It's half past midnight. And as I skim my fingers across the coffee stains on the kitchen counter and looked over at the mess he's made in the living room, I smiled and thought to myself, it's these little moments that make me grateful I'm his wife. Maybe on days when I'm not in such a good mood, I'd mull furiously over the thought that I'd have to clean all this up in the morning, but not tonight. He seems so happy and I don't want to take that away from him. Besides, most times, he cleans up after himself anyway. Just not exactly when I want him to and he'll probably take 3 hours to do it. So nothing to complain about, really. I was at my last 10 pages of 'It Ends With Us' when I heard keys rattling down the hallway and made their way to open the front door of our unit. As soon as he walked in, he greeted me with Salam and I popped my head to say 'Hi, Sayang'. Looking all somber, I took my book and continued reading in the bedroom. He had texted me before he came home if there was anything to eat for dinner but I just assumed he'd eat his leftovers from lunch. And that made me feel bad because I had the same leftovers from lunch but his sister and I decided to drive over to the food court and have a different dinner meal instead. And for the life of me, I never thought to take away some food for him. Which meant that I happily enjoyed myself without him, while he's about to have the same menu after a long day of work. Not that any of this matters to him as he reassures me every single day about all the things I "think" I have to do for him but I just felt really guilty. After he came out from his shower, I hear him opening the door to our bedroom. He sits on the bed beside me, still in his towel, and starts rubbing my back, 'tidur ke, Sayang?'. I was lying face down reading my book so I turned back to look at him and said, 'I feel bad for not getting you dinner' and he shrugs, comforting me. The reason he asked about it in the first place is so that he doesn't overbuy anything that will result in us wasting whatever food that's left at home. I leaned my chin on a pillow next to him and started tearing up. He caresses my head, my cheeks, my nose and wipes my tears away, 'please don't worry, I'm a grown man. I can eat whatever.' I know this seems like an awfully small thing to cry about but one of my biggest regrets is letting my husband starve. I often think about what he's eating at work or if he's had any breakfast whenever I'm not physically around him. Yes, it isn't technically my responsibility to fend for him but putting food on the table meant that I care for him and love him enough to do it. And most importantly, to get His blessings. When I walked out of the bedroom, he was already giddily unboxing his new toys. He's talked about buying this for as long as I can remember and is convinced he'll save more money once he's owned a coffee machine. I believed him. He buys at least 2 cups of coffee a day, sometimes even 3, and I'm happy that he's happy he doesn't have to spend on them now. He hates the idea of me telling people he's a coffee lover because he doesn't want to be deemed pretentious. Or a wannabe. He also hates the idea of coffee now being so commercialized and people aren't appreciating coffee for what it actually is. I still don't understand any of it, to be honest, but seeing him talk about it so passionately while I'm reading him the manual just got me beaming. I love seeing him in a good mood. We stayed up till 2 in the morning. Mainly because I'm a lazy showerer and takes me so much effort to realize I at least need to be clean before bedtime and also because he took at least 10 tries or more making his coffee. 'I want it at the right temperature', he said. 'Maybe it's the grind size. That's why it tastes different.' He paces back and forth from the computer to the kitchen counter where he has decided to permanently leave his machine and grinder to carefully watch multiple videos of the exact way to make the best tasting cup of coffee. When he's finally satisfied, I told him, 'let's go to sleep, you don't want to be late for work tomorrow.' We both walked into the bedroom, he switches off the AC and switched on the fan. 'So Sayang happy tak dah dapat coffee machine?', I asked. He just smiled and I kissed his shoulder goodnight. 'I love you so much, Sayang.’ ‘I love you too’, and we close our eyes to sleep.
I love being his wife.


















