“That’s silly. We’ve been together for so many years, and you still act like we’re strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger. I’m just used to managing my own money independently.”
He didn’t press the issue further, but he was moody and dark for the rest of the day.
Kiana thought, remembered, and analyzed everything carefully.
Five years ago, she’d married Darius almost by chance, almost by accident.
He’d been charming, easygoing, and he knew how to say exactly the right things at exactly the right time.
She’d been tired of being alone, tired of the questions and the pressure.
She was thirty-two, and everyone around her kept saying the same thing: “It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.”
So she’d given in to the expectations.
The first year had been tolerable—not blissful happiness, but not complete hell either.
Just ordinary life with its ordinary rhythms.
He worked as a warehouse manager for a regional distribution company.
She managed accounting for a local construction firm.
They watched TV shows together in the evenings and went to his mother’s small weekend place about fifteen miles outside the city every Saturday without fail.
Miss Patricia Sterling—her mother-in-law—was the true engine of all the problems in their marriage.
She appeared in their lives with alarming regularity and manufactured emergencies.
One minute she needed help with property taxes, the next she needed to borrow money for prescription medications, or she just needed to come over and sit in their apartment because she was “so lonely.”
Kiana had endured it at first out of politeness, then out of habit, then out of sheer exhaustion.
Ms. Sterling was an imposing woman—tall and substantial, with neatly styled hair that never seemed out of place and a perpetually displeased expression on her face.
She moved through the world as if it owed her something, as if she deserved special treatment simply for existing.
Darius owed her, and by extension, her daughter-in-law certainly owed her too.
Two years ago, when Kiana received the inheritance, her mother-in-law had suddenly become especially sweet and attentive.
She would bring over pastries from the bakery, ask about Kiana’s health with fake concern, and even offer compliments on her hair or clothes.
Kiana hadn’t been fooled for a second.
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