I know al dente is ten minutes or so, but I used to let the pasta boil for twenty. There was always something else to do – stir the ragu, answer the phone, take a baby to my breast.

That was before the egg timer. My helping hand. The friend I can depend on. The numbers are faded, but it’s a resilient chunk of blue plastic with a twisty top, and it plays five different tunes instead of a dull, boring alarm.

“Why blue?” asked Charlotte one day, chewing one of her plaits.

“So I don’t mix it up with a real egg,” I answered.

The braid dropped from her open mouth, scandalised. “But that’d be silly, Mummy!”

Grabbing the blue oval and pretending to crack it in the pan, my slapstick routine garnered plenty of giggles over the years. I think about it every time I hear it chirp.

Husband moans, “Shut that damn thing up!” from his armchair.

“It’s ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes’ today.” The tune was Charlotte’s favorite. We used to bet like old men at the races, bargaining with meatballs and extra servings to see who could guess which song it would play next.

But now, he doesn’t care about any of that, barking, “It’s annoying, shut it up!”

“But I like the song–”

“Use the clock like everyone else! Why are you stressing me out? I’ve had a hard day!”

He’s had a hard day. He always has a hard day. It must be terrible to sit in his private office, surfing Pornhub between shouting at interns and eyeing up his secretary’s legs. Sitting on his arse while, after a day of cleaning the house and running errands, I miss the 7 PM deadline for dinner – it must be torturous for him! And now his team isn’t kicking the ball in the right direction.

I used to hide the egg timer under a tea towel to muffle the sound and would sprint across the kitchen before the final second lapsed. But now, like the painted numerals’ wear and tear, he’s torn through my skin, cracked the shell, and is grating on pure nerve. The man who flings the remote every time his team misses the net expects unquestioned patience from everyone else. What stops him from making his own pasta?

But he doesn’t think about things like that. He’s still riding the high from Christmas three years ago when I was struck down with food poisoning. I listened between hurls as his guests stroked his ego. I could feel my mother-in-law’s judgement pour through the bathroom wall – how dare her baby figure out how to use tongs! Over two decades of meals on the table will never outweigh the one time I failed.

He didn’t bother to tell anyone that I cooked the turkey, prepped the potatoes and veggies, and loaded everything into the oven. Never mind I nearly fainted when the steam hugged my face and sent sweat gushing down my forehead.

 “All you have to do is take out the trays when the timer goes off,” I croaked before retiring to my sick bucket.

Even then, the bedroom door opened and the blue egg was launched at my head because, “The bloody thing won’t turn off!”

But the melodic beeps carve deep in my heart. I see Charlotte drop everything to dance, pointing to her head, straight down to her toes. She was my helper, my right hand at dinnertime. I relied on her to watch the clock. It’s the only way I can hear her voice. She’s grown, out on her own, and she won’t come home – not while he’s still here.

And now he wants to rip away the last bit of help I get. Drown me in misery because I have the audacity to not have the body I had at twenty-two? He can’t stand that a hunk of plastic gives me more than he ever can. It’s why that purple wand my sister bought me for my fortieth stays hidden in a drawer. It’s why he resented our little girl for being the center of my world. So, I don’t care if the trill ruins the ambience of the Match of the Day. It’s the least he can do!

“Are you deaf?” He actually turns around, the creak of leather snapping the air like a gun leaving its holster. When I don’t reply, his voice loses its booming volume but gains enough gravel to build a tombstone. “Turn it off or you will be deaf.”

I’d like to see him explain that one away. But he’s had a lot of practice; telling the paramedics I fell down the stairs, insisting I’m too clumsy when someone sees the bruises, regaling laughing friends with the tale of when I broke my arm “skiing” in France.

He glares at me. I glare right back. The chirping continues, just like it did the night she walked out before dinner, when I chased after her and begged her to stay. She begged me to leave.

Shaking his head, he turns back to the TV, cracking his knuckles, readying them for me.

“Pasta’s done,” I say.

When he turns his head, he’s not expecting me to be standing right behind him. The oppressive steam rising from the pan obscures my vision, a veil across my face, like the one he lifted at the altar before he pressed his whisky-wet lips on me.

The song cheers me on. I pour the molten lava over his head, down to his shoulders, scalding his knees, and even reaching his toes.

He was a drowning man when I met him and he’s a drowning man now, screaming under a web of soft spaghetti as the boiling water melts his face from his skull.

A future of fixing meals for a tyrant flickers before me and bursts into flame, replaced by my new reality. I’ll be wearing a jumpsuit, scooping slop onto a tray. A stocky woman with a buzzcut will thank me and offer to make me her bitch. Charlotte will come visit me and press pictures of her kids against the glass.

I call the police myself.