The shift that starts when the other one ends
The alarm goes at 5:45. Not because you want to be up. Because someone has to soak the dal, check the school bag, sign the permission slip that came home yesterday crumpled in a pocket. By the time your husband's alarm rings at seven, the kitchen already smells of cumin and hot steel, the child's hair is oiled and plaited, and you have mentally run through four contingencies for the afternoon, who picks her up if the meeting runs late, whether your mother-in-law's blood pressure medication needs a refill, what to cook for dinner with what's left in the fridge. None of this appears anywhere. Not in your annual appraisal. Not in the family WhatsApp group. Not in the story anyone tells about you at a wedding when they say, admiringly, that you manage everything so well.
