You can hear it in the slam of each clean plate against the rods of the dishwasher machine. “Can’t you be more careful?" he asks, lowering his glass of wine to make his comment and shoot her a concerned look. “Think about the consequence of each action you take. Plates are cracked because of you.”
She takes her rage out on the plates, because she refuses to take it out on people, though she often dares to wonder what the consequences of that would be. She simply grunts as a response, because she’s too tired to say anything coherent back, and it’s not worth it. But she watches as the other women get up from their seats to wipe the table, to bring plates to the sink, to put leftovers in smaller containers, while he sips wine and contemplates who the hell knows what - probably his next speech on protecting children from the feminists or how to cure every man of the disease that has rendered them capable of feeling.
Something inside her goes off and she loses it. She slams a chipped plate against her own hand and watches serenely as her blood hits the sink like a drop of paint. He gets up from his seat and slams his glass of wine on the table. “Didn’t I just say to be more careful?”
She says nothing and holds herself back from exploring fantasies of slamming more than just plates. Such is her rage - something he has deemed illegal, wrong, unnatural. So she must express it through small outbursts concealed as carelessness: acts of violence against herself.