The note seemed innocuous enough, and yet Annie couldn’t help feeling it was somehow critical. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. You’re just feeling oversensitive after your run-in with Max.

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Annie spent the day amiably pottering around the flat. Annie sat in the armchair, with her feet on the footstool, reading The Woman in White until her eyes began to cross. Tiggs catnapped in various locations until she found the afternoon suntrap on the window seat and settled down until dinnertime. When the sun began to set, turning the sky to ripe apricot as the great orb disappeared down below the waves, Annie and her housemate had dinner together, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle on the floor and Annie on the sofa, watching Antiques Roadshow. For the first time in more years than she could remember, Sunday felt like a magical precursor for the week ahead.

Chapter 31

Annie pulled up next to the picket fence and hauled the bags out of the boot. She’d gone to the nearest town to pick up supplies for the first book club meeting on Wednesday; she liked to get ahead of the game. She had bought scented candles for the tables and two lamps with puffins and crabs printed on the shades so that they wouldn’t have to use the flickering strip light, which gave off grisly crime scene vibes.

Since Gemma was keen to bring wine, Annie decided to make a nonalcoholic hot apple punch as a complement, reasoning that the smell of cinnamon and mixed spice heating on the little hob would also create a sense of warmth in the chilly room. She was planning to cook some mini pesto tartlets to have hot, along with antipasti and a big bowl of fancy crisps. Preparation, planning, and list making were some of Annie’s greatest joys, and starting a new life required a whole new level of rumination that she was only too happy to embrace.

It was late in the afternoon. It had been chilly all day, the pale sun masked behind smoky clouds, and now even that scant light was starting to fade. The air was clammy, and she could feel it clinging to her hair as a woolly gray fog slipped over the rocks and blotted out the landscape. Annie shivered and felt grateful for the little waft of smoke spiraling out from the chimney of Saltwater Nook, signaling warmth within. As she hauled her bags of shopping up the garden path, she saw a wicker hamper sitting on the top step in front of the door. She climbed the stone steps and stooped to read a paper parcel tag tied to the basket handle:

With Love, Max

Eternally Sorry