Annabel's mother noticed it first.
Not what was happening—she wasn't there yet—but that something had shifted in the rhythm of the house. Mothers always sensed rhythm before reason.
Annabel stopped lingering in shared spaces. She passed through rooms like a guest with an expiration date. Conversations shortened. Laughter thinned. The ease she used to carry felt… managed.
At first, her mother attributed it to stress. Growing up. Transitions. The usual corporate excuses adults give are often rooted in emotional distance.
Then she noticed Richard.
He became too careful.
He asked permission for things he'd never needed approval for. Announced when he was leaving. When he was returning. He overcorrected—politeness upgraded into formality. Distance deployed with precision.
That was the first crack.
The second came one evening when Annabel laughed at something her mother said—and Richard looked up too quickly.
It wasn't longing.
It wasn't desire.
It was recognition.
Her mother's smile faltered for half a second.
Across the table, Richard's father noticed something different. He noticed what wasn't happening. The absence of friction. The absence of normal sibling irritation. They avoided each other not with annoyance, but with intention.
"Everything okay?" he asked casually one night, eyes moving between them.
Annabel answered too fast.
"Yes."
Richard answered too late.
"Yeah."
The mismatch lingered.
From that point on, the house watched.
Small things surfaced—micro-moments no one could accuse but no one could unsee. Annabel left the room the moment Richard entered. Richard is changing seats without explanation. Their conversations are becoming professional, stripped of warmth like a document redacted for compliance.
It wasn't secrecy that raised suspicion.
It was overcorrection.
One afternoon, Annabel's mother found her staring out the window, arms wrapped tightly around herself.
"You've been distant," she said gently.
Annabel didn't lie. She didn't tell the whole truth. "I'm thinking a lot."
Her mother nodded—but her eyes stayed searching. "About us?"
Annabel's throat tightened. "About everything."
That night, Richard's father pulled him aside.
"You're walking on eggshells," he said plainly. "Why?"
Richard hesitated—just long enough.
"Just trying to be respectful," he replied.
His father studied him for a moment. "You've always been respectful. This feels like something else."
Silence did what it always did—said too much.
By the end of the week, the house felt alert.
No accusations. No confrontations. Just intuition sharpening into awareness. Adults don't need proof to sense disruption. They need pattern recognition—and the pattern was emerging.
Annabel felt it in her chest: the countdown.
Richard felt it in his spine: the inevitability.
The line they'd crossed hadn't been loud—but it had changed the temperature of everything. And now, the family didn't know what was wrong.
Only that something was.
And houses, like people, do not stay ignorant for long.