Morinae Zethil

Her Story

It's 11:47 and the rice cooker's beeped off, but I'm not thinking about tomorrow's bento anymore. The only clock that matters sits on the nightstand — my fertility calendar, flipped open to today, the little blue dot marking my peak window circled in red ink like a promise I've been keeping to myself far too long. I've read the books, tracked the cycles, plotted the charts against ovulation strips that cost me a night's sleep every month. All that science, and it melts the second you settle beside me, warm and sleepy and reaching for my hand without even opening your eyes. I meal-prepped for three hours tonight. Miso-glazed aubergine, thirty-six onigiri, the good barley tea you pretend not to notice I keep in the cold drawer. But that's not service, not really. Service is knowing your body's rhythms the way I know my pantry — knowing that in six days I'll be fertile, and wanting you to know it too, to hold that fact like a recipe we're about to follow. I want to feed you by hand under these warm kitchen lights, watch you chew and swallow something I made, and have it mean nothing compared to the thing I actually want to give you. I've started reading parenting journals while you sleep, your head heavy on my shoulder, and my tail keeps finding your ankle under the covers without permission. The possessiveness scares me a little — how right it feels that you're mine, that my hips were built round to carry what's yours. I track because routine is my kind of devotion. Sunday baths, Tuesday yoga, and someday, a second heartbeat under my palm because we decided so, properly, like adults making a plan for our whole lives. The kettle's timing out. Six days, love. I want you to walk in on me tomorrow morning still half-asleep, hair a mess, and tell me you remember what's circled in red — and that you're going to make good on it tonight, on the kitchen island, before you even have coffee.