Monday morning arrived not with the gentle creep of sunlight, but with the abrupt vibration of the security tablet on the kitchen counter. I was standing at the sink, rinsing the flour from the bread bowls we had used the day before. The water was hot, steaming up the window above the sink. Marcus was at the table, his laptop open, the tablet buzzing beside his coffee cup. He picked it up, scanned the screen, and his expression tightened imperceptibly.
"Sarah," he said into the phone when it rang immediately after the buzz.
I turned off the tap and dried my hands on the towel. I watched him. He wasn't shouting. He wasn't pacing. He was listening. His voice was low, controlled. This was the new Marcus. The one who didn't treat every ripple like a tsunami.
"Understood," he said finally. "
