Matou was getting used to being with the Owens.
Not in the way one grows to love a place, or claim it as home, but in the quieter, more complicated way of survival — the way a person adjusts their breathing to fit a room that was never built for them. The house no longer startled her. Its rhythms no longer confused her. She knew where everything was kept, who called for what, which footsteps meant trouble and which meant nothing at all.
She was almost used to being unseen.
It had not happened all at once. At first, invisibility had hurt. It had pressed against her chest like something heavy, something unfair. But over time, she began to understand its strange advantage. To be unseen meant fewer questions. Fewer accusations. Fewer expectations beyond labour.
So she leaned into it.
She moved quietly. She spoke only when spoken to. She slipped in and out of rooms like a shadow that knew its place. And in that careful shrinking, she found a kind of fragile peace.
Life had taken up a rhythm she now understood.
One day as she scrubbed Aunty Bae’s clothes, her thoughts drifted far beyond the washbasin.
It was always the same basin — dented at the rim, its metal worn thin from years of use. The water inside turned cloudy too quickly, thick with soap and something else that clung stubbornly to the fabric no matter how hard she scrubbed.
Aunty Bae’s garments were the most unpleasant chore of all.
They carried a heavy, sour smell — not just of sweat or long wear, but something deeper, something that seemed to rise from the body itself. It clung to the cloth, refused to rinse away fully, lingered even after she wrung the fabric dry and hung it in the sun.
At first, Matou did not understand it.
She noticed the faint stains in the mornings — small, irregular patches that spread wider than they should. Sometimes on wrappers. Sometimes on the thin bedding. Sometimes on both. She had assumed at first that perhaps water had spilled. Or that something had leaked from the cooking area.
But the pattern was too consistent.
Too familiar.
And slowly, quietly, understanding came to her.
Aunty Bae was aging.
Her body was no longer her obedient servant.
There are things that no one teaches children directly — truths that reveal themselves through observation, through silence, through the things adults pretend are not happening. This was one of them.
Older women, like older men, carry their age not just in their faces or in the way they walk, but in the quiet betrayals of the body. The bladder loosens. The muscles forget their discipline. What was once controlled becomes uncertain.
It is a dignity that begins to slip.
And in many homes, it is never spoken of.
Matou had seen Aunty Bae’s authority — the way she commanded the household, the way her voice cut through conversations, the way she corrected, directed, controlled. She had thought of her as unshakeable, immovable.
But now—
Now she saw something else.
A weakness.
A hidden one.
The realisation came with a softness she had not expected.
Something inside her shifted.
For a moment, the harshness of Aunty Bae’s voice made more sense. The impatience. The constant need to assert control. The refusal to be seen as vulnerable.
Perhaps, Matou thought, it was because there were parts of her life she could not control anymore.
That thought did not excuse the cruelty.
But it explained something.
And in that explanation, Matou felt a small, quiet easing in her heart.
It also explained something else — something that had puzzled her deeply.
Her own bedwetting.
Matou knew she did not wet the bed often. Not every night. Not even most nights. It happened only when sleep swallowed her too deeply, when her body surrendered completely after days of exhaustion and nights of tension.
And yet—
There were mornings when the bed was damp far more often than her own body could account for.
She had wondered.
She had worried.
She had even, at times, blamed herself for something she could not fully explain.
But now, standing over the washbasin, scrubbing Aunty Bae’s clothes, the truth unfolded clearly in her mind.
Aunty Bae herself might be wetting the bed.
The thought came first as a whisper.
Then settled as certainty.
And suddenly — everything made sense.
The silence.
The lack of punishment.
The absence of sharp words on mornings when the bedding was damp.
Aunty Bae, who corrected everything, who noticed everything, who found fault in the smallest mistake — had never once scolded her for bedwetting.
Never raised her voice.
Never called attention to it.
At first, Matou had thought it was mercy.
Now she knew it was something else.
Recognition.
Or perhaps fear.
The fear of exposing her own secret.
The realisation stirred something unexpected inside Matou.
Amusement.
Not loud, not mocking — but quiet, contained, almost childlike.
As she scrubbed the garments against the washboard, she sometimes allowed herself a small, private smile.
So that is your secret, she thought.
The old woman who watched her so closely, who controlled her every movement, who reduced her to chores and commands — carried something she could not afford to reveal.
For once, the balance shifted.
Not outwardly.
Nothing changed in the way Aunty Bae spoke to her. The commands continued. The sharpness remained. The cold distance did not soften.
But inside Matou, something changed.
She was no longer entirely powerless.
She held a secret.
And that secret gave her a quiet, steady sense of control — not over the household, but over her own fear.
It was not cruelty.
She did not wish to expose Aunty Bae.
She did not wish to shame her.
But knowing — simply knowing — made a difference.
It gave her space to breathe.
Still, the work remained.
The smell remained.
No amount of understanding could remove that.
She scrubbed harder, rinsed more carefully, wrung the fabric with firm, practiced hands. The sun would dry the clothes, but it would not erase everything. Some scents lingered no matter what one did.
As she worked, her mind drifted — as it often did — toward home.
Toward Nata.
Her elder sister.
The one person she longed to speak to without fear, without caution, without measuring her words.
Matou imagined sitting beside Nata in the quiet of evening, sharing stories the way sisters do — leaning close, whispering, laughing softly.
She imagined telling her this secret.
“Nata,” she would say, lowering her voice with excitement, “do you know Aunty Bae also wets the bed?”
And Nata would laugh — that deep, knowing laugh that always made Matou feel seen.
They would laugh together.
Not out of cruelty, but out of relief — the relief of finding humour in hardship, of discovering that even those who seem powerful carry their own vulnerabilities.
Matou missed that.
The easy closeness of sisterhood.
The freedom to speak without fear of consequence.
In this house, every word felt measured.
At home, words had flowed freely.
She wished, deeply, that Nata would visit.
Even for a short while.
Even for a single evening.
Just to sit together again.
Just to remember what it felt like to belong to someone without conditions.
The thought lingered as she rinsed the last garment and hung it carefully on the line.
The cloth swayed gently in the afternoon breeze.
Life continued.
Chores continued.
Days continued.
But now, beneath it all, Matou carried something new.
Not just knowledge.
Not just endurance.
But understanding.
And in that understanding, a small, quiet strength began to take root — the kind that grows slowly, invisibly, until one day it becomes the very thing that carries a person forward.
To be continued…
