Chapter 40: The Hurtful Past
"This machine is tricky to operate...I have the manual somewhere around...Ah, here..." He opened the manual. "First you have to..."
Tony paused as she pressed the buttons, rotated the knobs and the machine started to run. She looked at him. "It’s not that complicated," she said.
She hadn’t used this machine before but it was not that hard to figure out how a washing machine works, was it? That’s what she thought. But looking at the bewilderment of Tony as he checked the machine and the manual, she figured that it might be tough for some people to figure out how certain machines works.
Maybe that’s why his laundry habits are different.
Cute, she thought, seeing the big man with a generous smile on his face as he admired her "intelligence". No one had ever praised her for her intelligence before. Aiden used to call her dumb. He would add "in a cute way" when he called her dumb. She never liked it. The "cute" he mentioned was not enough to soothe the pain she felt when he called her dumb.
No one likes to be called dumb by the one they like.
"I’ll take care of the laundry from now on," she said.
There were no calculations behind it. She didn’t think about it twice. She just said it. It’s hard for him, and it’s easy for her. So, she will do it.
"No," Tony felt guilty. "I cannot let you~"
"With the baby, I’ll have to run the machine daily. I’ll wash your clothes along with it. It’s no big deal," she said.
It really was not a big deal for her.
Tony blinked. He couldn’t believe he was letting Don DeAngelo’s Princess do his laundry. That old man would be rolling in his grave right now. With women fighting on the streets in the name of equality, is he letting his wife be this old housewife who does the laundry? Her father never let her mother do laundry!