My heart broke open. “It’s going to be OK, baby,” I assured her, though I had no idea if it would be. It was going to be months before I could walk again. And even once I was healed, I could never support us on my measly bookkeeping job. We had no savings, and no safety net. We lived paycheck to paycheck on two incomes, and now that my husband was dead, we barely had one. If things could have been worse, I had no idea how.
“I’ll explain everything when you are well again, not here,” the man said. “In the meantime, your rent has been paid, and all the bills from your stay here will be sent to me.”
And then I realized we had already accepted his gifts and his terms. We were bought and paid for.
I looked up at the face of a man who just might well be the devil, and I shuddered.
Because right there, in that barren hospital chapel with God as our witness, we had just made a deal with him.
CHAPTER 7
“Don’t be mad,” my daughter cooed as she walked in the room, “but I bought you something.” She pulled her hands from behind her back. They were cradling a crisp shopping bag the size of a couch cushion. Normally when someone gives me a gift, I feel excited. But rather than lift me up, the surge of emotion I felt had a heavy, downward pull. I knew the money was ours, and that we had every right to spend it, but that didn’t mean I felt good about it. I had convinced myself we had no choice—the hospital bills alone were more than I’d made in my entire life, Evan had made sure to tell me that. I was damned if I took the deal, dead if I didn’t. I was starting to regret that I’d chosen damned.
I took the bag from Savannah. Inside the shopping bag was another bag, as thick and creamy as a vanilla milkshake. It had a drawstring and fancy lettering on it: LV. I had never owned designer anything, but even I knew what LV stood for. I glared at Savannah.
“It’s Louis Vuitton!” she said, as if I didn’t know.
“I don’t need a Louis Vuitton bag,” I said, not that it mattered, because now I had one.
“Yeah, you kind of do,” Savannah corrected me. “Because we live here now!” She made a grand, sweeping gesture with her arm. “And you need to look the part. Open it!”
I slid the bag out of the duster—I knew that’s what they called it, because I used to shop for Louis Vuitton on eBay. Not to buy, just to dream. I never had the guts to walk into the store on Rodeo Drive and face the snooty sales clerks, who—let’s be honest—probably lived in my old neighborhood. But no one could scorn me for window-shopping online, which I sometimes did in the wee hours when no one was watching.
Somehow Savannah knew the exact one I liked, the checkered Sperone in white and gray—maybe someone was watching after all? The backpack-style bag had delicate straps and a sneaky side pocket. Perfect for sneaky people like us.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, and it was. And I never in a million years imagined I would own one. “Thank you for getting it for me.” I was touched that my daughter had gone out and shopped for me, but this sudden flood of nice stuff filled me with shame. Surely my husband’s life was worth more than a designer handbag and a three-bedroom house? I knew I deserved nice things as much as any Real Housewife or two-bit movie actress, but it wasn’t fun to get them like this. I imagined my husband looking down at me, shaking his head in disappointment that I chose money over justice.
“I got one, too!” Savannah announced, producing another shopping bag. I must have looked alarmed because she added, “Don’t worry, it’s not the same one as yours.”
I was worried, but not about that. “We shouldn’t be too conspicuous,” I said, and she frowned.
“It would be conspicuous not to have a designer bag in this neighborhood, Mom.” She was probably right. I wanted to live in Calabasas for the clean air and good schools, but walking around in Old Navy activewear surely would have raised some eyebrows. As for what any friends from my old neighborhood would think of my lifestyle upgrade, Evan instructed me to tell them my husband had a big life insurance policy. It wasn’t uncommon, he’d said. Not that they were coming around. I told my Friday-night-Zumba friends and the handful of moms from Savannah’s school who had texted and called that we were moving, and we said our goodbyes and “good lucks” over the phone. I didn’t have to worry about my family nosing around, since my only brother was dead and my parents had basically disowned me when I got pregnant before I was married.
As for my husband’s family, he didn’t have much—just the grandparents who raised him when his mother couldn’t be bothered. Gran and Pop-Pop moved to Arizona after he joined the military, and if they’d wanted to keep in touch, they never let on. We never even got a Christmas card from them, so there was no point in sharing our change of address. We were kind of an island, Savannah, my husband, and me. Which was sad before, but now rather fortunate.