The first crack appeared on a Thursday.

It was a small thing at first, barely visible, the kind of hairline fracture that could be ignored if you chose not to look too closely. Meher had been living in the apartment for two months. Her drawer in the almirah was full. Her toiletries occupied a shelf in the bathroom. She had learned to make rotis the way Priya made them, round and soft and perfectly puffed over the open flame. She had learned the rhythm of the household, the quiet morning rituals of chai and newspaper and the sound of Priya humming while she dusted the temple shelf with the same microfiber cloth that had once hidden a secret phone. She had learned to wake in the night when Rajiv reached for her, to open her body to him without fully waking, to murmur his name and pull him closer and fall back asleep with him still buried inside her. She had learned to kneel when Priya entered the room, not always, not constantly, but often enough that the act had become a reflex buried deep in her muscle memory.