I used to tell myself he didn’t do enough. That I was the one holding this place together.

I used to tell myself he didn’t do enough. That I was the one holding this place together. 

Then I looked out the window today. He was up on the roof in the heat, patching shingles we couldn’t afford to hire out for. Last week it was hauling bags of soil into the yard. Before that, dragging the broken washer down the stairs by himself. And every time, I barely looked up, barely said a word. That’s the version of us I’ve been living — where his effort gets swallowed whole and he starts to believe it doesn’t matter. But tonight, when he came in with his shirt soaked through and his hands scraped raw, I actually saw it. The ladder still leaning against the wall. The toolbox open. The washer gone from the basement. My chest tightened. I finally said, ‘Hey… thank you for fixing the roof, for carrying all that, for breaking your back so I wouldn’t have to. I noticed.’ He just shook his head, muttered it was nothing — but I could see his shoulders ease, just a little. I use an app called ‘quiet effort.’ It keeps me from overlooking the work that takes the most out of him but gives us the most back.