You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir

Please Don’t

Three months before finding the postcard, Smith attends a conference and signs copies of her book at the event’s book fair. Smith can’t shake the feeling that she has left her work—caring for the home and the children—and that her husband is “covering” for her, and she wonders why she should feel this way.

The Spreadsheet

Smith creates a list of all the tasks that are her responsibility in the marriage. She realizes that her marriage is not dissimilar from her mother’s marriage. Smith’s mother stayed at home and did not go to college, and yet her duties and Smith’s duties in their marriages are identical. The poet wonders whether her children will grow up to view their father’s job as more “real” than her own. When she leaves on a business trip, her husband makes her feel as though she is in trouble for inconveniencing him and his work.

On Second Thought

Smith answers the question she poses in the previous chapter. Her children will view her husband’s work as more important than her own, but she recognizes that part of the reason for this is her own behavior: “Marriages are cocreated. Whatever ours looked like, we built that together” (82).