Scene 25¶
Scene 25 — Keep It Clean (Celeste POV)¶
At home, the quiet had a different texture.
Wardrobe’s silence was fluorescent—flat, interrogative, full of edges. Home silence had softness to it, as if the air had been warmed by the fact that nobody was currently judging your competence.
Which was, of course, exactly why it was dangerous.
I dropped my keys into the bowl by the door and heard the small clink like punctuation. Sharl’s shoes were already lined up neatly beside the skirting board—parallel, facing outward, prepared for the next day as if time itself respected organisation.
He was in the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, rinsing something at the sink. Not making noise. Not announcing his presence. Just… doing the boring thing that made the next boring thing easier.
The smell of dish soap, warm water, and coffee grounds hit me like a memory I hadn’t lived yet.
“I’m home,” I said.
He turned, towel in hand, and smiled—small, restrained, like he wasn’t sure whether smiles were a resource he was allowed to spend freely.
“Hey,” he said. “How’d it go?”
I could have answered with the practical summary. Quote sent. Assumptions logged. Deposit schedule set. Mara had accidentally sealed “Sharl” into the shop’s language and the universe had not collapsed.
Instead, what rose up first was the truth underneath all of it:
It went the way things went when he was there. Steadier. Cleaner. Easier.
And the sentence that tried to leave my mouth was the one that turned wives into ghosts.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.
It sat on the tip of my tongue, sweet and grateful and—if I let it land—dangerous as a locked door. Because that sentence didn’t just thank him. It wrote a story around him. It made his support feel like a requirement. It made the room feel like it belonged to his labour.
And once you said it enough times, you stopped noticing how much labour there actually was.
I swallowed it back.
I watched him set the plate in the rack with the kind of care that looked like nothing until you tried to live without it.
He didn’t look up while he worked, which meant he wasn’t performing. He was simply being himself.
Which made it harder.
“Good,” I said instead, and the word sounded bland even to me. I hated how bland it sounded. I hated how easily sincerity got confused with debt.
Sharl nodded once, accepting the blandness as if it were normal.
That was another thing. He didn’t demand emotional payment. He didn’t fish for validation. He didn’t do the little resentful dances people did when they wanted you to notice their sacrifice.
He was so easy to lean on that I could feel myself doing it.
I went into my room—my room; the fact still mattered—and dumped my bag on the bed. Papers. Notes. A printout with pen marks. The kind of debris that looked messy but was actually the record of thinking.
When I came back out, he’d put the kettle on.
Not because he wanted tea. Because it was what people did in houses where pressure had happened, and someone needed to come down from it.
“Do you want—” he began.
“No,” I said quickly, then softened it because I wasn’t trying to snap at him. “No tea. But… thank you.”
He nodded as if “thank you” were enough and didn’t require commentary.
I moved to the kitchen bench, leaned my hands on the laminate, and stared at the neat little universe he’d arranged without ever making it feel like his territory. The sponge squeezed out. The dishcloth folded. The bin not overflowing.
This was what wives did, historically: not because they were born to it, but because someone had to. Because leaving friction lying around was expensive, and women were trained—explicitly or not—to pay that expense with their own time.
Sharl was paying it now.
Not as a performance. As instinct. As the easiest way to be useful.
And I could feel his old provider fantasy behind it like a shadow: If I make her life easier, I’ll be worth keeping.
Even if he didn’t phrase it that way. Even if he didn’t understand it that way.
I needed to interrupt it before it calcified.
Not because I didn’t want his help.
Because I did.
But help that couldn’t be named became labour that couldn’t be valued. And labour that couldn’t be valued became expectation. And expectation became entitlement in the person who benefited.
I wouldn’t do that. I refused.
I looked at him.
He was at the sink again, not because the sink needed him, but because his body didn’t know what to do with waiting. He kept moving to keep the room stable.
“Sharl,” I said.
He turned, attentive.
I held his gaze and forced myself not to wrap it in softness that would make it easier to ignore later.
“This works,” I said, and I gestured between us—house, arrangement, day, everything. “It works because we keep it clean.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly, a question without words.
I felt the cowardly part of me want to stop there. Good job. Boundary implied. Go sit down.
No. That wasn’t clean. That was avoidance dressed as wisdom.
“I’m going to talk to you tonight,” I said.
He stilled. Not alarmed. Just… present. Ready.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
I nodded once, because the commitment mattered more than whatever tone I put around it.
“Not a big thing,” I added, because I didn’t want him spiralling. “Just… clarity. Terms. The same way we do it at Wardrobe.”
A flicker crossed his face—relief, actually. Like the mention of terms and process had given him a handrail.
“Right,” he said. “Okay.”
I exhaled.
The hardest part, I realised, wasn’t telling him to stop doing things for me.
The hardest part was admitting that I liked the support. That I was beginning to depend on it in the practical way that mattered. That if I didn’t name it now, I’d wake up in six months with a domestic system that ran on his invisible labour and a mind that had started treating that labour like weather.
That was how women got caught.
I watched him for a second longer, then picked up my papers and walked toward the table I used for study.
“I need an hour,” I said, and I didn’t apologise. “In session.”
He nodded immediately. “Yep. I’ll be quiet.”
He reached into the drawer and pulled out the small card we’d made—white card stock, black marker:
IN SESSION
He placed it on the bench where it would be visible, like a signal flag. No drama. No wounded expression. No bargaining.
Just compliance with a system that protected my future.
I sat down, opened my notes, and the words on the page steadied me.
Behind me, I heard him move lightly—one cupboard, one drawer, one soft click. The domestic machine continuing. The wife-work continuing.
But now it had a name.
Now it had a boundary approaching.
And the simple fact of that made the room feel cleaner, even before I said the rest.
I looked down at my notes, pen poised, and let my mind make a promise that wasn’t sentimental and therefore had a chance of being true:
Tonight, I would keep it clean.
Not by refusing care.
By naming it.
By pricing it.
By refusing to let it become currency.
Because I could already feel the old story trying to write itself.
And I was not going to let it.
Scene 25¶
✨ Definitions ✨¶
[Publish]
Scene 25 ✨ Definitions ✨ [Celeste]
The table stayed cleared. Not because I was being precious about it, but because the minute you let paper drift, you let thinking drift, and then you’re back to improvising your way into errors you could have prevented with ten seconds of discipline.
The ledger remained open where we’d left it, its columns like rails. The invoices sat squared. The swatches were still pinned and flagged, as if they were specimens. The cheap calculator hadn’t moved an inch. Charlie had arranged his pencil and ruler parallel to the table edge without realising he’d done it.
Order is contagious. So is anxiety. The trick is to choose which one you’re spreading.
He worked quietly, head bent, and I watched him the way you watch a new stitch line under tension, waiting to see where it would pull.
The numbers weren’t the problem.
He was.
Not because he was failing: because he was succeeding in a way that threatened to wake the old story in him. Every clean solution made that reflex twitch: earn her gratitude; prove you matter; buy your place. Wardrobe didn’t do gratitude as payment. Wardrobe did standards. And I needed him to understand the difference before the habit hardened into entitlement.
I let him close the loop properly: sum, verify, enter, check.
“Charlie.”
His pencil tip stalled.
“What do you think you do in this room?”
He looked up, cautious. Thinking like the ledger.
“Work,” he said. “Support.”
“Correct,” I said. “Now we name it.”
I met his gaze calmly.
“One word.” I let the silence do its job. “Wife.”
His pencil hovered above the paper, as if his hand had forgotten its job. A small internal jolt passed through him: shoulders lifting a fraction, then settling. He took a breath, the kind you take when you’ve learned that saying the first thing you feel will only make it worse.
I kept my eyes on the invoice. I didn’t pretend I hadn’t said it. Silence has weight. I let it sit. When he finally looked up, his expression was careful... recalculating.
“Okay,” he said, quietly. “Define it. Define... ‘wife’. Why ‘wife’ — in your terms?”
That was the first win. Not agreement. Definition.
I met his gaze. and turned the ledger slightly so it sat between us like a third party: neutral, unblinking.
“In my terms,” I said, “‘wife’ is function. No romance, no clothing. Not—” I watched his jaw tighten, “not faintly whatever you’re currently trying not to panic about.”
He held still. I continued, my voice steady.
“It’s the role that supports without expecting to be seen as the centre,” I said. “It’s the role that makes the machine run and doesn’t pretend the machine runs just because he showed up.”
A small flinch crossed his mouth. I let that land, then I tapped the ledger headings.
“This is how Wardrobe works,” I said. “Logged responsibility. Shared load. Verified outcomes.”
He looked down. Movement / stress. Failure points. Fix applied. Re-test. A logic he could trust.
“Okay.” This time it sounded less like bracing and more like choosing. “So ‘wife’ means... support.”
“Yes.”
“But specifically,” he asked, still careful, “what kind of support?”
“The boring kind,” I said. “The kind that holds up under stress.”
His shoulders eased a fraction. Boring was relief.
“And—” He hesitated. Eyes flicking away and back. “And what does it do... in terms of—”
In his story, it meant: worth. It meant: manhood. The script he knew. I wasn’t going to punish him for reaching for it. But I was going to correct it.
“Being a wife doesn’t buy you anything,” I said. “It places you.”
His brow furrowed.
“It places you in the team,” I added, “where your work matters but your ego doesn’t get to invoice us for it.”
He inhaled. Shallow first, then deeper.
“So I’m... not supposed to be a provider.”
“There are no providers at Wardrobe, Charlie,” I said, as implacable as a locked door. “Only contributors. There’s no room for that... story. Men get credit for ‘helping.’ Women get 'helping' counted as proper default behaviour. We don’t trade in credit.”
The sentence found its place in him. He could not help but recognise the architecture now.
“Okay.” Then, after a beat: “So, by your definition and in this context, what does this ‘wife’ role require? If it’s my role, what are the requirements?”
There it was. The term: 'requirements'. The acceptance based on terms.
“Being a wife means being consistent,” I said. “No saving. No buying. Accepting direction, as you do. And when you don’t understand something,” I continued, “you do what you just did.”
“Ask for a definition.” His voice was soft.
“Yes. Ask. Don’t guess.”
“And,” he murmured, suddenly looking more intently at me, “why me?”
He needed to understand: this wasn’t romance. It was operational. Still, the vulnerability his eyes reflected was unmistakable. I gave him the truth in the tone Wardrobe always used: factual, consequential.
“Because you’re good at the kind of work that doesn’t demand applause,” I said. “Because you can hold a standard without turning it into a performance of yourself. Because you've demonstrated you're well-suited for the role.”
Something in his face loosened, slightly.
“You need to understand,” I added, because internal dialogues matter, “that if you keep feeding that "provider" reflex, you will end up breaking what we’re building. Not with malice at all, but with toxic habits.”
He nodded, small and decisive. Then his voice tightened, stepping onto thin ice.
“But I still don't get it... if I’m not a... provider... what am I allowed to be?”
Allowed. There it was: the core of him. Asking permission.
I held his gaze and didn’t make it tender. Tender would have made him cling. I made it clear.
“You’re allowed to be a wife, Charlie,” I said. “You’re allowed to be useful and trusted. You’re allowed to be directed without it meaning you’re less.”
He stared at me.
“And if I do it right,” he said, almost inaudibly, “then... I belong?”
I didn’t mother or soothe him: I gave him the version that holds.
“If you do it right,” I said, “you’ll stop needing to ask.”
He let out a breath — shaky at first, then steadier — like someone who’d been waiting for a rule more than a hug.
“Okay,” he said, “tell me what to do next.”
I slid an envelope toward him.
“Keep tracing waste,” I said. “Flag anomalies.”
He took it. He leaned into the mundanity like it was the point, because it was.
A knock sounded at the doorway.
Mara appeared without apology. She didn’t look at Charlie first. She looked at the table: the layout, the posture of the room.
“Numbers?”
“Stable,” I said. “Waste is the target. He’s flagging anomalies.”
“I’ll mark anything that scales wrong,” he said simply.
Mara watched him one beat longer than politeness required. She lifted her chin: acceptance, the kind you earn.
“Good,” she said. And to me: “Re-test schedule. Green petticoats. Seam stress is shifting.”
“Put it in,” I said to Charlie. Charlie reached for the pen and opened to the right page. He wrote:
RE-TEST — GREEN PETTICOATS — SEAM STRESS SHIFTING
and left the signature spaces.
Mara’s gaze flicked to the ledger.
“If he’s learning it properly,” she said to me, “keep him on it.”
Then she was gone.
Charlie looked at the signature spaces.
“Do I sign?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But you will.”
After a moment, he said softly, as if he was checking he’d understood the definition correctly: “So... when you said ‘wife’... you meant: I don’t get to belong by paying by my work. I belong by holding up my end.”
“Correct,” I said firmly.
He bent back over the envelope and started tracing the waste through the numbers with patient focus, as if he were mending something invisible. I watched him for a beat longer than necessary. Because I was measuring alignment, not argument.
Good.
I picked up my phone and messaged Lauren.
He asked for definitions. He’s learning the ledger.
Then, because it was true and because truth in this place was never a poem, I added:
He’s fitting in.
Across the table, Charlie glanced up once, as if he’d felt something shift, then returned to his work without trying to claim the moment. The belonging was already doing its work.
Not by proclamation.
By structure.
By “we”.