FREYA
I am asleep when I feel the bed shift.
The mattress sinks on the side and my mind comes out of sleep faster than my body does. I keep my eyes closed. I keep my breathing slow. I do not let my shoulders move. The lamp by the bed has been off for hours and the room is the soft grey of a bedroom that has only the moon for light, and my husband is climbing into the bed beside me.
My heart goes hard against my ribs.
What is he doing.
He has not slept in this bed since the early summer. He has not stood in this doorway after dark since the night Victoria first came to our house. And now in one day he has kissed the back of my neck in my own bathroom and stepped under my shower and now he is climbing under the blanket beside me as if any of that were a thing he had permission to do.
I
