"Don't expect anything. I'm tired"

She is in the early 40-ies. I am approaching the 50-ies.

We had three children in a row. First a girl, then a boy, and finally a girl, the little one, the bonus, just after she passed 40.

Life is in a hurry. Life is fast. Our little family is always on the way. We are running through our days and weeks. Getting up in the morning, making the kids ready for the day: Kindergarten, preschool, school. Work. We are on the run all the way.

We are active. I am working as a teacher in upper secondary school. I teach 19 hours a week, the rest of the time I prepare for teaching, I correct student papers, I talk with students.

Her job is in a home for elderly people, 24/7 care, nursing, helping elderly people who sometimes are clear in their mind and sometimes also very demanding and exhausting. Others are silent, more or less lost in their internal mental fog. She is aspiring for a section leader position, waiting for the opportunity to present itself.

When coming home from work, she sometimes needs to talk about her day. That's how she is. An open-minded, modern woman. Well educated, clear speech, with a strong need to share her thoughts.

I am rather on the opposite side. A silent man, an introvert, often buried in my own thoughts around issues in my teaching job, and in my private world. I am focused on my visions for life, on nurturing my writing aspirations.

I have a long term project in my mind. I am going to write fiction. A novel that collects all aspects of life in it. The love I felt for my wife when we met. The first years of hot and close tenderness. My longing for tenderness, closeness with her. My longing for hugs, embracing her, holding her tight, caressing, nestling, nuzzling. My longing for playing erotical games, my longing for sex.

"I need sex at least a couple of times a week," I said once we talked openly and directly about our sex life.

I waited to hear her answer, her thoughts on that issue. But for once she stayed silent.

I enter the teachers' work room. I look at the watch on the wall. It says a quarter past 8. I say Hi! to a colleague, a fifty or something year old woman who has her work place beneath mine. I sit down, search for the folder with the papers I need for today's first two classes.

When I start on my way home after work, I am tired. I feel a bit down. I drive along the main road until I have to get off the motorway in order to go to the kindergarten and pick up the little one. I park and step out of the car. She sees me and comes running towards me as I enter the yard. I feel uplifted. She is all mine, she hangs around my neck with her thin arms.

While driving home I feel the gray fog come down on me again. I feel down.

I don't want to be depressed. I say to myself that I must think in a different manner. It's difficult. The gray fog is there, in front of my eyes. There is so much work to do in the evening. A pile of student papers that I have to correct and give back tomorrow. The little one is silent in her seat behind my neck.

As I enter the kitchen I see my wife before she catches eye of me. When she turns I can observe a change. Her face is hard, she seems stressed.

"Did you buy what I told you?" she asks.

"What was it?"

"Oh no! Don't say you forgot it! Again!"

"What is it? You're talking about the dinner?"

"Yes, of course. I cannot think of everything! I cannot take care of everything in this family!"

"But we have fish in the fridge freezer. No problem, is it?"

"How come I can never trust you? I told you!"

"I thought we could have salmon today. No?"

We stop there.

The kids are observing us, without a word. The one in the middle, our boy, seems anxious.

I do my best to dissipate the bad ambiance. I put the plates and glasses, forks and knives on the table. I open the freezer and take out the salmon. I empty the dishwasher and put the clean stuff on their right places, in the cabinets and drawers.

My wife is not in the kitchen. I call her name. She answers from somewhere behind a semi closed door. She is busy preparing the gym clothing for our two oldest. She is going to drive our oldest to the dancing, leave her there and then drive the boy to the foot, and then she will go to the gym for an hour, while I stay at home with the youngest.

I will finish the meal with her, then we are going to play or watch a funny movie on Children's Television. After that I am going to prepare her for bed. Teeth brushing and pajamas on. Then read a story in an illustrated book of her choice, then I'll be singing the usual song for her. And hoping she does not climb out of the bed again once laid in bed.

After an hour the house is still silent. The youngest one is asleep. I sit in the living room with a pile of student papers on the table before me. I struggle to concentrate. I yawn. I do not want to do this. But I have to read every one of them. I must give back the papers tomorrow.

I hear the front door being opened. They are back. My wife stops in the door opening and says hello.

"How was the gym?" I ask.

"Well  -  okay! I did spinning for 45 minutes."

"Okay. And the foot?"

"The coach was not there. They had someone to replace him."

"How was the dancing?" I ask our oldest one.

"Okay."

She smiles, but says nothing more.

The three of them finish eating the evening meal. I am not hungry. I sit with my student copies in the living room.

We rush our two oldest to bed. In this matter we are very agreed, my wife and I. Good routines, good habits make the family work well.

Darkness has come outside the windows and wrap our house and our minds in a pleasant, dull peacefulness.

Finally the silence settles over us. The house is approaching rest mode.

I look at her. She looks back, then withdraws. I try a smile. She is not smiling back.

Half an hour before midnight I say I go to bed. With an unexpressed additional wish that she will too.

I lay in our bed. Alone. Waiting, hoping. Five past midnight I get up. I go to the bathroom. Then I go and look at her. She's sitting in the living room. She's watching some late night TV show, or maybe a movie, I don't know.

"Are you coming?" I ask.

She does not move, she is tacit. I stand silent in the dark.

"Are you coming to bed?"

"Yes", she says, "but don't expect anything. I am tired."