Her alarm goes off at 5:12am. Not because she has to be somewhere. Because she has to check the bed before he wakes up.
She already knows before she gets there. She strips the sheet fast — practiced hands, quiet movements — and puts it straight into the machine before her husband's alarm goes off at 6.
He still doesn't know how bad it is. He sleeps through it. Either way, it is her — always her — standing in the corridor at 5am with a wet sheet in her arms and nowhere to put the shame.
Her son is 9 years old.
She turned down the school trip permission slip last term. Said he had a stomach problem. She just couldn't explain what would happen when the other boys found out.
She has tried everything a good mother tries. The water curfew. Waking him at 2am. The bribes. The scolding. Once — just once — she raised her hand. She is not proud of it. Nothing changed. It got worse.
She has been praying. She has been waiting. She has been washing sheets in silence for two years.
And then someone sent her a link.