For a moment I heard nothing except the rain.
Andrew stood beside me with one hand resting against the countertop. Kayla remained near the coffee cabinet, still wrapped in that white towel, but whatever confidence had brought her downstairs was fading. She looked suddenly younger, almost like the girl who used to hide behind me when our parents argued.
“What were you waiting for her to tell me?” I asked Andrew.
Kayla answered first.
“Nothing.”
I looked at her.
“You just said we needed to talk.”
“I’m upset.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Maya, can I please get dressed before we turn this into some interrogation?”
“You chose to come downstairs like that.”
Her cheeks flushed.
Andrew said quietly, “Go change. Then come back.”
For once, she obeyed without arguing.
We listened to her footsteps climb the stairs. The moment her bedroom door closed, I turned on Andrew.
“What do you know?”
His face tightened. “Not enough.”
“That’s not what you just said.”
“No.”
“You said you were giving her a chance to tell me.”
“I was.”
“Tell me what?”
Andrew looked toward the staircase.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Andrew.”
He looked back at me.
“I think she came here intending to test me.”
The sentence made so little sense that I actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because my brain rejected it.
“Test you how?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
I released his wrist.
“Say it.”
“She wanted to see if I would sleep with her.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt.
I stared at him, waiting for my mind to rearrange the words into something less grotesque.
It didn’t.
“What?”
“I didn’t understand it at first.”
“You think my sister moved into our house to see whether you’d cheat on me?”
“I think that was at least part of why she came.”
My mouth went dry.
“Based on what?”
“The way she’s been behaving. Things she’s said. And something Ryan told me.”
The name stopped me.
“Ryan?”
Andrew rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“I spoke to him Friday.”
“Friday?”
“Yes.”
“This Friday?”
“Yes.”
Two days ago.
My husband had spoken privately with my sister’s supposedly heartbroken ex-boyfriend two days ago and told me nothing.
“Why?”
“Because Kayla mentioned O’Malley’s.”
I frowned.
O’Malley’s was a pub across town where Andrew and I had met Ryan and Kayla for drinks months earlier.
“What about it?”
“She said something Thursday night about how she knew I’d turned down a woman there.”
I remembered the conversation vaguely. We had been eating takeout in the living room. Kayla had joked that Andrew was unusually well behaved for a married man who occasionally traveled for work.
I had rolled my eyes.
Andrew hadn’t.
“At first,” he continued, “I thought you told her.”
“I didn’t even know.”
“That’s what bothered me. Only Ryan knew because he was standing beside me when it happened.”
My stomach tightened.
“So you called him.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Before Andrew could answer, Kayla returned.
She had changed into gray sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. Her hair was still wet, leaving dark patches across her shoulders.
She sat at the kitchen table without looking at either of us.
I stayed standing.
“Andrew says you’ve been testing him.”
Her eyes closed.
Only for a second.
But it was enough.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“Maya—”
“It’s true?”
“It wasn’t supposed to become this.”
“What was it supposed to become?”
She looked at me.
“I wanted to know.”
“Know what?”
“If he was really different.”
I stared at her.
“Different from whom?”
Her mouth tightened.
“Men.”
Andrew exhaled through his nose.
I felt anger rising but underneath it was something worse—a sense of recognition. I had heard that word spoken that way all my life.
Men.
Not individuals.
Not husbands.
Not fathers.
A category.
A warning.
Our mother had used it constantly after Dad left.
Men lie when telling the truth becomes inconvenient.
Men want loyalty they don’t intend to return.
Men only behave when someone is watching.
Trust was something women regretted giving away.
Those sayings had formed the background noise of our childhood. I had rejected them as I grew older, or believed I had. Kayla apparently had not.
“You tried to seduce my husband,” I said.
Her head snapped up.
“No.”
“What would you call walking around nearly naked after he asked you to stop?”
“I never touched him.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I wanted to see what he would do.”
“What exactly were you expecting?”
“If he’s loyal, nothing happens.”
“And if he isn’t?”
She looked away.
I heard my own voice become quieter.
“And if he isn’t, you get to tell me you proved something?”
“I would have protected you.”
The words were so absurd they stunned me.
“Protected me.”
“Maya, you don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. You manufactured a situation in my home to see whether my husband would betray me, and somehow you’ve decided that was an act of love.”
“That’s not fair.”
Andrew laughed once, without humor.
Kayla shot him a look.
“This is between me and my sister.”
“No,” he said. “You made me part of it.”
She folded her arms.
“I never forced you to do anything.”
Andrew stared at her.
“That is exactly the point.”
The air between them sharpened.
I stepped closer to Kayla.
“Did Ryan know?”
She hesitated.
“Did he?”
“He knew I had doubts.”
“About Andrew?”
“About everything.”
“What does that mean?”
She pushed wet hair away from her face.
“Ryan and I were already having problems. I kept thinking about you two and how perfect everything always looked.”
I almost interrupted, but something in her voice made me wait.
“You’ve been married seven years,” she continued. “He listens to you. He comes home. He doesn’t flirt in front of you. He remembers anniversaries. Everybody acts like you found some exception.”
“Andrew isn’t an exception to a species.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You got the good one.”
The bitterness in her voice startled me.
Andrew moved slightly beside me.
I asked, “And you decided that meant you were entitled to test him?”
“I needed to know whether what you have is real.”
“Why?”
She stared at the table.
“Because if it isn’t, then maybe I’m not crazy.”
I waited.
Nothing else came.
“Crazy about what?”
She looked at me then, and suddenly I saw tears.
“About not trusting anyone.”
Some of my anger faltered.
Not disappeared.
Faltered.
Kayla had been ten when Dad left. I was fourteen. Old enough to remember more of the shouting, more of Mom’s locked bedroom door, more of the day she told us our father had chosen another woman over his family.
Kayla remembered pieces.
Mom supplied the rest.
For years, the story never changed. Dad cheated. Dad lied. Dad left. Dad eventually stopped calling because he cared more about his new life than his daughters.
That story shaped us differently.
I became determined never to depend entirely on anyone.
Kayla became determined never to be fooled.
She mistook suspicion for protection.
“You could have talked to me,” I said.
“You would have defended him.”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
“Because he’s my husband.”
“And Dad was Mom’s husband.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Andrew’s face changed.
I looked at Kayla.
“Do not compare him to Dad.”
“I’m saying Mom trusted Dad too.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“Mom.”
Kayla froze.
The reaction was immediate.
Too immediate.
I felt the room tighten again.
“What does Mom have to do with this?”
“Nothing.”
“Kayla.”
“She doesn’t.”
“You looked terrified when I said her name.”
“I’m not terrified.”
“Did Mom know?”
Silence.
Andrew glanced at me.
My pulse began pounding in my ears.
“Did our mother know you were doing this?”
Kayla stood abruptly.
“I need some air.”
I blocked the path between her and the back door.
“No.”
“Maya, move.”
“No.”
Her face flushed.
“Did Mom know?”
She looked past me at Andrew.
That was when I knew the answer before she spoke.
“She didn’t know exactly what I was doing.”
My stomach dropped.
“That isn’t a no.”
Kayla’s eyes filled.
“She just said people reveal themselves when they think there won’t be consequences.”
I stared at her.
Our mother’s voice entered the kitchen without her being there.
I had heard that sentence before.
Not recently.
But often enough.
Andrew said softly, “Maya.”
I barely heard him.
“What else did she say?”
Kayla looked down.
“That maybe you should know what kind of man you married before you move across the country with him.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Andrew and I had not told Kayla about Seattle until the week before she moved in.
We had told Mom six months earlier.
