Forbidden Touch - The Marriage Contract

ANNY My husband comes home at 4:13 in the morning and pauses beside our bed as if he has forgotten why he entered the room. I know the exact time because sleep comes easily to women who are not waiting to hear whether their husbands return home. I keep my eyes closed. Oliver smells faintly of rain and cedar, a combination so familiar that my body recognizes him before my mind can tell it not to care. He sets his watch on the nightstand. For one suspended second, his fingers hover over the mattress near my wrist. Close enough that I feel his warmth. Then he pulls away. Oliver always pulls away. The door to the adjoining study closes behind him. A moment later, light appears beneath it, a narrow golden line dividing his side of the suite from mine. Four years of marriage, and that line may be the most honest thing between us. At eight, I find him at the breakfast table in a charcoal suit, reading through a stack of documents. He looks rested. I look like a woman who spent half the night resenting a closed door. “Where were you?” I ask. His gaze remains on the page. “Working.” “Until four in the morning?” “There was a problem with the Argentina acquisition.” I pour coffee, though my hands do not need the caffeine. “You could have sent a message.” That makes him look up. Oliver’s eyes are dark and steady, the kind that make other people reconsider their questions. I stopped reconsidering mine months ago. “I didn’t realize you were waiting,” he says. “Therein lies the problem.” Something shifts in his expression. Not guilt. Oliver is too disciplined to show anything so useful. But his attention drops to my mouth before returning to my eyes. The look lasts less than a second. It still warms places inside me that have no business responding to him. He closes the folder. “We’re having lunch with my parents. We leave at ten thirty.” “Do you need a wife or an alibi?” “Anny.” “That isn’t an answer.” His jaw tightens. “My mother wants the family together.” “Your family.” “You are my family.” The words should comfort me. Instead, they sound rehearsed, another line from the agreement our fathers negotiated before Oliver and I stood before an altar. I was nineteen when I became Mrs. Adams. Young enough to believe indifference would be easier to survive than cruelty. I had not understood that being ignored by the person beside you can become its own kind of cruelty. Oliver rises. His attention moves over the thin blue robe covering my nightgown, then stops at my bare legs. Desire flashes across his face—unmistakable this time. I tighten the robe. He turns away first. “The lunch is outside,” he says. “Wear something warm.” It is such an ordinary expression of concern that I almost laugh. Before I can answer, his phone rings. He takes the call while walking toward his study, his voice changing into the clipped, decisive tone he uses with everyone except me. Ten minutes later, the front doorbell sounds. The courier hands me a sealed envelope addressed to Oliver. I sign for it and carry it upstairs. His study is usually locked, but the door is open. “Oliver?” No answer. The room is empty. His phone rests beside the computer, so he cannot have gone far. I should leave the envelope on the nearest table and walk away. Instead, I notice the wall. A pale rectangle interrupts the dark paint behind his desk. Something hung there long enough to protect the color from sunlight, but the frame is gone. My gaze travels to the narrow space between the bookcase and the wall. The missing frame is wedged behind it, face turned inward. I set down the envelope and pull it free. The photograph shows Oliver as a teenager, standing beside his parents at what looks like a formal Adams Foundation event. Aurora smiles at the camera. Luis has one hand on Oliver’s shoulder. There should be another person on Oliver’s left. Part of a black suit remains, along with a man’s hand resting possessively against the back of Oliver’s neck. But the face and body have been cut from the photograph with careful, straight lines. Not torn in anger. Removed with patience. As I tilt the frame toward the light, something slips from the damaged backing and strikes the floor. A small brass key. My pulse quickens. The top drawer of Oliver’s desk has an old-fashioned lock, unlike the others. I have seen him open it once, shielding the contents with his body when I entered. The key looks exactly the right size. I tell myself this is none of my business. Then I look at the mutilated photograph and think of Oliver standing beside our bed, wanting to touch me and choosing not to. After four years, his secrets have become the architecture of my life. I slide the key into the lock. “Put it down.” Oliver’s voice stops my hand before I can turn it. He stands in the doorway, his phone clenched at his side. The calm mask he wears for the world is gone. He crosses the room and closes his fingers around my wrist. It is the first time he has touched me in private without an audience waiting for us to pretend. The contact shocks us both. Oliver releases me immediately, but not before I feel his pulse racing against my skin. “Where did you get that?” he asks. I nod toward the photograph. “From the man you cut out of your family.” His face loses what little color it had. “Who is he, Oliver?” He looks at the key between my fingers. For the first time in four years, my husband does not look through me. He looks afraid. And fear is the first honest thing he has ever given me.