By Molly Flinkman
@molly_flinkman

It’s my oldest daughter, Lily, who finds me hiding underneath the weighted blanket in my bedroom. The bickering and whining and general noise level of dinner had reached such a fever pitch that I excused myself, left my four kids with plates of applesauce in front of them, and came up here where it is quiet.

I am flat on my back on the floor next to my bed—evidence of the amount of effort I have left in me—when Lily walks in.

“Mom?” she asks.

I turn my head toward her. “Yeah?”

“Um, Jude stole Sawyer’s spoon, and he won’t give it back.”

“Okay,” I say, standing up. She heads back downstairs, and I follow—passing a frosted window on my way. The cold temperatures have been significantly limiting our time outdoors. Besides the daily car rides to take the kids to school and a weekly trip to the grocery store where someone else loads my groceries into my trunk, I basically never leave this house. The frost feels like an icy taunt as I walk on by.

My husband is on a stretch of shifts at the hospital which has put me on a stretch of 14-hour days by myself with the kids. Each morning, I watch him pull away in his car, and I wonder if he appreciates the quiet of his car as much as I would.

Back in the kitchen, I negotiate the hostage spoon situation and clear the table as the kids run into the family room to play. I load the dishwasher, wipe down the counters, and sweep the floor. It’s a kind of productivity that marks every day while also having a way of making me feel as though I haven’t accomplished a thing—a cycle of chores and kids and frosty bars on the windows that will begin again tomorrow.

I feel angry about all this and then guilty for feeling angry and then angry again. I can’t seem to shake it off.

I move the kids into the pre-bed shuffle. They put on pajamas and brush their teeth, and then I wrangle my youngest two boys together for books and put them to bed first.The girls and I are set to start a new chapter book tonight, and I want to enjoy it without my youngest son climbing all over me. 

Finally, all the songs have been sung, the toddler has been redirected back to his bed, and I settle into the small, gray couch in our living room with the girls.

I pick up These Happy Golden Years, the eighth book in the Little House on the Prairie series. When Lily, Norah, and I last left Laura, she had just received her teacher’s certificate and was asked to teach in a small school in a small town 12 miles away from where she lived with her parents and sisters.

Right at the beginning, we meet Mrs. Brewster—the “hateful, crazed lady” Laura is set to board with. She has just moved west with her husband and their young son to settle a town with less than twenty other people. They live in a small shanty in the actual middle of nowhere, surrounded by the frigid air of winter and endless stretches of prairie. When Laura enters her home for the first time, Mrs. Brewster stands cooking something on the stove. Her toddler cries at her ankles and hangs onto her skirts. Laura describes her as “sullen-looking,” and I am immediately endeared to her.

Laura’s impression only gets worse though. Mrs. Brewster is short with her right away but at other times ignores her attempts at pleasantries all together. She only does what absolutely must be done in her home and, for all the rest of the time, she just rocks silently in her chair—often while her son cries nearby. At one point, Mr. Brewster explains to Laura that they only eat two meals a day because the days are so short, but he doesn’t choose his words carefully enough and says it’s because “breakfast is so late.”

This sends Mrs. Brewster over the edge: “Whose fault is it, I’d like to know!” she screams at him. “As if I didn’t do enough, slaving from morning to night.”

At this outburst, Lily interrupts my reading. “Why is she so mean?” she asks.

I consider this.

“Well,” I tell her, intent on defending Mrs. Brewster, “Maybe she’s not mean. Maybe she’s just overwhelmed.” 

“But why is she overwhelmed?” she presses.

I consider this, too.

When she’s not cooking or cleaning up after her family, Mrs. Brewster rocks in her chair. She says nothing, but I know her thoughts spin furiously in her mind. They are anything but idle.

Her husband comes in and out, his schedule set by the tasks he must complete each day. She knows his work is important. She knows what he does is essential for their livelihood, and yet, she seethes each time he leaves. She can’t stop thinking about the simple fact that his work takes him outside. It rises to the top—this small detail—and pushes the walls of her home around her tightly. 

The crying toddler seems to always be right at her feet. She has nowhere to go—no solitary place to escape into. The life and rhythms she had grown accustomed to have been upended.

These are the things she broods about each time she watches her husband walk out the door. He gets to go where it’s quiet each day while she’s left behind with the pounding of her own bitter thoughts and the frosty windows around her.

Should I explain to Lily that she feels trapped in her own home? Could she understand the many ways her life has been turned upside down? What’s more, if I explain all this, will Lily remember the time she found me lying motionless underneath a weighted blanket?

All this feels like a bit much to heap on an inquisitive seven-year-old, so I try to simplify why Mrs. Brewster feels so overwhelmed.

“I think she just feels sad,” I tell her. “It’s hard work being a mom and going through a big change like she did. She’s sad and lonely, and she’s not handling those big feelings very well.”

This satisfies Lily. We read a few more pages, and then I tuck the girls in and say goodnight. The house is quiet now, and I am still thinking about Mrs. Brewster.

I wonder how she could make things better. In a life in which there is little way to change or adjust so many of her actual circumstances, what can possibly be done to snap her from her fury?

I make my way into the family room, and, in the stillness, the answer comes to me quickly. I’ve known it all along; I just lose sight of it from time to time. She must speak the words she feels aloud because everything grows bigger and more terrible inside her head. 

She must admit out loud to being sad; she must say she misses her life as it once was. She must articulate the way she feels when she watches her husband leave each day even though it will give evidence to the way she has let her own resentment grow. 

She must get the words out of her head.

Jake finally gets home a few hours later. He joins me on the couch and asks, “How was your day?”

I consider this. There is a one-word answer and a true one. I choose the latter and push all my furious thoughts out into the open. I tell him I feel trapped and like I have nowhere to go. I admit to being angry each time he leaves our house. I start to cry when I tell him I’m tired of feeling like I do the same thing every single day.

He listens intently. He puts a hand on my knee. He offers to help, and suddenly the thoughts are less terrible when someone I love holds them too. We sit there together on the couch long after all my words have been said. It’s a peaceful kind of silence, and in it I can feel the walls of our home expand little by little. 

Guest essay written by Molly Flinkman. A lover of side braids, houseplants, and good books, Molly spends her days in central Iowa with four kids and a husband who works unpredictable hospital hours. In her margins of free time, she writes about how her faith intersects the very ordinary aspects of her life. You can find her on her website or Instagram.

Photo by Lottie Caiella.