Contracted to My Husband’s Brother

Quiet Cracks

By the fourth day of marriage, the house didn’t feel like a loaned space anymore.

This was the first thing that frightened me, although I did not say this aloud. The distance between Maya and me had diminished without us touching it. She understood where things were. I understood when she preferred the windows open. We did not question routines but fell naturally into them as if it was always so.

I started getting up earlier. Not out of necessity necessarily, but because I wanted to enjoy the peace before the world had a claim on me. Sometimes Maya would already be up and sitting in our dining area with the computer in front of her, hair pulled back in a bun. She had a look of concentration when she was working, like everything was being kept together inside.

I told myself I admired that.

Work was anything but forgiving.

Another deal fell through. Then another. A supplier backed out due to “internal restructuring.” This phrase haunted me that week. It kept cropping up in emails, in phone calls, in meetings in which people wouldn’t look at me. Something wasn’t working out in my finances: while I wasn’t losing money at a crushing rate, I was losing my confidence in it.

I blamed the assassination attempt. People were afraid and careful. People were afraid and hesitant.

"Fear made sense."

The part that didn’t add up was how calm Maya remained every time I talked to her about my job. She would listen. She would nod. She would never ask too many questions, but not so few that it seemed like she was trying to hide something. Once, I mentioned how a competitor had made inroads in a matter of days, and she paused long enough to notice.

“Things change quickly,” she said.

I brushed it off. Things moved rapidly in my world.

That evening, my mother invited us to dinner.

It was not a request. It never was.

She observed Maya all evening, correcting her posture, commending her on her dress, asking her questions about her family in a tone that seemed caring, but had a sharp edge. Maya replied politely, carefully. Too carefully.

When my mother asked about children, Maya’s grip on the glass tightened ever so slightly.

“We’re not rushing,” I said hastily, without turning to Elena.

My mother smiled. The sort of smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Later, as we drove home, Maya sat looking out the window. The city lights reflected off the glass, making her face indistinct.

“She scares people,” she said quietly.

I didn’t ask who.

I didn’t need to.

The rumors grew louder after that. I heard the rumors in boardrooms, in hushed tones that passed for jokes. Someone spotted her near the hospital again. Someone said she was visiting him frequently. A man. Younger. Familiar.

I laughed at the insinuations from my colleagues. Trust would not break. I would not let it.

Nevertheless, that night, I observed Maya very closely.

She spent a lot of time with her mobile. She went out to answer some calls, which she didn’t elaborate upon. She returned troubled, with tight shoulders and a plastered smile. When I asked if she was fine, she said so a bit hastily and then corrected herself to say that she was just tired.

I believed her.

Or perhaps I needed to.

The topic of the pregnancy reared its head again two days later, but not from my mom’s side; it was from the lawyer. He brought it up casually as if it was already an agreed-upon fact. “Your medical facilities have already been arranged.” Just a normal comment in casual conversation. Yet my mom covered the blanks seamlessly as always.

Maya held back.

“And that silence followed us home,” Woodard

That night, she sat on the edge of her bed, her hands clasped tight together in her lap. She looked small. Younger than her age. As if she held far too much.

“I don’t want this to be messy,” she said.

Neither did I.

Reaching for her, moving slowly so she could get away if she wanted, she didn’t. Instead, she leaned toward me, and something inside me shifted. The proximity was real. Too real for a contract.

Later on, once she was asleep, I lay there awake, looking at the ceiling.

I thought of the man I had seen across the road days before. The way he had looked so familiar, although I couldn’t put my fingertip on it. The way Maya hadn’t pulled away from him.

I thought of my mother’s grip on me being tightened, of the lawyer’s knowledge of things I had not told him, of deals falling through at random.

I thought about the pregnancy test.

About how everyone seemed to know more than I did.

By morning, I had convinced myself I was overthinking.

Love had a way of making logic quiet.

And somewhere in the city, a man who shared my face was growing impatient.

I didn’t know his name yet.

But I was about to feel his presence very clearly.