Almost Everything in Order
“Running late again?” Nigel’s voice on the phone was muffled, as if carried from a distance—perhaps from the banks of the frigid Thames, where dusk had already settled.
“Yes. Until eleven, maybe later. We’re swamped with deliveries,” replied Emily, switching to speakerphone. One hand finished typing an email to clients while the other stirred her lukewarm tea. The mug teetered near the edge of her desk, surrounded by crumpled draft reports she’d never opened.
“It’s like you don’t live here anymore,” he said after a long pause. No accusation, just fact. Yet in that fact lingered an ache—for her endless work hours, their empty evenings, the mornings where their conversations dissolved into silence.
“You know how it is,” she murmured, hearing the weariness tremble in her own voice.
“I do.” The quiet between them hung thick, heavier than winter fog. In it echoed words neither dared to speak, though they thrummed beneath every breath.
Emily hated this silence. It was too alive, too full. It swallowed their half-spoken thoughts, their exhaustion, their charade that everything still held together.
She returned home well past midnight. The flat in a quiet London suburb greeted her in darkness, save for the dim glow in the hallway—Nigel always left it on, “so you don’t trip.” The light striped the floor, illuminating a lone sock (his, undoubtedly). In the kitchen, a note lay waiting: *Dinner in the microwave. Asleep.* The handwriting slanted, hurried, as if fleeing something unseen.
She sat at the table, reheated the meal, ate without tasting it. Everything was where it should be—hot food, warm light, care in two short lines. Yet inside, something clenched cold. She opened her laptop, scrolled through a report, shut it. The screen stared back, blank as a mirror with no reflection. Then she washed up in the bathroom, avoiding her own gaze—eyes too tired, nights too restless. She slid into bed beside Nigel. He slept turned away, breathing steady. Between them stretched just a little more emptiness than yesterday. Or perhaps she only imagined it.
Morning brought gridlocked traffic and a snapped shoe strap. On the bus, Emily sat beside a woman in her forties, loudly complaining into her phone: “He rolled in at dawn again, stinking of lager, and like a fool, I still wait.” The words struck like an echo—only reversed. That woman waited, despite the hurt. Emily lived beside Nigel yet drifted in another universe, their worlds barely touching.
At the office, her boss didn’t notice she’d arrived early. He wouldn’t have noticed her report, either, had she not placed it on his desk. “Adequate,” he grunted, eyes glued to his screen. Same old routine: task, report, nod, silence. Even praise sounded like an order.
Emily retreated to the break room, steeped a teabag. Watched as dark tendrils spiraled through the water, dissolving something unseen. It was the only thing that felt real just then.
In a sudden moment of clarity, she realized: everything she did was flawless. Meticulous. Reliable. Yet it was motion without direction—a car speeding down a straight road, no destination in sight. Smooth, seamless, and utterly hollow. She poured herself into spreadsheets, deadlines, checkboxes, never asking if it led anywhere beyond another folder on her desktop.
That evening, they shared a silent supper. Spoons clinked against plates, the wind rattled the pane, and the fridge hummed softly, a reminder that life ticked on. Nigel stared at his food, avoiding her eyes. Then, abruptly:
“No late shift tonight?”
“Shouldn’t be.” Her voice wavered—with hope, this time.
“Fancy the cinema?”
She nodded, hesitating, as if weighing whether she had strength left to live, not just endure. Then she stepped behind him, wrapped her arms around his chest. He was warm, solid, real—a beacon in a storm, something to cling to if the world crumbled.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I just want everything to hold. Work, us, the flat… All of it.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “But we’re not building a fortress. We’re living. Aren’t we?”
She didn’t answer. Just pressed closer, breathing in the scent of his jumper. He squeezed her hand, as if it were the only tether left.
At the cinema, they chose some loud action flick—car chases, quips, explosions. The plot blurred into noise, but it didn’t matter. In the dark, the seats were soft, the screen vast, their fingers entwined. And for once, breathing came easier.
Afterward, they wandered through lamp-lit streets. The wind carried the scent of rain-drenched pavement and blooming lilacs, while laughter from a group of teens echoed—a life apart, yet comfortingly near. Nigel chattered about nothing—a coworker’s secondhand car, a mishap on the Tube. Trivial things, but the very ordinary backdrop Emily hadn’t realized she craved so desperately.
At their doorstep, she paused. Something within her shifted—not fear, not doubt, but a stillness where a word took shape.
“You know,” she said, “I almost have everything in order. Almost.”
Nigel studied her. No surprise in his gaze—just quiet warmth, as if he’d been waiting a lifetime to hear it.
“Then let’s make it all right. Bit by bit.”
She nodded. And for what felt like the first time in years, she wanted more than to simply cope, to endure. She wanted to live. Not to manage—to be.
