Because I was tired.
Tired in the bones. Tired in the teeth. Tired in places sleep doesn’t even reach anymore.
I could have told her I had already been awake for twenty hours.
That I cleaned a dental office before sunrise.
That I spent the afternoon helping an elderly man eat soup one spoon at a time.
That later that night I would be folding sheets at a motel off the highway until almost two in the morning.
I could have told her my name was April, that I was thirty-four, and that I had not sat down long enough to watch a full movie in three years.
I could have told her their father left with a duffel bag and a promise to “get himself together,” and that the promise was now older than my youngest child.
I could have told her I don’t remember the last time I bought something that wasn’t needed by someone else first.
But people who say things like that are not asking.
