.”

“How many times did I remind you this week?”

“Not once.”

“And did you think about it?”

“Every day.”

I picked the strap up off the table and held it. His breathing was loud enough to hear. Shoulders up by his ears, back straight, knees on the cold floor. Six days he had waited for this. I could give him thirty strokes and a week without the key, like last time, and he would take it with relief: the waiting over. Relief was not what he had earned.

I put the strap back in the drawer and closed it.

“Not tonight.”

He lifted his head. His shoulders came down, slowly, and I saw in his face what I had been waiting for: not joy. Confusion. He had prepared for six days, and the door he had been walking towards turned out to be a wall. He had nothing to end the week with.

“Stand up. Phone on the table, screen up. Every evening until I say otherwise.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

He put the phone beside my cup, screen up, and went to finish the saucepan. I stayed where I was and watched his back. It was the same back as on Monday: side-on, so he could see the door.

Monday

In the morning the coffee was on the timer again, the rubbish was out, and he was sitting on the stool again waiting for me to sit. Nothing had ended. I hadn’t named a new day and hadn’t said the old one was closed. He lives with an open account, and that holds him better than the strap: the strap ends, the account doesn’t.

In the evening the phone lay on the table, screen up. He didn’t pick it up once until I went to bed, and in the morning it was still there.

Sometimes I do go through with it. He has to know the strap in the drawer is not for show. But more often I do what I did that Sunday: name the day, live the week, and at the appointed hour put the strap back. The waiting is enough for him. The plates are enough for me.

• Name the day and the hour. “Later” does nothing; Sunday at eight works all week.
• Don’t remind him. One reminder and he’s waiting for you instead of watching himself.
• Don’t soften on small things. Apples and coffee are no reason to close the account early.
• At the appointed hour, take the instrument out. Cancelling without the strap on the table isn’t cancelling, it’s forgetting.
• When you cancel, don’t close the matter. Leave the day open until you decide otherwise.