“Are you out of your mind?” he hissed, taking another step 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 sharp scent of his irritation.
The key turned aggressively in the lock, the door slammed against the wall, and he froze on the threshold, not bothering to remove his rain-soaked jacket.
His face, usually good-natured and slightly lazy, was twisted with anger he didnt even try to hide.
In the kitchen, on the small couch by the window, sat Eleanor. She was reading.
The light from the lamp fell on her hair and the pages of the thick hardback in her hands. She didnt flinch at the noise, didnt look up. Only the finger tracing the line stilled.
She waited until he repeated his question, louder this time, with barely restrained fury.
“Eleanor, Im talking to you! Lucy called me, nearly in tears. She and her husband came over specially during their lunch breakhungryand you didnt open the door! What was I supposed to say? That my wife decided to make a point?”
Only then did Eleanor slowly, almost reluctantly, look up from her book. She didnt close it, just slipped a delicate bookmark inside and set it beside her on the couch.
Her gaze was clear, cold as a winter sky. No fear, no guilt, no remorse. Just calm, heavy exhaustion.
“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 excusesa headache, or claims she hadnt heard. The blunt admission threw him. He took a few steps into the kitchen, his shoes leaving muddy prints on the clean floor.
“So you did it on purpose?” His voice dropped, making it sound even angrier. “You saw it was my sister and deliberately left her standing outside? What kind of stunt is this, Eleanor? Theyre used to coming here for lunch!”
He said it as if invoking an unbreakable law of the universe. Tradition carved in stone.
*Used to.* The words hung in the air, thick with his righteous fury and her silent refusal.
To him, it was normalhis sister and her husband, who worked nearby, dropping in for lunch every single day. Convenient, economical, and, in his mind, perfectly reasonable. Hed never stopped to wonder where the food came from, who cooked it, who cleaned up after. It just existed. Like the sun rising.
Eleanor stood without a word. She was shorter than Oliver, slimmer, but in that moment, she seemed to fill the entire kitchen.
She walked to the counter and leaned against its cold edge, looking straight at himhis flushed face, the raindrops clinging to his dark hair.
“*Used to*?” she finally echoed.
The words were quiet but struck like a whip. No emotion, just fact.
She tilted her head slightly, studying him like a strange object.
“Time to get unused to it.”
Oliver froze. His brain refused to process it. This was outright rebellion. A violation of the unspoken contract he believed their marriageand his comfortrelied on.
The initial anger, sparked by his sisters complaint, twisted into something deeper, more personalthe sense that someone had brazenly trespassed on his territory, his rules.
“Are you serious?” he hissed, stepping even closer, crowding her. “What gives you the right to decide who comes into *my* home? Shes my sister! My own flesh and blood! Theyre not coming for you, theyre coming for *me*! And as my wife, its your job to be welcoming. Thats your *duty*!”
He was loud, 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 loved ones.
And now that world was cracking at the seams.
“Youve turned selfish, Eleanor! A bloody miser! Cant spare a bowl of soup for my family? Do you even realise how this looks? Theyll laugh at us! Say Olivers been whipped, that his wife dictates who he can see!”
Eleanor listened without reaction. She didnt look away, didnt interrupt. Just watched him, and in her calm was something terrifying.
She let him rant, spew every bitter word hed stored up during that short phone call with Lucy.
When he finally fell silent, breathing hard, she didnt answer his accusations. Instead, she did the last thing he expected.
Wordlessly, she stepped around him, opened the kitchen drawer, and pulled out a cheap calculator she usually used for bills. Then a notepad and a pen.
Oliver stared, baffled. Hed expected tears, shouting, argumentsanything but this cold, businesslike efficiency.
Eleanor sat at the table, switched on the calculator. The dry clicks were deafening in the silence.
“Lets do the maths,” she said, her voice flat as a newsreaders. “Starting with groceries.”
“Meat, vegetables, bread, butter. To feed four adults lunch daily, thats roughly…” Her fingers flew over the buttons. “Given current prices, about twelve pounds a day. Just lunch. Multiply by twenty workdays. Two hundred forty. And thats just food from our shared budget.”
Oliver stood rigid, watching. He didnt understand where this was going but felt a chill down his spine.
“Now my turn,” she continued, jotting numbers. “Shopping, cooking, serving, then washing up and cleaning. Takes me at least two hours daily.”
“A cook and cleaner in our area charge… lets say fifteen an hour. Two hours a day is thirty. Times twenty days. Another two hundred forty.”
She circled the total, then slid the notepad toward him.
“Four hundred eighty a month. Thats the bare cost of your sisters *habit*. Since theres two of them, split it. Two hundred forty per person.”
“But since they dont come daily, well charge per visit.” She wrote in bold letters at the top: *MENU*.
“From today, lunch or dinner for your family costs ten pounds. Per person. Per meal. Tell them. Payment upfront, to my card.”
She set down the pen and met his eyes.
“Oh, and Ill bill you for tonights dinner too. If were running a restaurant for your relatives, *everyone* pays. Or they eat elsewhere.”
She tore out the page and laid it in front of him. The neat figures, this absurd, humiliating offerhe knew she wasnt joking.
This was a wall. Built of numbers and facts, against which his comfortable world had just shattered.
His free meal service for family was closed. Permanently.
Oliver stared at the page. The word *MENU* mocked him. No hidden joke, just cold, calculated war.
He crumpled the paper in his fist. The tight ball pressed into his palm like a stone.
Without a word, he turned and left. When he returned, phone in hand, he spoke loudly, not hiding it from Eleanor, who stood by the counter, staring out the window.
“Lucy? You wont believe what shes No, shes home! Shes just… lost it. She gave me a *bill*! For your lunches!”
“Yes, seriously. Ten quid per head. Says were a restaurant now. I dont know whats got into her, I swear!”
He listened, nodding at nothing, face darkening. He didnt repeat Eleanors arguments about costs and 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 for years.
The next day at noon, the doorbell ranglong, demanding.
Eleanor, dusting the living room, set down the cloth and answered. She knew who it was.
Lucy stood there. Beside her, silent backup, loomed her husband David, a broad man with a permanent scowl. Lucys cheeks burned with righteous fury. She didnt greet her.
“Im here to see my brother!” she snapped, trying to push past.
Eleanor didnt move. Just rested a hand on the doorframe, blocking the way.
“Hes busy,” she said flatly.
“Were not here to bother him! For *lunch*! Have you forgotten people have lunch breaks? Move!”
Another shove, met with steel.
Oliver appeared, looking torn between sister and wife.
“Lucy, David, hi… Eleanor, come on, let them in, well talk”
“Nothing to talk about,” Eleanor cut in, not looking at him. Her eyes stayed on Lucy. “We settled this yesterday.”
“*Settled*?” Lucy exploded. “You call handing us a *bill* settled? Like were some
