Parental

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
She never stood in the doorway and watched
She stood in the hallway and listened
There's a difference and I learned it late
The door was open but the looking was missing
She could tell which room I was in
By the kind of quiet I was making
Reading-quiet is not the same
As crying-quiet and she never came in wrong
[Chorus]
Love was in the next room
Always in the next room
Close enough to hear me but too proud to check
She was in the next room
Busy in the next room
Doing something important that was mostly just being near
[Verse 2]
She ironed on Wednesdays for nobody
The house already had enough clean shirts
But the iron made a sound like a sentence
Starting over every time it turned
I'd fall asleep to that rhythm
The way some kids fall asleep to rain
She pressed the collars and I closed my eyes
And neither of us had to explain
[Chorus]
Love was in the next room
Always in the next room
Close enough to hear me but too proud to check
She was in the next room
Busy in the next room
Doing something important that was mostly just being near
[Bridge]
I didn't know it was a skill
To be that close and that invisible
To fill a house without filling up the room
To warm the wall from the other side
[Outro]
She's still ironing somewhere
I hear it when the house gets very still
That sound of something getting pressed flat
So somebody else can look sharper than they are