“Okay?”
“It’s going to be okay, Celine.”
I look at my sister. Twenty-three years old, sitting at the kitchen table our mother used to wipe down every night before bed, telling me it’s going to be okay.
“Who’s covering the cost?” she asks.
I hesitate one second too long.
Lena looks at me. “Your boss.”
“I haven’t asked him yet.”
“But you’re going to.”
“Yes.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “He must be a good man.”
I think about page fourteen. About a contract built in four languages through three corporate structures by people whose entire function is ensuring there is no way out. About the wordairtight.
“He’s very kind,” I say.
Priya looks at me over Lena’s head. I look back at her. Neither of us says anything.
I’m in his office on Monday morning before nine.
I’ve prepared for this the way I prepare for everything. Every angle mapped. Every objection anticipated. I know what I’mabout to do. I know what it costs me. I have decided it costs less than the alternative.
He looks up from his desk when I walk in.
I don’t sit. I stand in front of his desk, put the envelope on the surface between us, and look at him. “My sister needs specialist surgery in Zurich,” I say. “The cost is not something I can cover. The timeline doesn’t give me room to find another way.” I keep my voice even. I have practiced this. “You are legally my husband through a contract I did not fully understand when I signed it. I’m standing here asking you to act like it.”
He looks at the envelope. Then at me.
“Done,” he says. I open my mouth. “The specialist, the facility, the travel. Done.”
I stare at him. I had three pages of argument prepared. “There’s a friend. Lena can’t go alone. Priya has offered to travel with her. She needs to be compensated for her time. Properly.”
“Send details to Roman by the end of the day.”
“Food, accommodation, everything covered. She shouldn’t have to think about money while she’s there.”
“Done.”
I stand there with nothing left to say. A yes that arrives this fast is its own kind of disorienting when you’ve been bracing for a wall.
“You’ll move in with me,” he says.
“I have conditions.”
“Name them.”
“My own room. My schedule outside of what the contract requires stays mine. You don’t go through my things, my phone, my correspondence. This gets revisited the moment Lena is back.”
He looks at me across the desk.
“Agreed.”
