Chapter 3

In the third week, Ruth arrived.

Nathan's mother visited a few times a year. She wasn't a bad person. She had a particular talent, though: she could say the most cutting things in the lightest possible voice.

The evening she arrived, she looked around the living room.

"Sophie, love — you haven't been keeping on top of the housework? It used to be spotless in here."

Before every visit, I used to spend three days deep-cleaning the flat. Scrubbing the kitchen until the surfaces shone, folding the towels by colour, sorting Daisy's toys into labelled boxes.

This time I hadn't. Not deliberately — I'd just been going to the gym after work and drawing when I got home, and there hadn't been time.

"I've been busy," I said.

Ruth didn't respond to that. But I caught her glance at Nathan.

I knew that look. Translated: look at the state of your wife.

Nathan, to his credit, actually spoke up. "Mum, the place is fine."

Ruth smiled serenely. "I didn't say anything."

The next afternoon, while Nathan was out, she cornered me in the kitchen.

"Sophie, is something going on between you and Nathan?"

"No."

"You've stopped talking to him. You used to follow him around the flat chattering. What's happened?"

I kept chopping vegetables without stopping.

"You told me," I said. "You said a man needs space. You said a woman who's too keen pushes him away. You said I should play it cool."

Ruth's expression flickered.

"I was trying to help you, love. I meant — find a balance. Not go completely cold."

I tipped the chopped vegetables into the bowl.

"You told me to be less keen. I'm being less keen. I thought you'd be pleased."

She opened her mouth and closed it again. At last she muttered, under her breath as she left the kitchen: "You've gotten too big for your boots."

Once, those words would have made my stomach drop. I'd have spent the evening wondering what I'd done wrong.

Now I almost laughed. Too big for your boots — that was her way of saying I was no longer easy to manage. Fine by me.

She left after five days.

Before she went, she pulled Nathan out onto the balcony for a quarter of an hour. I sat with Daisy in the living room, drawing with her, and couldn't hear what they were saying. But Nathan came back in wearing an expression I couldn't quite read. He stood near where I was sitting, as if he wanted to say something. He stood there for about ten seconds.

Then he walked away.

That night he came to me — the first time he'd sought me out in longer than I could remember.

"Are you angry with me?" he asked.

I was in the study, sketching. I didn't look up. "No."

"Then why have you stopped talking to me?"

I put my pencil down.

The question was almost funny.

I'd spent ten years talking to him. I'd filled the silence because he wouldn't. I'd sent messages every day, left notes on the counter, tried every approach I could think of. He'd found me exhausting.

I'd been quiet for three weeks and now he was asking why I wasn't talking.

"I'm not not-talking," I said, going back to my sketch. "I just haven't found much worth saying."

He went still.

He knew those words. They were his. He'd said them to me at least a hundred times across ten years.

I saw his expression change — something registered behind his eyes. But he didn't say anything else. He turned and left, just as he had walked away from me a thousand times before.

The only difference was that this time, the person left standing still was not me.

A month in, Nathan started doing things I'd never seen him do before.

After dinner, he'd carry his plate to the sink. Before, he'd push back from the table and that was it — the plate waited where it sat until I cleared it. Now he put it away himself.

He started saying "I'm off" when he left in the mornings. He'd never said it before in seven years of marriage.

On weekends, he stopped going out to play football. He'd stay home and sit on the sofa, and every so often I'd notice him glancing in the direction of the study.

I was in the study, working.

A small food brand — a local bakery that sold sourdough and pastries at markets — had got in touch asking for a logo. Freelance. Not a lot of money, but money.

When the payment came through, I sat at my desk and stared at the notification for a long time.

It wasn't a large sum. It wouldn't cover a week of Daisy's nursery fees. But it was entirely mine. I hadn't had to explain it to anyone. I hadn't had to justify it or apologise for it or have it dismissed as a hobby.

I locked my phone and went back to the next draft.