The next morning, I wake up shivering.  

Ava’s rolling over onto her back, looking confused.  Then I realize that the blanket is gone from on top of both of us, and she sighs, coughs, then grabs it from Nua and pulls.  He’s still sleeping, but tightens his grip on it and keeps it all to himself.  She gives up, sighing, and looks over at me.  “This is why I never slept with him.”

I laugh slightly, glad she’s awake at least, and she opens her arm for me.  I move so I’m resting my head against her shoulder, which is surprisingly comfortable despite how thin she is, and her body is warm against mine.  

We don’t say much until Nua rolls over, wrapping himself up in the blankets more.  Ava taps him on the nose and he makes a noise.  “What?”

“We’re cold,” says Ava.  

Nua opens one eye and looks at us, and then closes it.  “Sorry.”

Ava smiles slightly, and then looks at me.  I look up at her too, and her lips twitch, but she just strokes my hair back.  “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” I murmur, and she just shrugs.  Bayan knocks on the door, and then takes a small step inside.  “Miss Ava.”

“Morning,” she whispers, closing her eyes.  I don’t think he heard her, but he looks at us.  “Master Aber.”

I sit up.  

“Miss Lilly would like to see you.”

Again?  I feel something in the pit of my stomach.  Ava doesn’t react to this, and I glance at Nua.  His eyes are open again, and he looks at me, rubbing his lips together.  I exhale and roll out of bed.  

I brush my teeth and follow Bayan down the stairs to Miss Lilly’s office.  She sits behind her desk, looking over some paperwork, and just gestures for me when we approach.  Bayan gently closes the door behind me, and I’m left alone with my mother-in-law.

“Sit,” she says after a moment, not looking up.  I do.  She flips a paper, seemingly not in any great rush, and a solid minute passes before she speaks again.  Finally she places the papers to the side and looks up at me.  “How is my daughter?”

I don’t answer for a moment, and then say softly, “Sad, Miss Lilly.”

She purses her lips and nods, and then leans back in her chair.  “Aberworth, do you know how long Keol was here?”

“Almost three years,” I answer.  

“Yes,” she answers, standing.  “Their anniversary was in October.  It’s September now.”

Okay.  

“But they didn’t really talk much,” continues Miss Lilly, “until the, oh, July maybe?  After the marriage.”

She pauses here.  I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say.  

“It took her nine months to warm to Keol,” she says after a moment.  “Of course, she always hated him, but I think more, she hated me.”

I still don’t answer.  

“But you,” she says, tilting her head and leaning her hands on her desk.  Her eyes pierce through me, and I feel like she can see my heart beating a mile a minute.  

“You, she took to you right away.  You’ve only been here around two months, and how many times have you slept with her?”

Once.  Just once.  But you don’t want an answer, you just want to scare me.  

“Every month,” says Miss Lilly quietly, “Ava takes a pregnancy test.  Sometimes when she tells you she’s going into the city for work she’s going to the doctor’s.  And every single time, she comes to me and she tells me…nothing.  You understand how disappointing that is, right?”

You had a son.  You gave him away.  You don’t care.  

“Aber,” she says, sitting down, “do you remember what I told you when you came here?”

How could I not?  “Do what she says.  Make her happy.”

“Have you?”

I don’t know.  I think so.  “I hope so.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Has she ever…”  Miss Lilly trails off, thinking for a moment, and then stands again, coming around her desk so she’s closer to me.  She sits on the edge of it, and I can feel my heart beating harder.  “Has she ever hurt you?”

I don’t hesitate.  “No, Miss Lilly.”

“Really.”

“Yes, Miss Lilly.”

“What about the locks?”

“What about the locks?” I respond, thinking of the day that Ava pushed me inside that tiny little closet in the foyer, and Miss Lilly laughs slightly.  “You remind me of her.”

“How so, Miss Lilly?” I ask quietly, and she smiles slightly, moving closer to me.  “Headstrong.  Stubborn.”  

I don’t answer.  

“Brats,” she says, sitting on the arm of my chair.  “The pair of you.  Although I’m not sure how you’ll compare to her and Keol, they were certainly quite annoying in their own right.”

“They loved each other,” I say quietly.  

“They hated each other,” says Miss Lilly dismissively, standing.  She turns back to me.  “But that doesn’t matter now, because he’s dead.”

I swallow.  

“So now what?” she continues, sitting back down next to me.  She puts her hand on my shoulder.  “Now what do you do?”

I try not to let my breathing come shaky.  I don’t like her fingers on me, I don’t like her touch, she’s too close to me, she can do whatever she wants right now and I don’t want her to.  I suddenly wonder if she’s ever touched Keol.  I think of the story that Ava told me, that day in the foyer.  “Whatever she says.  Make her happy.”

“Good boy,” she says, her hand sliding down my arm.  I shiver.  She notices.  “I may have given you to Ava, Aber dear,” she says quietly, her voice dripping with venom, “but you’re still mine.”

She takes my chin in her fingers and tilts up my face to examine.  Her eyes run over me and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  She says quietly, “Nua’s in a dangerous situation here.”

He hasn’t done anything with Ava.  He’s just here.  Miss Lilly does not want him to be just here, if he’s not going to do anything else.  

“But you, you can save yourself,” she says quietly, letting go of me.  “Don’t let it go to waste.”

She goes back behind her desk and sits down.  I stand, and leave.  

She doesn’t stop me.  I don’t want her to.  I don’t know what I want to her to do, except never talk to me again.  I don’t like her touch.  I don’t like her.  She does not want me to be happy.  She does not want Ava to be happy.  She just wants what she wants and doesn’t care how she gets it.  

I go up to my bedroom.  Nua’s bed is neatly made and so is mine, but I ruin it.  I pull the covers up and over me and close my eyes, but I can’t go to sleep.  I just slept all night and I’m not tired, and my heart is still racing.  I hold my arms up in front of me and see that my fingers are shaking.  

There’s a book on Nua’s bedside table.  It’s one that I haven’t read before, and there’s a bookmark in the dead center of it.  I turn on my lamp, sitting backwards so the blankets are around my shoulders, and lean the book against the pillow.  

I finish it.  It’s six hundred and forty-seven pages long, and I finish it in one sitting.  Time doesn’t exist anymore for me.  A strange spell has been cast over this house.  Nothing is normal anymore; nothing will be normal anymore.  Except perhaps for Bayan; he comes to bring me a sandwich when I’m near the end of the book, and I look over to see the sun going down out of my window.  

Nua comes into our room through the bathroom in the middle of the night.  He wakes me up by accident, and says, “Sorry.”

“No,” I say sleepily.  “How is she?”

“Mad, right now,” he says with a sigh, falling on his bed.  “Told me to get out.”

“Why?” 

“Still doesn’t know where her lighter is,” he says through a half-grin, picking up his book.  “You read this?”

“Just did,” I murmur, rolling over and burying my nose in the blankets. 

Bayan wakes us up the next morning for breakfast and advises us not to go see Miss Ava.  When Nua asks why, he hesitates, and then says, “She’s angry.”

“We know.”

“She doesn’t know why Master Keol died,” he answers carefully.  “She doesn’t...know what to think.”

Nua takes his muffin and thanks Bayan, and then closes the door behind him and turns to face me.  “Lilly did it.”

I don’t respond with any show of surprise.  “Really.”

“Come on, Aber-”

“No, Nua,” I say, looking up at him.  “I’m tired of this.”

“Of what?” he says in exasperation.  “Don’t you think I’m tired of it too?”

“This conspiracy,” I answer.  “Miss Lilly hid the magazines from me, Miss Lilly stopped the meds Ava was giving to Keol, Miss Lilly killed him.  It’s too much.  I can’t.”

“I wish we didn’t have to,” says Nua quietly, “but that’s not an option.”

“So, what?” I say, leaning back on my bed and putting a piece of muffin in my mouth.  “So what, now?  We’re still here.  I don’t think she’d like it if we accused her of murder.”

“I don’t think Keol likes being dead,” says Nua harshly.  “And I don’t think he should be.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say tiredly.  “He is.”

“And if we’re not careful, it’s you next,” says Nua, his voice low.  “Or me.  Or Bayan, or Ava.”

“She’s not,”  I say, closing my eyes.  “This isn’t a fight, Nua, at least not one we can win.”

He looks at me, and then stands and leaves the room.  

I curl up on my side and stare at the door that leads to Keol’s room.  He had such a tiny room.  Before I came, Nua had this huge room all to himself.  But I don’t think I would’ve liked it that much, if I were him.  It’s too big in here, for just one person.  This house is too big for just one woman with two husbands.  But now, here Ava is again.  Two husbands, one mother, a friend she’s forced to treat as a servant, and memories.  

Oh, I remember when I hated her.  I remember the day we got married, when she took my hand and put my thumb in the fountain water so she could take my fingerprint.  I remember when she talked to me with a cigarette between her lips.  The smell of smoke is so ingrained in my mind that I hardly notice it anymore.  I remember when I hated her for it, before I realized why.  She didn’t care if she lived or died.  She had given up long before I got here.  On her mother, on her brother, on herself.  What did she have to live for, other than Keol, and perhaps the children they one day would have?  And now what does she have?

I pity her now.  Which is stupid.  I shouldn’t.  But along with what Miss Lilly told me on my wedding day, I remember what Bayan told me.  Miss Ava doesn’t have a bad side to get on, not when it comes to you.  With Miss Lilly, though, you start on her bad side.  You know to be careful, but know of whom.  

Know of whom.  I didn’t understand what he meant until after I had slept with Ava.  Until after she made me not clean anymore.  That was something I had been dreading my entire life.  I never wanted to be married like this, I never wanted to have sex with someone I didn’t love, but maybe I do love Ava.  Which is stupid.  I shouldn’t.  But she is not her mother.  She cares.  I knew to be careful, but it took me too long to know of whom.  

And maybe if it didn’t, I could’ve found Abigala by now.  Maybe if I trusted Ava sooner she could have found her.  Maybe I could be home right now, not sparing a second thought for her, not knowing that Keol is dead.  And maybe some other poor boy would have taken my place.  

I have never more than this moment missed my mother.  I love my mother and I love my father and I thought that I could always love my sister, but now I’m not so sure.  I thought that I could never love my wife, but now I’m not so sure.  I pity her.  She does not deserve this.  She does not deserve two dead husbands, a missing brother, and no ability to do anything about it.  

Know of whom.  I never should have hated Ava.  She didn’t deserve it.  Keol had it figured out.  He was on Ava’s side, and Ava was most decidedly not on her mother’s.  Nua kept neutral.  And I figured it out too late.  

It’s too much.  It’s all too much.  And yet, at the same time, it’s never been enough.