By Bethany Bruno

He used to make her omelets on Sundays. Mushrooms, green peppers, cheese grated thin. He called it his specialty. He poured coffee into her cup before his own and kissed her forehead through the steam. She used to think that meant love. The whisk against the bowl, the scrape of the spatula, the sound of him humming while she sat barefoot in the kitchen. Love had a sound back then.

Now the whisk means she is late.

He comes home at six. Always six. She has fifteen minutes to get the roast on the table before the sound of his key turns the air small.

She slices the meat and remembers a line she once read on the back of a church bulletin: Anyone you give the power to feed you can starve you too. She did not understand it then. She does now.

The baby is nine months old. The house shines. Her English degree sleeps in a box under the bed between birth certificates and old wedding cards. He told her she did not need it. “Your job is here,” he said. “Raising our family.” She agreed because belief was easier than wanting more.

When the roast comes out dry, he looks at her across the table. His fork scrapes the plate.

“You’ve been home all day,” he says. “You couldn’t keep it from drying out?”

She swallows what rises in her throat. The taste burns.

After dinner, she washes dishes until her hands wrinkle pale. Through the window, she sees their reflection. Him in the chair, her behind the glass. She dries her hands and turns off the light. The reflection disappears.

In the mornings, she packs his lunch. Turkey on wheat. An apple. A note folded into quarters small enough to vanish if he ever stopped wanting them. The kitchen smells of coffee. He eats standing up. He leaves crumbs. Always crumbs.

By noon, she scrolls through job listings. “Five years experience required.” “Proficiency preferred.” Her cursor hovers over Apply Now. She imagines pressing it, imagines her name entering some bright system where no one knows it belongs to him.

When the baby naps, the house goes still. She sits in the quiet and imagines the taste of salt. The ocean she has not seen in years. Sushi with too much wasabi. A drink poured by her own hand. She imagines someone asking, What do you want? and meaning it.

In the mirror above the sink, she barely recognizes her own face. The lines around her mouth do not belong to laughter.

At night, he reaches for her. She stays still, her body quiet and distant. His breath slows. She listens to the space between them and wonders how long she has mistaken silence for peace.

On the refrigerator, a grocery list curls at the corner. On the back, she once scribbled the line again.

Anyone you give the power to feed you can starve you too.

She reads it now like scripture.

She thinks of every meal she has served. The hundreds of plates she set before him, her hands trembling from exhaustion or apology. Her grandmother used to say, A woman’s love will feed a man until she forgets to eat. She wonders if hunger runs in the family.

The next morning, she sets the table. Plates, napkins, coffee. She makes his sandwich, but this time she takes a bite. Just one. Just to see what it feels like to taste something first.

When he enters, she smiles. “I tried the turkey,” she says. “It’s good.”

He frowns. “You’re eating my lunch?”

She shrugs. “I was hungry.”

He stares at her as if hunger were defiance. He leaves without kissing her cheek. The door closes behind him. The sound lands inside her chest like a small, clean break.

She waits for the car to disappear down the road. Then she locks the door from the inside.

The kettle screams. She pours herself a cup and drinks it slow. The heat spreads through her chest. The taste is sharp and real.

She sits at the table where sunlight falls in narrow bands. She opens her laptop. The screen wakes. Her fingers hover above the keyboard. Then she moves them. Name. Address. Resume. The cursor blinks like a pulse.

Apply Now.

Click.

The sound is soft, but something shifts. The house feels different. The kettle cools on the stove. The wall clock ticks in steady rhythm. Outside, wind moves through the trees, dry leaves skating along the glass.

She does not know what comes next. What he will say. How she will pay the bills. She only knows she is breathing easier than she did yesterday.

In the afternoon, she steps into the backyard. The air smells of soap and damp cotton. She pins the laundry to the line and watches it sway. The fabric catches the light. For a moment, she closes her eyes and lets the sun touch her face.

She imagines another kitchen years from now. A chipped mug. A small table. Her child older, her own laughter softer but still hers. Dinner without fear.

Back inside, she empties the sink. The counters are clean. The roast can burn tonight.

Let him starve.

She eats the rest of the sandwich she started that morning. The bread is soft. The turkey tastes rich. She chews slowly until she feels full.

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Bethany Bruno is a Floridian author and amateur historian. She holds a BA in English from Flagler College and an MA from the University of North Florida. Her work has appeared in more than a hundred literary journals and magazines, including The Sun, McSweeney’s, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, Brevity, and The Huffington Post. A Best of the Net nominee, she won 2025 flash fiction contests from Inscape Journal and Blue Earth Review. She is the winner of the 2026 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. Learn more at www.bethanybrunowriter.com.