Chapter Thirteen
The Contract
I found it in the drawer where I'd seen him put the extra house keys.
I wasn't looking for it. I was looking for a pen — my studio pens were all at the studio, and I needed to mark a fabric sample, and it was a Sunday morning and the apartment was quiet and Lucas was out running.
The contract.
My copy. The one I'd been given on signing day, which I'd folded and not looked at since.
I stood at the drawer and looked at it for a moment. Then I sat down at the dining table and opened it.
It read the same as it always had. Of course it did. Documents don't change.
But I read differently now.
This arrangement will terminate after thirty-six months from the date of signing.
Thirty-six months. I'd been here eight.
Neither party shall develop romantic attachment or act in any manner inconsistent with the business nature of this arrangement.
I read that clause three times.
Then I set the contract down on the table and looked at it.
Neither party shall develop romantic attachment.
I thought about a hand at my waist at a fashion preview. About noodles with no cilantro. About a man asleep in a chair after a fever night, still dressed, having canceled something he'd described as unimportant.
I thought about last night on the couch, working in silence, and the way he'd handed me my tea without being asked, already the right temperature.
I called Lily.
She answered on the second ring. "You never call before noon on Sundays. What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I stared at the contract. "I think I'm falling for my husband."
A long pause.
"Sophia—"
"Don't say it."
"He doesn't—"
"I said don't."
She was quiet for a moment. "How bad?"
I looked at Clause 14. "The contract says this arrangement is a business decision."
"And?"
"And I can't remember the last time it felt like one."
Lily said nothing for a beat. Then: "What are you going to do?"
I folded the contract. Carefully. Put it back in the drawer.
"Nothing," I said. "There's nothing to do. I signed the same paper he did."
I got off the phone. Made coffee. Sat in the kitchen and drank it.
When I heard the elevator — Lucas back from his run, keys in the bowl, the sounds of him moving through the apartment — I didn't look up from my mug.
I went to the bathroom. Ran the tap.
Cried quietly for about four minutes.
Then washed my face and went back to the dining table and worked on my sketches until my hands remembered what they were doing.
