“What?” Karan gasps.
“Quit that stupid job that’s slowly killing you.” Keeping my voice low enough so that the kids and Océane don’t overhear this fight is a challenge, but I do my best. “You hate it there. You're always exhausted or zoned out. When was the last time you actually played with the boys instead of just existing in the same room as them?”
“This job pays more than the last one,” he snaps back, hunching his shoulder and shooting a panicked look towards the living room as he realizes how loud he spoke. “Or did you forget about that new house we’ve been looking at?”
His tone is quieter this time.
“I don't care about a bigger house!” I grab the dish towel from his hands. “I care about having my husband back. The one who used to light up when he talked about his work. The one who would spend hours building pillow forts with the twins instead of passing out on the couch every night.”
“So I’m not allowed to be tired? To have bad days?”
“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it.”
I fold my arms across my chest, trying to contain the frustration—the rage— building inside me.
Is he purposefully not hearing me?
Even if that’s the case…
I’ve got to contain the pressure, the heat, the ugliness stirring below the surface. Especially with the kids in the house.
I’m not like her.
“Every day is a bad day now. You’re like a ghost floating through our lives. You’re barely here even when you’re home, Karan.”
What happened to the man who would sweep me into his arms just because he felt like it? The one who couldn’t wait to tell me about his day, who would spend hours debugging his code out loud to me even though I understood maybe every fifth word?
I used to anticipate every thought that popped into his head. Now, I look at him and only see a stranger wearing my husband's face.
“I'm doing this for us,” he says, his voice tight. “For our family. The economy is in the shitter.”
“Are you? Or are you doing it because your parents finally approve of your career?”
He rubs his hand over his face. “Rachel, please. Don’t bring them into this.”
“Why not? They’re the reason you took this job in the first place!” A burst of laughter from the living room makes me lower my voice again. “You were happy before. We were happy.”
“We can’t all just do whatever makes us happy all the time, Rachel. Sometimes being an adult means making sacrifices. Being amanmeans making sacrifices.”
The way he says it—like I'm some naive child who doesn’t understand reality—makes something snap inside me.
“Don’t you dare lecture me about sacrifices. You want to talk about sacrifices? Fine. Let’s talk about how I’ve sacrificed having any say in our life together. How every decision you make now goes through your mother first. How—”
“For the last time, leave my mother out of this!” His whisper is sharp enough to cut glass. “This isn’t about her. This is about providing for our family, about being responsib—”
“No, this is about you being too scared to disappoint Mommy and Daddy!” The words fly out of my mouth like poison darts, but I can’t stop myself. “God forbid their precious son works in something as frivolous as video games—”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” His voice has gone deadly quiet. “None.”
Chapter 11
Karan
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, and Rachel’s face hardens in response. Part of me wants to reach out, to grab her shoulders and make her understand. But the rest of me is too tired, too wrung out to try.
Mom and Dad were so proud of me when I got this job. The memory of Dad’s face lighting up, of Mom hugging me tight—it’s seared into my brain. After years of disappointment, of subtle comments about wasting my degree on “children's entertainment,” I finally did something right in their eyes.
I can’t let them down.
