“Are you out of your mind?” he hissed, stepping forward, invading her personal space. “Why didnt you let my sister in?”
Oliver didnt just enter the flathe barged in, bringing with him a gust of cold autumn air from the stairwell and the stench of his irritation.
The key twisted violently in the lock, the door slammed against the wall, and he froze on the threshold, rainwater dripping from his coat. His face, usually easygoing, was twisted with anger he made no effort to conceal.
In the kitchen, perched on the small sofa by the window, sat Emily. She was reading. The lamplight caught her hair and the pages of the thick hardback in her hands. She didnt flinch at the noise, didnt look up. Only her finger, resting on the line, stilled.
She waited for him to repeat himself, this time louder, his voice laced with barely restrained fury.
“Emily, Im talking to you! Sophie rang me nearly in tears. They came round on their lunch break, hungry, and you didnt even open the door! What was I supposed to say? That my wife decided to throw a tantrum?”
Only then did Emily slowly, reluctantly, pull herself away from the book. She didnt close itjust slid a bookmark between the pages and set it beside her.
She lifted her gaze to him. Her eyes were clear, cold as winter sky. No fear. No guilt. No pity. Only exhaustion, heavy and quiet.
“I heard the doorbell,” she said evenly. “And I saw who it was through the peephole. Thats why I didnt answer.”
Oliver hadnt expected that. Hed braced for excusesheadaches, claims she hadnt heard. The blunt admission threw him. He strode into the kitchen, his shoes leaving muddy prints on the clean floor.
“So you did it on purpose?” His voice dropped, making it somehow uglier. “You saw it was my sister and deliberately left her standing there? What kind of game is this, Emily? They always come for lunch!”
The last words came out like an unbreakable law of nature. Tradition carved in stone.
*Always*. The word hung in the air, thick with his righteous anger and her silent refusal.
To him, it was normalhis sister and her husband, working nearby, dropping in for lunch every single day. Convenient, economical, perfectly reasonable. Hed never questioned where the food came from, who cooked it, who cleaned up after. It just *was*. Like the sun rising.
Emily stood without a word. She was shorter than him, slimmer, but in that moment, she seemed to fill the entire kitchen.
She walked to the counter, leaning against its cold edge. Her eyes locked onto hishis flushed face, the rain still clinging to his dark hair.
“*Always*?” She echoed his word softly.
It was quiet, but it cut like a whip. No emotion. Just fact.
Her head tilted slightly, studying him like a foreign object.
“Time to break the habit.”
Oliver froze. His brain refused to process it. This was outright rebellion. A violation of the unspoken contract he thought their marriagehis peacerested on.
The initial anger, sparked by Sophies complaint, twisted into something deeper, more personalthe violation of his rules, his territory.
“Have you lost the plot?” he hissed, stepping closer, crowding her. “What gives you the right to decide who comes into *my* home? Shes my sister! My own blood! Theyre not here for *you*, theyre here for *me*! And as my wife, youre supposed to be hospitable. Thats your *job*!”
His voice boomed, filling the kitchen with outrage. Every word an accusation. He wasnt asking. He was declaring.
Painting a world with clear roles: him, the provider; her, the keeper of the home, ensuring comfort and hot meals for him and his kin.
And now that world was fracturing.
“Youve turned greedy, Emily! Bloody selfish! Cant spare a bowl of soup for my family? Do you have any idea how this looks?”
He ranted, spewing poison accumulated in one short phone call with Sophie.
Emily listened, unmoved. No flinching, no interrupting. Just watching him, her calm somehow terrifying.
When he finally ran out of steam, panting, she didnt refute him. Instead, she did the last thing he expected.
Silently, she walked past him, pulled a cheap calculator from the kitchen drawerthe one she used for billsand grabbed a notepad and pen.
Oliver stared, bewildered. Hed expected tears, shouting, anything but this cold, methodical efficiency.
Emily sat at the table, switched on the calculator. The dry clicks echoed sharply in the silence.
“Lets do the maths,” she said, voice flat as a newsreader. “Starting with groceries.”
“Meat, veg, rice, bread, butter. To feed four adults lunch daily” Her fingers flew over the buttons. “At current prices, roughly twenty quid a day. Just lunch. Times twenty workdays. Four hundred pounds. Thats just food from our shared budget.”
Oliver watched, a chill creeping down his spine.
“Now my time,” she continued, jotting figures. “Shopping, cooking, serving, then washing up. Minimum two hours a day. A cook and cleaners rate in our town? Say fifteen an hour. Thats thirty. Times twenty days. Another six hundred.”
She circled the total. Turned the notepad to him.
“Total: a thousand pounds a month. Thats the cost of your sisters *habit*. Since theres two of them, split it. Five hundred per person. But since they dont come daily, well bill per visit.”
She wrote in bold letters at the top: *MENU*.
“From today, lunch or dinner for your relatives is fifty quid. Per head. Per meal. Pass it on. Payment upfront. Card or cash.”
She set the pen down. Looked him dead in the eye.
“Oh, and tonights dinner? Ill bill you too. If this is a restaurant for your family, everyone pays. Or they eat elsewhere.”
She tore out the page, laid it before him. He stared at the neat figures, this absurd, humiliating ultimatum, and knew she wasnt joking.
It was a wall. Built of numbers and facts, against which his comfortable world had just shattered.
His free canteen for family was closed. Permanently.
Oliver crumpled the paper in his fist. The dense ball pressed into his palm like a stone.
Without a word, he turned and left. When he returned from the bedroom, phone in hand, he spoke loudly, making sure Emily heard.
“Sophie? You wont believe what shes No, shes home! Shes just lost it. She handed me a *bill*! For your lunches!”
He listened, nodding at nothing. His face darkened. He didnt repeat Emilys arguments about cost or time. Just painted her as suddenly, inexplicably greedy.
Easier that way. Made him the victim, not the man whod let his wife be treated like staff.
The next day, at noon sharp, the doorbell rangnot a polite tap, but a long, demanding press.
Emily, dusting the living room, calmly set down the cloth and answered. She knew who it was.
Sophie stood there, righteous fury burning in her cheeks. Beside her loomed her husband, Mark, a hulk of a man with a perpetual scowl.
“Im here to see my brother!” Sophie snapped, trying to push past.
Emily didnt move. Just rested a hand on the doorframe, blocking the way. “Hes busy.”
“Were not here to chat! Its *lunchtime*. Move!” Another shove, met with steel.
Oliver emerged, flustered. “Sophie, Mark Emily, come on. Lets talk properly.”
“Nothing to discuss,” Emily said without looking at him. Her eyes stayed locked on Sophie. “We settled this yesterday.”
“*Settled*?” Sophies voice rose to a shriek. “You call handing my family a *bill* settled? Have you no shame? Were *family*!”
Emilys voice was ice. “Family? The ones whove treated my home like a cantee
