A Season for Second Chances(16)

“Yes,” said Annie. “I’ll come back for her in a few weeks.”

“You can’t take her,” said Max.

“What do you mean I can’t take her? She’s my cat!”

“She’s my cat too,” said Max.

“You don’t even like her!”

“I do like her,” said Max. “She just doesn’t like me! Maybe we’ll bond over your desertion.”

“You deserted our marriage long before I did!” said Annie, her hackles rising. This was precisely why she hadn’t wanted to see Max.

“I don’t want to go tit-for-tat with you,” said Max quietly. “It’s painful enough without petty insults adding to the sting.”

It was remarkable how Max always managed to climb up to the moral high ground even when his ethics were in sinking sand. Annie concentrated on breathing and resisting the urge to push Max down the stairs.

“You don’t want to do tit-for-tat?” she asked incredulously. “I leave you because you cheat, so you freeze me out of my own bank accounts. I’d say you are well and truly in tit-for-tat territory!”

“I’m trying to undo it. I’ve been calling the bank to get it reversed. It’ll take a bit of time.”

“Let me pass,” said Annie in exasperation.

Max didn’t move. She could feel his eyes on her.

Her heart pounded. She didn’t look at him. It was a familiar fear. She’d always told herself that his behavior wasn’t abusive because he didn’t hit her. But deep down she knew that was wrong. Max’s psychological manipulation was insidious—he might not leave bruises, but that didn’t mean there weren’t scars. She had to make a stand.

“Let me pass, Max,” she said again. “This isn’t going to make it any easier. I’m not going to change my mind.”

Max dropped his hand and moved aside to let her pass.

“I’ll kill myself!” said Max as Annie started down the stairs.

She’d been expecting it, but it still winded her. Annie inhaled deeply and turned slowly on the stair to look up at him. She couldn’t be shackled by his threats any longer. It wasn’t fair. He’d been using those three little words on her like a cattle prod for as long as they’d been together, and each time he said them Annie would let herself be lassoed back into the pen, for fear of the consequences. She couldn’t let herself be held to ransom any longer. She’d paid enough.

With as much calm as she could muster, Annie looked him in the eye and said: “This is on you, Max. You alone are responsible for your own actions and the consequences of those actions. If you kill yourself, you will devastate our children and probably be the death of your mother. I’d be sad, but your blood won’t be on my hands.”

The force of her words shocked her. Max stared down at her, his expression stunned and confused. Annie held his gaze, trying to fix her face into something that resembled resolve. It wasn’t easy with her heart thundering against her rib cage. Max broke away first, and Annie turned, unsure whether her quivering legs would be able to carry her down the stairs. Her hand trembled as she felt for the banister, gripping it hard to steady herself. She fumbled with the front door, as the air felt as though it were being sucked out of the hallway. The catch gave, and Annie stumbled out of the house, pulling the door shut firmly behind her. She pulled the fresh air into her lungs and propelled herself toward her car.

She sat for a moment, gathering herself, breathing shakily. She’d done it. He’d pulled out his trump card, and she’d called him on it. For a moment, she was hit with a wave of sickness and her hand found the door handle, ready to go back into the house to placate him, to check that he wasn’t going to do it just to spite her. But she breathed through the initial panic and it passed.





Chapter 12



She pulled up outside the Pomegranate Seed and steeled herself for the second emotional wrench of the day: saying good-bye to her staff. The hum of voices and growl of the coffee machine from above told her the coffee lounge was in full swing. The restaurant was quiet aside from the clink of glasses as the bar staff prepared for service.

Annie heard the hive of activity in the kitchen before she saw it. The radio blasted out tunes, and Marianne blasted out orders. Annie’s stomach gave a twang. She would miss the chaos and the mania, that fire that whooshed through her veins as the orders came in one after another after another. That camaraderie that only comes with working together, with diligence and speed, sweating and cursing and laughing in the face of the mountain to climb.

She stood outside the kitchen, listening. She could feel what was happening on the other side of the wall, what had been prepped and what hadn’t been, where on the list of chores and tasks they were at this exact time of day.

As she soaked in the sounds of her kitchen for the last time, a feeling of completeness came over her. She had instigated the activity within; she had taken a bare room and filled it with her passion and chosen other people whose passion matched her own. She had designed and nurtured every element, and now it was full grown: an independent body that ran by itself, because of her. She would miss it. But she could leave knowing that she had made something durable.

Her entrance into the kitchen was met with hugs and high spirits. She gave her team one last pep talk and read them the riot act.