Dženita enrolled in an evening course because she wanted to change jobs. She was thirty eight and, for the first time since school, bought a notebook for herself. Her husband Mirza told friends he was proud. He even drove her to the first class and waved through the car window. They agreed that on Tuesdays and Thursdays he would make dinner and visit her mother, who lived in the next building and enjoyed a little company.
After several weeks her mother began saying Mirza was exhausted. Dženita asked from what, and she replied that everything at home fell to him while her daughter pursued new ideas. She heard the same tone from her brother. Nobody openly asked her to quit. They merely kept asking whether it had to be now, whether it was worth it, whether she realized how much her husband helped. She came home feeling guilty before opening a book.
Mirza insisted they were only concerned. He said he was not complaining and she should not take every sentence personally. Dženita believed him until class finished early one Thursday. At her mother's she found him eating dinner her mother had prepared. He was saying Dženita was hardly ever home, everything was becoming harder for him, and things would go badly unless she soon realized what mattered more.
She stood in the doorway with her folder under her arm. Her mother rose to fetch another plate, but Dženita asked her to sit. She asked Mirza when he had told her the arrangement was not working. He had no answer. He began saying he had not wanted to hold her back. She looked at her mother and, for the first time, explained the exact schedule: two evenings a week, a few meals, a half hour visit, nothing resembling the abandoned life she had heard described.
At home Mirza admitted he disliked the new responsibilities and hoped her family would influence her. Remaining a generous, supportive husband felt easier than directly saying the change bothered him. Dženita did not leave the course. She also stopped correcting dinners he prepared differently from her. His responsibilities were not supposed to be a temporary performance until everything returned to her shoulders.
The following Tuesday her mother called before class to wish her luck. Mirza later brought a plate of pasta without explaining how much trouble it had caused him. Dženita ate while reviewing her notes. They were not yet all right, but at least the chorus speaking in his place had disappeared. When she received her first good result, she showed him only after holding it in her own hands long enough for herself.