My sister Kayla kept walking through our kitchen wearing nothing but a towel.
At first, I thought it was an accident.
Then she started calling it a “test.”
And when my husband Andrew finally decided to respond, he did something that made her face turn bright red.
It all started two weeks earlier.
Kayla arrived at our house carrying two suitcases. She had only $287 left in her checking account, and dried mascara was still visible beneath her eyes.
Her boyfriend of six years, Eric, had told her to leave their apartment.
I didn’t ask whether she could afford a hotel.
I didn’t tell her to call one of her friends.
I simply took one suitcase while Andrew grabbed the other.
“Stay here until you get back on your feet,” I told her.
Andrew agreed immediately.
For the first week, Kayla was actually an easy houseguest.
She cleaned up after herself, stayed mostly out of the way, and seemed grateful to have somewhere safe to stay.
Then came the towel.
The first morning it happened, Kayla walked downstairs after her shower wearing nothing but a towel.
Andrew was already in the kitchen.
I assumed she had simply forgotten he was there.
But the next morning, she did it again.
That time, I pulled her aside.
“Could you put on a robe before coming downstairs? Andrew is usually in the kitchen.”
Kayla blinked at me.
“He’s your husband, Amanda. He’s not a teenage boy.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It makes me uncomfortable.”
She studied my face like I had just given her a difficult puzzle to solve.
Finally, she shrugged.
“Fine.”
I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn’t.
The next morning, she came downstairs wearing the towel again.
And then she did it again.
One morning, after I had already asked her several times to stop, she walked into the kitchen and asked Andrew to reach the coffee filters from the top shelf.
Andrew looked at the cabinet.
Then he looked at Kayla.
Without saying anything, he picked up his coffee and walked out of the room.
Kayla stared after him.
“What’s his problem?”
I shut the cabinet door she had left open.
“You’re his problem.”
She laughed.
That laugh finally got to me.
“I asked you to stop doing this.”
Kayla leaned against the kitchen counter.
“And I still don’t understand why you care.”
“You don’t have to understand.”
She took a sip of coffee.
“You’re seriously threatened because I’m wearing a towel?”
“No.”
“Because if you trust Andrew—”
“Kayla.”
“I’m just saying. This sounds like a husband problem, not a towel problem.”
I stared at her.
“No. It’s a you-ignoring-me problem.”
That made her smile.
And it wasn’t a nice smile.
“Think of it as a test.”
I frowned.
“A what?”
“A test.”
She calmly placed her mug on the counter.
“If Andrew can be tempted just because another woman walks through the kitchen in a towel, wouldn’t you rather know now?”
For a moment, I honestly thought I had misunderstood her.
“You’re deliberately trying to tempt my husband?”
“No,” she replied, as if I were being ridiculous. “I’m seeing whether he can be tempted.”
“Those two things aren’t as different as you think.”
“If he fails, that’s on him.”
I folded my arms.
“And what happens when your sister asks you to stop doing something in her own home?”
Kayla rolled her eyes.
“You’re making this way bigger than it is.”
That evening, I told Andrew everything.
He was loading the dishwasher while I explained what Kayla had said.
For several seconds, the only sound in the kitchen was plates sliding into the rack.
Finally, he looked at me.
“She actually used the word ‘test’?”
“Twice.”
Andrew pushed the lower dishwasher rack inside.
