Lena.
The tension in the house had become almost unbearable by the middle of the second week. Mom’s suspicion hung over everything like a storm cloud that refused to break.
She asked pointed questions at dinner, lingered outside doors a second too long, and kept finding little things — a stray hair tie that wasn’t hers, the laundry running at odd hours, the way Julian, Oliver, and I would sometimes go quiet when she entered a room.
Julian noticed it more than anyone. He was the one who decided something had to change.
“I’ll handle it,” he told me and Oliver quietly one evening after Mom had gone to bed. “She needs to feel loved. Secure. I’ll remind her why she married me.”
The next day, Julian went all out. He took the entire day off work, something he almost never did. While Mom was
