Novels by Starr

For three months, she kept her distance.She had told him the morning after the test, in four flat words across the breakfast table. I'm pregnantDon't touch me. He had gone white, then silent, then had said nothing at all. Since then, he had changed. Slowly Oddly Like a man learning to walk on ice.Notes appeared on the fridge. Ate? C. Messages in the middle of the day: How are you feeling? One evening she found a fresh bottle of prenatal vitamins on the bathroom shelf. She'd mentioned running low exactly once, in passing, over a week before.He remembered. It unnerved her.One Thursday she came downstairs and found him in the kitchen. Not at work. In jeans, with his sleeves rolled up, a frying pan in his hand."It's ten o'clock," Toria said. "Why are you home?""I took the day off.""You've never taken a day off.""I know." He cracked an egg with grim concentration. "I want to know what your days are like. Sit."She sat, mostly out of shock.He put a plate in front of her. The eggs w

For a week they were polite strangers.They shared meals. They shared a house. They shared a bed, with a river of cold cotton between them. Toria answered in single words and went to bed early. Chriss watched her across the table, and she pretended not to notice.The nausea didn't go away. Neither did the dizziness. Neither did the calendar.On the eighth morning, she bought a test from a pharmacy across town and hid it in the bottom of her bag like contraband. She wasn't ready to look. If she looked, it would be real. And if it was real, she'd have to decide what kind of mother to be to a child who was already a clause in a contract.Her phone buzzed.Chriss: Dressing up casual tonight. Business thing. Be ready at 6.No question mark. No please.She almost said no. Then she looked at her reflection in the pharmacy window: long hair dragging at her shoulders like an old promise, the girl who waited by windows.She walked into the salon next door."Cut it," she told the stylist. "All o

The screen went dark in Toria's hand.Four digits stood between her and the truth. She tried his birthday. Wrong. She tried hers. Wrong, of course. Why would he ever use hers?The shop bell chimed.Chriss filled the kitchen doorway, breathing hard. He crossed the room in three strides and took the phone from her fingers. He didn't look at it. He looked at her."What did you read?""Enough." Her voice shook. "Told me what?"A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Not here.""Then where?""Not tonight." He pocketed the phone. For one second he looked almost afraid. "Please, Toria."Please. He had never said it before. It frightened her more than any threat.She slept in the guest room that night, with the door locked.She woke in the wrong bed.Cream sheets. Their bedroom. Chriss's side was empty, but the pillow still held the dent of his head, and the sheets were warm. She was still in yesterday's dress. He had moved her in the night and slept beside her. He hadn't touched her.She sat up and the

She didn’t sleep.By morning, the question had worn a groove in her mind.Why did I marry you?She replayed Chriss’s words until they became almost meaningless. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the way he’d looked away, as though meeting her gaze had become impossible.She walked into the dining room already braced for another argument.Chriss was waiting at the table, dressed in a crisp white shirt, scrolling through his phone. A cup of untouched coffee sat beside him.He looked up when she entered.“Where did you go yesterday?”Toria pulled out a chair.“We’ve done this.”“You never answered my question.”“Because it’s none of your business.”She poured herself some coffee, keeping her hands steady.He put his phone down.“I’m your husband. Of course it’s my business.”A humourless smile touched her lips.“Interesting. You vanish for days, and I’m not allowed to ask questions. Last month, you were gone for four nights. Who was she, Chriss? Should I start wondering about her n

The cinema smelled of buttered popcorn and old carpet, and Toria had never loved a place so much.For the first time in eighteen months, she wasn’t waiting for someone to tell her what to do.She watched three films back-to-back. A comedy where she laughed too loudly, a thriller whose ending she barely remembered, and a romance where a man chased a woman through an airport in the rain, begging her not to leave.Toria sat in the darkness with her hands pressed against her mouth, crying so quietly that the stranger beside her politely pretended not to notice.She envied that woman on the screen.Not because someone was chasing her, but because someone was afraid of losing her.No one asked where she’d been. No one needed her to be a daughter, a wife, a vessel, or a promise kept.She ate chips for lunch and ice cream for dinner. She walked along the harbour wall with her shoes in her hand, letting the cold wind scatter her hair.For a few precious hours, she forgot about the expensive ho

The sheets were still warm when Chriss pulled away.Toria lay still, her heart racing, her fingers searching the mattress for his hand. They found only cooling cotton.She stared at the ceiling, listening to the faint hum of the air conditioner. Her breathing was uneven, and her body felt strangely heavy. She had imagined this night differently. She had imagined tenderness, whispered words, perhaps even a kiss on her forehead afterward.It was their eighteenth month of marriage. Surely, by now, she deserved something more than this.He sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her. She counted his breaths. Four. Five. She waited for him to turn. To say her name. To touch her hair, the way husbands did in the films she watched when the house was empty.“Don’t move,” he said.Not are you all right. Not stay.“What?”“Stay on your back. Knees up.” He checked his watch like a man leaving a meeting. “It improves the chances.”The air left her lungs.“The chances of what?” She knew. She n