Page 17 of The Winter of Second Chances
‘I’ll kill myself!’ said Max as Annie started down the stairs.
She’d been expecting it but it still winded her when it landed. Annie breathed deeply and turned slowly 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 are responsible for your own actions. If you kill yourself, you will devastate your children and probably be the death of your mother. But your blood won’t be on my hands.’
The forcefulness of her words shocked her. Max stared down at her, his expression stunned and confused. Annie held his stare, trying to fix her face into something that resembled unmovable resolve. It wasn’t easy with her heart thundering against her ribcage. 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 bannister, gripping it hard to steady herself. She fumbled with the front door; the air felt as though it was 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 towards 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 was on the door handle, ready to go back into the house and leave things better, to placate him, to check that he wasn’t gathering all the tablets in the house just to spite her. But she breathed through the initial panic and it passed.
Annie pulled up outside The Pomegranate Seed and steeled herself for her second emotional wrench of the day: saying goodbye to her staff. The hum of voices and growl of the coffee machine from above signified that the coffee lounge was in full swing with its morning revellers. The restaurant was quiet, aside from the clink of glasses as the bar staff prepared for service.
Annie walked on down to the kitchen. She heard the hive of activity before she saw it. The radio blasted out tunes and Marianne blasted out orders above it. Annie’s stomach gave a twang. She would miss this. She would miss the chaos and the mania; that fire that whooshed through your veins as the orders came in one after another after another, until you felt like you would drown in dockets. That camaraderie that only comes with all of you working together, with diligence and speed, sweating and cursing and laughing at the face of the mountain you’ve yet to climb.
She stood outside the kitchen. Listening. Knowing instinctively what was happening on the other side of the wall: what had been prepped and what was yet to do, where on the list of chores and tasks they were at this exact time of the 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 to help her bring her ideas to fruition. She had designed and nurtured every element and now it was full grown; an independent body which ran by itself, because of her. She would miss it. But she could leave knowing that she had made something durable enough to go on in her absence.
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.
‘I may not be here in body,’ she said as they gathered around, just as they used to for the morning briefing. ‘But this joint is still my baby and I expect you guys to keep it going for me. And I will be checking up on you!’
There were ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s at this.
‘So that means no cutting corners with the flaky pastry; I’m looking at you, Flash!’ said Annie, pointing to a tall gangly youth with a tattoo on his cheek. Flash grinned and pretended to look about for someone else she might be talking to.
‘Or rushing the caramelised onions,’ said Annie. She moved her gaze to a spotty sous chef who blushed and giggled. ‘What is our onion mantra?’
‘The slower the sweating, the sweeter the onions!’ came the chorus.
‘And don’t cook the shit out of the vegetables,’ said Annie. ‘Say it with me!’
‘Snap, not pap!’ came the military-style response before the team dissolved into laughter.
After she had dismissed her chefs back to their work stations, she and Marianne went over the final copy of the autumn menu.
‘It should be him going,’ said Marianne.
‘Don’t complain,’ said Annie. ‘You’ve got a promotion out of it!’
‘Yeah, but still,’ said Marianne.
‘I’m looking forward to some time out,’ said Annie. ‘I need it. It’ll be good for me.’
The morning was sunny with the faintest nip in the breeze. Annie had checked out of the hotel so early that the night staff were still on reception. She was sad not to have seen Sally before she left, but she had her number and was determined to use it.
She arrived in Willow Bay while the residents were still enjoying a Sunday lie-in. The two pubs were dark and quiet and squirrels and blackbirds had appropriated the beer gardens.
Annie meandered down and around the steep hill in second gear, acutely aware that her car was three times heavier than the last time she’d driven down it. As she rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill, she saw a car already parked in her spot beside Saltwater Nook’s garden.
Oh hell, she thought. Surely Mari’s nephew wasn’t here to check up on her already? But as she drew closer, slowly negotiating the car along the shingle path, she recognised Peter’s old Honda Civic and her heart leaped. She swallowed hard in an effort to push down the lump in her throat and blinked quickly to clear the tears that were making her vision wobble.
Alex and Peter unfolded their long legs from the small car, stretching and yawning as the sea breeze snapped at their shirts. They were non-identical twins, but unmistakably brothers. Both boys had dark hair and big eyes like Annie, but they’d been blessed with their father’s height and chiselled features. Alex wore his hair cropped short; his black beard was professionally trimmed with neat sharp lines that framed his cheekbones. By contrast, Peter’s shoulder-length hair was a mass of dark curls that whipped about his face in the wind. His square jaw was hidden beneath a thick unruly beard that gave him a distinctly biblical look.
Annie’s composure was lost to the wind as soon as she got out of the car. She hugged them each in turn and they mocked her tears as she knew they would. On the back seat of Peter’s car she saw her patchwork quilt, the bread maker, the slow cooker and her red enamel Le Creuset casserole dish: beloved things she’d reluctantly had to leave behind due to lack of space in her car.
‘How did you...?’ Annie began.
‘We spent the night with Dad,’ said Peter. ‘Got a takeaway after service. He helped us pack your things.’
