Mom comes home at 12:40, arms full of grocery bags and talking about traffic.

I meet her at the door in normal clothes, face calm, body still carrying the memory of the morning.

He is in the living room, phone in hand, looking completely ordinary.

The afternoon passes in the usual way — putting food away, light conversation, the television murmuring in the background.

Every time our eyes meet across a room the new rule pulses between us, heavy and certain.

I feel it in the way he stands a little too close when he reaches past me for a glass.

I feel it in the brief press of his...