【He Lan · Married Woman】
On that October weekend morning, light slanted in through the gap in the curtains and lay across the head of the bed. When He Lan opened her eyes, the house was as still as a pool of water frozen over. Her husband lay with his back to her, his shoulders rising and falling with his breath. The two of them had been in a cold war for three whole days—she could no longer be bothered to trace which little thing had set it off. She stared at the back of his neck for a while, then suddenly rolled over and pressed herself against him. It was not forgiveness; it was a kind of spite even she could not put into words: the more it choked her inside, the more she wanted to prove something.
He woke, giving a low grunt in his throat. She said nothing, lifted the blanket and reached down, her fingertips closing around his half-hard morning shape and stroking it slowly. Her husband’s breathing grew coarse; his hand fell to the crown of her head, but not one soft word came. She lowered her head and took him in, the tip of her tongue circling the head, swallowing all three days of resentment into this one act—doing it practiced and cold. His fingers tightened, his hips thrust up twice, and with a muffled groan he came into her. She tipped her head back and swallowed that little warmth, then lifted her eyes to him—he had turned his face away to reach for his phone. Not even a thank-you. Something dropped in her chest, like a stone sinking to the bottom.
“Grandmother’s waiting for her tea, hurry up.” He spoke as he pulled on his clothes, his tone all business. He Lan sat on the edge of the bed, feeling that trace of wetness still sticking at the corner of her lips, and found it absurd enough to laugh. She had just done the most intimate thing for this man, and he had not so much as raised an eyelid. She went to wash up; the woman in the mirror was twenty-nine, her features clean, only her eyes banked with a fire that had nowhere to go.
Grandmother’s house was in the old quarter on the other side of the city, its wooden staircase creaking underfoot. The tea was brewed by Grandmother’s own hand; a room full of relatives, small talk, pleasantries. She had meant to play the docile daughter-in-law, but over one old grievance—“Wasn’t it you who let that potted flower die last time?”—Grandmother took her to task in front of everyone. She had not killed the flower, and she opened her mouth to argue, but her husband spoke first—“Mom’s right, be more careful from now on.”
He stood on Grandmother’s side. In front of everyone, he pushed her, alone, to the opposing bench. He Lan’s face grew hot, bit by bit—not from shame, but from anger. She lowered her head and sipped her tea; it had already gone cold, bitter and astringent. Amid the laughter around the table, she felt like someone one too many. All afternoon she did not say another word, her nails pressing a row of little crescents into her knee.
【Nat · Foreign Man】
Nat was working overtime at his company in the city that day, dealing with a batch of delayed shipping orders. He had met He Lan three months earlier at an industry cocktail party—she had come with her husband to socialize, standing in a corner holding a barely touched glass of wine, her eyes darting through the crowd like a bird on a tether. He had handed her a fresh glass, made idle conversation about her city, her accent; when she laughed there was a very lovely little curve at the corner of her eyes.
They traded numbers, and afterward exchanged the occasional message, all of it inconsequential: she asked about the festivals of his homeland, and he told her of the lamplight of Diwali; he asked what she did on weekends, and she said she kept her family company, a weariness worn dull by life showing between the lines. Nat could read it. He had seen too many women like this—slowly cinched tight by a marriage, yet unwilling to admit they were suffocating. He was in no hurry; a foreigner has a foreigner’s patience, like waiting for rain.
In the evening, his phone lit up. It was her.
【He Lan · Married Woman】
In the car home, the two of them rode the whole way in silence. Outside the window the streetlamps retreated one by one; He Lan pressed her forehead to the cold glass, and the fire in her chest burned the whole way, blazing higher and higher. She thought, why. Why, when she had done everything a wife should, was public humiliation what she got in return; why, in a room full of people like that, was there not one person to speak for her.
At a red light the car stopped. Almost out of pique she flipped open her phone and scrolled to the number saved under a foreign name. Her fingertip hovered above the screen, wavered for three seconds, then came down. “Are you free tomorrow morning?” Sent. Her heart beat a little fast, half fear, half a reckless, throw-caution-to-the-wind delight.
The reply came almost at once: “Yes. Where do you want to go?” She stared at that line, and suddenly felt the stone that had blocked her chest for three days loosen at one corner. The light turned green, her husband stepped on the gas, knowing nothing. He Lan turned the phone face-down on her lap, gazed out the window, and for the first time in this long weekend, a hint of a smile touched the corner of her lips.
【Nat · Foreign Man】
Nat looked at the line on his screen—“Are you free tomorrow morning”—and smiled. He knew what a message like this meant—not that she was really asking whether he was free, but that she was finding herself a reason, a reason to walk out that door. He replied slowly, steadily, as if not wanting to startle a bird that had finally chosen to come near.
He suggested going the next morning to the hills at the edge of the city—not tall, just a walk and a look around, with a low grove behind them, very quiet. She agreed quickly. Setting down his phone, Nat walked to the window; the city lights ran together into one sheet in the night. He remembered Diwali was only two days away; the whole family had already booked their tickets to go home for the festival, and the house would soon stand empty. Without a flicker of expression, in his mind he laid out tomorrow’s route, stop by stop, all the way to the end.