“I know today is always a hard one for you,” said Max, following her through the gate.
“Yes, well. It is what it is,” said Annie.
“I thought you might like some company.”
“Not really,” said Annie. “But thank you for thinking of me.”
“I found some old photograph albums. I thought we could go through them together. Maybe sort out how to split them. You can have first dibs.” He smiled uncertainly at her.
Annie sighed exaggeratedly. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. She didn’t have the energy to fight him today.
And so it was that Annie and Max spent the rest of Sunday afternoon flicking through old photographs and—to Annie’s surprise—laughing over shared memories.
The last of the daylight evaporated and lamps were switched on. In among the holiday snaps and obligatory baby-bath-time photographs were pictures of her parents: smiling in their garden, playing with the boys, out at restaurants to celebrate various wedding anniversaries . . . The years rolled back through the yellowing edges of the albums, and soon they were looking at grainy photographs taken on disposable cameras, of Annie showing off a gigantic baby bump while Max pointed at it grinning, Annie and Max pre–baby bump, down the pub, in the park, at the prom.
“God, you looked hot in that prom dress,” said Max.
“It was practically sprayed on.” Annie laughed. “I didn’t think my dad was going to let me leave the house!”
“Whose house did we go to for the after-party?”
“Mandy Shaw’s.”
“Mandy Shaw! Crikey, I wander whatever happened to her?”
“She’s a head teacher in Milton Keynes.”
“Blimey. Do you remember the spare room? Under the coats?”
“Worrying that any moment someone would come in and catch us,” said Annie.
Max’s laugh was soft and low; Annie felt the danger but pushed it aside.
“I don’t remember you being all that worried,” he said quietly, just close enough to her ear for her to feel his breath on her neck.
Annie quickly picked up another black shiny paper envelope and began to sift through the photographs. Pictures of them kissing; blurry selfies, in the days before mobile phones, when you clicked and hoped for the best.
“I’ll never forget that night,” whispered Max, taking the pictures from her and letting them drop to the floor, his voice low and loaded with determination, and Annie was suddenly too tired to resist the inevitable.
Fuck it! she thought. It’s only sex, it doesn’t mean anything. She needed to feel something other than sad today. And then they were kissing; not in photographs but on her sofa, in the sitting room of Saltwater Nook—desperate kisses among the evidence of their shared lives, their former selves frozen in time, staring out through sepia tones. Annie wriggled out of her jeans, and Max pulled his top off; she arched her body toward his. The heat of his hands on her skin, his fingers remembering her secrets, their bodies melding easily together in collaborative muscle memory.
“I love you, Annie,” Max whispered as he expertly undid her bra with one hand. “Say you’ll come back to me. Say you love me too.”
His words pulled her up short. Annie’s brain reemerged from the thick fog of nostalgia and her ache for physical contact. What am I doing? she screamed at herself. What the fuck am I doing? There was no such thing as just a shag when Max was on a mission.
“Stop,” said Annie, trying to wriggle out from Max’s tentacle-like embrace. The fire running through her veins turned to ice. She felt sick, angry at herself for being so stupid.
“Don’t fight it, Annie,” Max whispered, pushing her further down onto the sofa.
She was suffocating beneath his kisses; his body on hers felt like a concrete blanket and she fought against him.
“I mean it!” said Annie. With limbs flailing, like a beetle on its back, she extricated herself from beneath Max and pulled herself up to standing. “This isn’t going to happen.”
She pulled her jeans back on and threw his top at him.
“Annie, baby, come on. You know you want this as much as I do.”
Annie was struggling with her hands behind her back, trying to refasten her bra. She gave up and stood, slightly breathless, with her hands on her hips, at once exhilarated and disgusted but entirely certain that she was doing the right thing.
“I want a divorce,” she said. “And I want you to buy me out of the restaurant and I want my half of the Pomegranate Seed building and the house. And I want you to unlock our joint account right bloody now! I’m entitled to it and I want it. This was a mistake.”