A Sorrowful Woman

“In the next room was the man, his chin sunk in the open collar of his favorite wool shirt. He was dozing after her good supper. The shirt was the gray of the child’s trusting gaze.”

The description of the man taking a nap while the woman does the dishes seems benign, but the scene contextualizes the subsequent revulsion the woman feels when her child looks at her. The shirt’s gray color is identical to the color of the child’s eyes, transforming the child’s gaze into an assertion of patriarchal authority. The woman imagines that the child monitors her and “approves” of her staying in the kitchen where tradition dictates she belongs.

“The husband told her in his richest voice to lie down, take it easy, and he was already on the phone to call one of the baby-sitters they often employed. Shortly after, she heard the girl let herself in, heard the girl coaxing the frightened child to come and play.”

The husband’s “richest voice” and comment to “take it easy” are meant to allay the women’s anxieties, much like the numbing sedatives. However, like the draughts that seem to work temporarily and then increase her agitation, the husband’s solution to bring in a sitter only heightens the woman’s sense of isolation. The girl “let herself in” while the woman eavesdrops upstairs, a role reversal that displaces the mother and makes her feel like a stranger in her own home.

“‘Would it help if we got, you know, a girl in? We could fix the room downstairs. I want you to feel freer,’ he said, understanding these things.”

The husband believes the hired help will liberate his wife from her duties, but the girl’s presence only exasperates the woman further. Despite the narrator’s insistence that he is “understanding,” the husband does not comprehend how a younger, more vibrant substitute would upset his wife.