Page 19 of Rich Little Liars

‘For not asking. For just being here.’

‘Always.’

The word settles over me like a blanket. Always. As if there could be an always for someone like me. As if I haven’t already used up my chances at happiness. But I’m too tired to argue with it. Too tired to push him away or protect him from whatever disaster I’m inevitably going to bring into his life.

So I relax and let myself drift, held safe in the arms of a man who doesn’t know what I’ve done. Who doesn’t know that the smoke I smell isn’t just phantom memories but something real I can never escape.

But just for tonight, I let myself have this. This stolen moment of peace.

This brief respite from the constant fear.

Tonight, for once, I’ll sleep.

7

THEN

Roxanne started staying for dinner.

I’m not sure when it became a pattern rather than a rare thing. One night she was still at the house when Daniel got home, and I invited her to join us because it seemed rude not to. She accepted with that warm, grateful smile that made refusing feel impossible. The three of us ate pasta in the kitchen, and she was funny and engaging, asking Daniel about his work with genuine interest, laughing at his stories in a way I hadn’t in months.

It was strange, eating in the kitchen. Daniel and I usually took meals to the dining room – the long walnut table that seated twelve, the view over the back yard to the pool house. But Roxanne had set up in here, casual and intimate, so it felt churlish to move everything.

After she left, Daniel said: ‘She’s nice. I can see why you like her.’

A week later, she was there again. Then twice in one week. Then it was assumed that if Roxanne came round in the afternoon, she’d stay until evening, and I’d set three places at the table instead of two.

The shift was so gradual I didn’t notice it happening until it was too late.

At first, I was relieved. Having Roxanne there eased something in my marriage I hadn’t known needed easing. With her present, Daniel and I talked more, laughed more, touched each other with the casual affection we’d lost somewhere along the way. She acted as a buffer, filling the silences that had grown too comfortable between us. She asked questions that prompted conversation. She noticed when one of us went quiet and drew us back in.

She made our marriage feel like it was working again.

But then the balance started to tip.

It was small things at first. The way Roxanne would arrive earlier each time, before I’d finished my work for the day. How she’d make herself snacks without asking, moving around my kitchen like she belonged there. The way she knew where we kept the cookies, which mugs were whose, how Daniel liked his coffee.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asked once, already halfway through making a pot. ‘I feel so at home here.’

And what could I say? That yes, actually, I did mind her treating my house like her own? That would make me sound petty. Unwelcoming. The sort of person who couldn’t share her space with a friend in need.

Because that’s what she was. A friend in need. Still between places, still looking for work, still wearing that same jacket that didn’t fit properly. I told myself I was being kind. That this was temporary. That soon she’d get back on her feet and these constant visits would taper off naturally.

Except they didn’t taper off.

They intensified.

One evening I came downstairs after a work call to find Roxanne and Daniel on the couch, both laughing at something on his phone. They looked up when I entered, still smiling, and Daniel patted the couch beside him.

‘Come see this. Roxanne found a hilarious video.’

I sat. I laughed at the appropriate moment. But something felt wrong about the scene – the two of them already mid-conversation, me joining late, the sense that I was interrupting rather than participating.

‘I should start dinner,’ I said, standing.

‘Already done.’ Roxanne gestured towards the kitchen. ‘I hope you don’t mind. You were busy, and I was here anyway, so I just threw something together.’

She’d made a curry. Using ingredients from my fridge, pans from my cupboards, the recipe I always used that I must have mentioned once in passing. It sat bubbling on the stove, filling the house with the smell of home cooking I hadn’t done myself.