Page 20 of Rich Little Liars

‘That’s… Thank you. That’s really thoughtful.’

‘It’s nothing. I like cooking. And you’ve been so good to me, it’s the least I could do.’

Daniel smiled at her. ‘You’re a lifesaver. Kelly’s been swamped with work lately.’

Had I? I didn’t feel swamped. I felt like I’d been working normal hours, coming downstairs at normal times, doing everything I always did. But apparently I’d been absent enough for Roxanne to step in. To fill the space I’d left.

We ate dinner with Roxanne serving, dishing out portions like she’d cooked a hundred meals in this kitchen. She’d even opened a bottle of wine – a 2005 Margaux from Daniel’s cellar. Three hundred dollars, uncorked for a nothing kind of evening. I winced a little, as on ‘nothing’ evenings we simply took from the wine fridge.

‘This is delicious,’ Daniel said. ‘Easily the best homemade curry I’ve had.’

He meant it as a compliment to Roxanne, but I felt it like a criticism to me. My curry wasn’t good enough. Hers was better. She could do this – domestic, nurturing, effortlessly capable – in a manner I apparently couldn’t.

After dinner, Roxanne insisted on clearing up. I tried to help, but she shooed me away.

‘You cooked all week. Let me do this.’

Except I hadn’t cooked all week. She’d been here three nights out of five, and she’d cooked twice before this. But correcting her would sound defensive, so I let it go and went to sit with Daniel in the other room.

‘She’s settling in well,’ he said, scrolling through his phone.

‘Settling in?’

‘You know what I mean. Getting comfortable. It’s nice, having her around.’

‘You really think so?’

He looked up, surprised by my tone. ‘I thought you liked her.’

‘I do. We just never have time alone any more, you and me.’

‘We have plenty of time alone. She doesn’t live here, Kelly. She just visits.’

But her visits were stretching longer. Arriving at two in the afternoon, staying until ten at night. Eight hours of Roxanne in my house, in my space, with my husband. Eight hours where I felt like a guest in my own life.

‘Maybe we could have a few evenings just us,’ I suggested. ‘Like we used to.’

‘Sure. Of course.’ But he said it absently, still looking at his phone. Like it wasn’t important. Like he hadn’t even registered what I was really asking for.

From the kitchen came the sound of Roxanne humming. A tune I didn’t recognise, cheerful and unbothered. She was washing up, making herself useful, being the perfect guest who’d somehow become more than that.

The next week, she started bringing things. Small items at first – a bottle of wine to share, cookies for tea, flowers for the table. Thoughtful gestures that made me feel ungracious for resenting them. Then bigger things. A throw blanket she’d seen in a store that she thought would look nice on our couch. A set of kitchen knives because ours were ‘so blunt, Kelly, you’ll never cut anything with those’. A framed print for the hallway because ‘that wall looks bare’.

Each gift was accompanied by that same apologetic smile, that same insistence that it was nothing, just something small, don’t make a fuss. But my house was slowly filling with her taste, her choices, her stamp on our space.

Daniel thought it was sweet. ‘She’s just trying to contribute. She feels bad about being here so much.’

If she felt bad, why didn’t she come less often?

But I didn’t say that. I smiled and thanked Roxanne and arranged her flowers in a vase and hung her print in the hallway. I was gracious and grateful and everything a good friend should be.

And I watched her move deeper into my life.

It was the laughter that got to me most. The sound of it – bright and frequent and easy – drifting up from the living room where Roxanne and Daniel would sit after dinner, talking while I cleaned up or finished work or found excuses to be elsewhere. When I did join them, the conversation would shift, including me in an unnatural way. Like they were being polite rather than genuinely wanting me there.

‘Tell Kelly the story about your colleague,’ Roxanne would prompt, and Daniel would tell it, and they’d both watch me to see if I laughed as much as I should have. I always did. I performed being included, being part of things, the wife who didn’t mind losing her husband to one of her own friends.

One night I went to bed early – genuinely tired, not making a point – and woke at midnight to voices still murmuring downstairs. I crept to the landing and peered over the banister. The living room light was still on, throwing warm shadows into the hallway. I could hear them talking but couldn’t make out words. Just the rhythm of conversation, easy and flowing, punctuated by soft laughter.