chapter 1

Kevin and Susan loved each other from the moment they met. It was inevitable that they would get married.
Kevin liked to get up at a reasonable time, he liked to have plenty of time to get ready before he went to work.
Susan, on the other hand, hated getting up. She hated going to work and was often late - despite the fact that she worked flexi-time! She often had to make up her time by staying late after everyone else had gone home. On the other hand, she rarely went to bed before midnight, even then she was happy to read into the small hours before she went to sleep.
Kevin always knew she was a night owl. From the day they both returned from their honeymoon, he did his best to help. He got up at his usual time, went downstairs, then made breakfast for both of them. He set it all out on a tray, then brought it back up the stairs so that Susan could have her breakfast in bed. He even got back into the bed alongside her so that they could have breakfast together.
He had to wake her up. Some mornings he had to help her to sit up, plumping up her pillows and such. She was capable of sitting up and plumping her own pillows, it was just she was so tired, she was glad of any help she could get.
She was not fat. She wasn’t even overweight. She had a petite frame, but still managed to find fashionable clothing that fitted.
During breakfast, she struggled to communicate. Sometimes Kevin had finished his breakfast, jumped in the shower and was fully dressed before she had managed to open her eyes properly.
He had to use all his powers of persuasion to finish her breakfast and get up in a timely fashion. Over the years, he had shouted, nagged, cajoled, bribed her and left her alone, all in an attempt to get her up and to work in a timely fashion. He knew that if she was late going in, she would be late coming out and he would probably be eating his dinner alone again.
Some days, she had not yet got out of bed before he had to leave to catch his lift. If he stayed behind to make sure she got up, he would be late for his lift and that would mean another 3 people who shared the car would also be late.
Susan was not just late for work (regularly). She sung in a choir and turned up late for rehearsals all the time. Sometimes that was because she did not get home from work until half past six. It was barely enough time to eat her dinner, unwind and get ready to go out again for the start of the rehearsal at half past seven.
Susan’s consistent tardiness caused a lot of arguments between the couple. In the end, Kevin just had to accept that, however frustrating it was, it was part of her. She would never change. All he could do was try to keep her on track and try to streamline her life so that she did not have to worry about the other things she had to do.
He didn’t just make her breakfast every day, he took it to her In bed every morning. He made up a packed lunch for her to pick up on her way to work before he left. He usually got in from work first around half past four to five, so he got on with preparing the dinner. He was often too hungry to hold on for another hour or two for Susan coming home, so he ate alone. He had time to unwind from his working day after eating, waiting for Susan to come home. He would often have a little nap. Once Susan came home, he would put her dinner in the microwave while she took off her coat. He would sit with her while she ate. They would discuss the stresses of the day together. Then while she relaxed over her coffee, he was up, washing up the dinner dishes and tidying up the kitchen.
When they first got married, they had decided to share the everyday chores of the household. Over time, Kevin took over more and more of the jobs, not because he wanted to be in control, but simply because he wanted to make Susan’s hectic life simpler. If she got up in the morning, she would not be late for work. If she was not late going to work, she would not be late coming home. If she was not so late coming home, she would have more time to spend with her husband. If she did not go to bed to late, she would be able to get up in the mornings.
Susan was always in a rush because everything was left to the last minute. She was a fast driver because she was usually late. She was impatient in traffic because she was usually running late for an appointment.
At weekends, they often went out in the evening. Kevin knew she liked the house to look nice when they went out, in case they invited their friends over afterwards. If she was left to her own devices, she would sit there all day, then at six o’clock, she’d suddenly remember they were going out, so she’d start running around in a panic tidying up, vacuuming the floor, plumping cushions, putting the washing away, doing the dishes, and such. Then she was left with half an hour to get herself ready and get to the venue for the appointed time.
So, when they were going out, Kevin started getting the house in order in the early afternoon. That way, Susan would have more time to get herself ready, instead of worrying about everything else.
After five years of marriage, they had settled into their lifestyle. Kevin did all the cooking, he dish the washing up afterwards, cleaned the kitchen and the kitchen floor. He looked after the garden, kept the lawns mowed, watered the plants and kept the weeds down. He looked after all the household bills, ensuring everything was paid on time. He did all the DIY in the house from wiring a plug, fixing a leaky tap, putting pictures on the wall, to painting walls, putting up flat pack furniture or fixing something that was broken. If he couldn’t fix it, he was the one who found someone to do it and oversaw the work.
He hated going to work without a clean, ironed shirt to wear, so when Susan forgot to do the laundry, he did it. He learned how to iron clothes so that she was not up until midnight on a Sunday night ironing his shirt for Monday morning.
He vacuumed the carpets, washed the windows and kept the bathroom clean. All that was left for Susan to do was run the duster over the surfaces once a week and she often forgot about that.
Kevin never complained about all the work he had taken on. He liked to be busy.
Susan might complain about the standard of his work. Maybe he had missed a corner when he was cleaning, or something. However, she made no effort to try to stop him doing all the jobs by taking over from him.
Susan was in charge of more sedentary pursuits. She chose what they watched on tv. She chose what papers they read on a Sunday morning. She chose the colour of the paint on the walls. She decided when the bedding needed to be changed, or when the windows needs washing.
The only thing household thing they did together was the weekly food shop. Susan did all the other shopping, but most of that was done online.