Kayla rolled her eyes.
***
That evening, I told Andrew.
He was loading the dishwasher.
For several seconds, the only sound was plates sliding into the rack.
Finally he said, “She actually used the word ‘test’?”
&
nbsp;
“Twice.”
Family
I told Andrew.
Andrew pushed the lower rack in.
“I’ll stay out of it.”
“Why?”
“She’s your sister.”
At the time, that sounded reasonable.
Three days later, I understood why it wasn’t.
“She’s your sister.”
***
Sunday morning, I was buttering toast when I heard Kayla coming downstairs.
Andrew sat at the table with his coffee.
She appeared in the doorway.
Same towel.
Same bare feet.
Marriage
Same complete refusal to care that I’d asked her to stop.
She appeared in the doorway.
I put down the knife.
“Kayla…”
Andrew touched my wrist.
“Hang on.”
I looked at him.
He stood and carried his mug to the counter
“Let me answer this one.”
“Hang on.”
Kayla smiled.
Online Image Galleries
“Finally!”
Andrew leaned against the counter.
“You’ve been calling this a test all week, right?”
“Exactly.”
“Good.”
He took out his phone.
“Congratulations, Kayla. You passed.”
He took out his phone.
Kayla looked
from him to the phone.
“Passed what?”
Marriage
“My test.”
“What test?”
Andrew unlocked his phone and placed it on the counter between them.
“Whether you’re ready to live with roommates.”
“Passed what?”
Kayla looked down.
Then she snatched up the phone.
I couldn’t see the screen from where I stood.
Her face turned bright red from her neck upward.
“What on earth is this?”
Her face turned bright red.
“Three rooms for rent,” Andrew said. “All within 20 minutes of here.”
She swiped the screen.
Language Resources
“Andrew, you can’t do that!” she shouted.
“I found three listings.”
“You’ve been looking for apartments for me?”
Rooms.”
“Andrew, you can’t do that!”
“You can’t throw me out!”
“I’m not.”
She turned toward me.
“Amanda, are you seriously letting your husband kick me out of your house?”
“Andrew isn’t kicking you out,” I said. “But temporary needs an end date.”
“Because I wore
a towel?”
“Temporary needs an end date.”
Marriage
I moved the toast off the hot pan before it burned.
“I asked you not to do something in my home, and you decided I needed to convince you my reason was good enough.”
She pulled the towel tighter under one arm.
“So this is punishment.”
“I asked you not to do something in my home.”
“No. If I wanted to punish you, I’d have let you keep eating Andrew’s cereal. He buys the terrible kind.”
Andrew pointed at me.
“Unnecessary.”
Kayla didn’t laugh.
“I’m heartbroken, Amanda. I have no money. I don’t even have a job yet.”
She dropped it onto a chair as she passed.
Explore Stock Photos
“Happy?”
I looked at it.
“Thrilled.”
The room for rent belonged to a woman named Renee.
She was about Kayla’s age and worked from home three days a week.
She was about Kayla’s age.
The house was small but clean.
Kayla inspected the bedroom twice.
The second time, she opened the closet and stood there longer than necessary.
Renee showed us the kitchen.
Kayla inspected the bedroom twice.
Try Marriage Counseling
“I don’t care if you cook late,” she said. “Just clean up afterward. Quiet after 11 during the week. We split paper products.”
Kayla nodded.
“Anything you need from somebody you live with?” Renee asked.
Kayla looked caught off guard.
“Me?”
“Yeah. Anything that drives you crazy?”
Kayla looked caught off guard.
Kayla thought.
“Don’t borrow my clothes without asking.”
“Okay.”
Renee moved on toward the laundry room.
Kayla stayed where she was.
“That’s it?”
Renee looked back.
Explore Stock Photos
“What?”
“Don’t borrow my clothes without asking.”
“You don’t want to know why?”
“They’re your clothes.”
She shrugged. “Seems reasonable.”
Then she kept walking.
Kayla didn’t.
I watched my sister stare at the closet door.
“You don’t want to know why?”
For the first time all week, somebody had heard one of Kayla’s boundaries and simply said okay.
***
On the drive
home, Kayla sat beside me with the room listing still open on her phone.
Andrew hadn’t come.
Marriage
That had been my decision.
This conversation belonged to us.
We made it halfway home before I asked the question I’d been avoiding.
That had been my decision.
“Why did you need Andrew to fail?”
Kayla kept looking through the windshield.
“I didn’t.”
“Then why wasn’t it enough when I asked you to stop?”
She locked her phone.
For several blocks, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “Because Eric didn’t cheat on me.”
“Why did you need Andrew to fail?”
I glanced at her.
“What?”
“He didn’t cheat.” Her thumb rubbed the dark screen. “He didn’t hit me. He didn’t steal from me. There wasn’t another woman.”
I slowed at a red light.
“Then what happened?”
“He didn’t cheat.”
Online Image Galleries
Kayla gave me the answer as though she still hated how little space it
took up.
“He said he didn’t want our life anymore.”
The light changed.
I didn’t move until the driver behind me tapped his horn.
Kayla looked out the side window.
“Six years, Amanda. And that was it.”
“He said he didn’t want our life anymore.”
I drove.
No advice.
No defense of Eric.
No attempt to make the sentence less ugly.
Then Kayla said, “I kept waiting to find out what he’d done.”
“And he hadn’t?”
“I kept waiting to find out what he’d done.”
“No.” Her voice dropped. “I just wanted there to be a reason.”
I finally understood why she’d been watching Andrew so closely.
Not because she wanted him.
Because she wanted him to become evidence.
“I just wanted there to be a reason.”
“You wanted to know mine wasn’t different,” I muttered. “If Andrew failed your test, then Eric made sense.”
Kayla looked at me.
Then she turned back toward the window.
“Maybe.”
“And if Andrew didn’t?”
She picked at a loose corner of the phone case.
“If Andrew failed your test, then Eric made sense.”
When she answered, her voice was almost too quiet to hear.
“Then maybe it wasn’t relationships.”
I waited.
“Maybe it was just mine.”
I pulled into our driveway and shut off the engine.
Good.”
Kayla groaned.
“Are you two going to become emotionally healthy right in front of me?”
“Probably,” Andrew said. “You can move out if it’s unbearable.”
“I won’t hide behind ‘she’s your sister.’”
She threw a dish towel at him.
***
The next morning, I heard the shower before seven.
Andrew was drinking coffee when footsteps came down the stairs.
He glanced at me.
I glanced back.
Kayla entered wearing the ancient blue robe from our linen closet.
Kayla entered wearing the ancient blue robe.
It had faded ducks across the pockets and one sleeve slightly shorter than the other.
She went straight to the coffee
maker.
Andrew said nothing.
Marriage
Neither did I.
Kayla reached toward the bag of coffee beans Andrew ordered online.
She stopped.
“Can I use these?”
Andrew said nothing.
Andrew looked over the top of his mug.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
That was it.
No announcement.
No apology tour.
Just a question she’d never thought she needed to ask before.
That was it.
Then Kayla opened the high cabinet.
Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
The filters were on the top shelf.
She stretched.
Missed.
Andrew started to stand.
Kayla pointed at him.
“Sit.”
He sat.
Andrew started to stand.
She dragged over a kitchen chair, climbed one step, and grabbed the filters herself.
When she stepped down, she caught me smiling.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She caught me smiling.
Kayla looked at the robe, the chair, then the filters in her hand.
Bathroom
“See?” She nudged the chair back into place. “Back on my feet.”
This time, all three of us laughed.
“Back on my feet.”
