need? ”
“I don’t know. A thousand, maybe? ”
“Why don’t I give you three? That should cover you for a while, and it enables you to feel safe. Think of the additional money as a safety net, and you can always give back what you don’t use.”
“Oh my God!” Annabel throws her arms around him. “I don’t know what to say! You’re amazing! How can I thank you? ”
He pushes her back gently, with a small smile. “I have a pretty good idea.”
And after that, they don’t say anything at all for a very long time.
Chapter Twenty-four
These past few days, Annabel’s behavior has become increasingly mysterious. Kit suspects she has a boyfriend, but every time she asks Annabel clams up, which is so out of character, even from the little Kit knows of her, that she doesn’t quite know how to pursue the topic.
She is out more and more, although less so when the kids are with their dad. Kit imagines Annabel feels guilty about leaving Kit on her own to do whatever she has been doing, although Kit loves nothing more than having the house to herself and is slightly resentful of not getting that time alone.
She wishes she could be more forthright. Wishes she were the type of person who could draw Annabel aside and say, kindly, “I really need to be on my own tonight.” But she could never do that; she is too worried about offending, of being disliked, too caught up, even at this age, with being a “good girl,” too fearful of a confrontation of any kind.
The problem with Annabel being there, is that she’s so clearly there. There is no fading into the background with Annabel, and Kit is torn between loving the company, and resenting the intrusion.
And the kids adore her. Tory is all moon-faced and pie-eyed when Annabel is around. She’s the fairy godmother Tory has always wanted, dressing Tory up in her clothes, doing her hair and make-up, seducing her with her dulcet English tones.
Even Buckley is keen. He is more reticent than Tory, certainly, but Annabel’s willingness to go outside, whatever the weather, and play baseball—Buckley is attempting to teach her the game—has won him over, and while he would never admit to out-and-out adoration, when he is not on his computer or outside playing baseball (more challenging now that winter is truly setting in), he is usually getting Annabel to play Star Wars with him on the Wii in the family room.
But it is more than the disappearances that are making Kit uncomfortable. Annabel has started buying her gifts. Flowers for no reason, a scarf she saw and thought of Kit, a new lipstick she thinks Kit absolutely has to have.
Small things, but Kit cannot help the feeling that these gifts are loaded; that, as bizarre as it may sound, there is something about the gift-giving that feels like a guilty husband suddenly surprising his wife with flowers, or beautiful underwear, after he has left his mistress.
Kit knows she is being ridiculous. What, after all, could Annabel possibly have to feel guilty about?
Kit pats the concealer under her eyes, wishing there was a magic cure for the shadows there, shadows that are all she sees these days when she looks in the mirror.
But for forty-one, she isn’t bad. She remembers when her father turned forty and the two of them went out for dinner, Kit dressing up, loving being taken to a proper grown-up restaurant, loving pretending to be the wife. And her father seemed so old. When did forty stop being middle-aged, for Kit doesn’t feel the slightest bit middle-aged?
If anything, since her divorce, she feels as though she is regressing. During her marriage she noticed she had become a “maam” at some point. She didn’t mind in the slightest, but after her divorce people started calling her “miss” again.
She knew it didn’t have to do with a wedding band, for she chose to continue wearing a ring on her wedding finger. Not her wedding or engagement ring, or the eternity band Adam had bought her after she gave birth to Tory, but a hammered white gold ring with an emerald. It was a gift she bought herself on the day she divorced. A ring she had been admiring, and finally treated herself to, to celebrate the start of a new life.
“You can’t buy yourself an emerald,” Charlie gasped, when Kit turned up at her house to show off her latest purchase. “They’re bad luck.”
“Not this one,” Kit