Page 53 of Forgive Not Forget
“Thanks. He hasn’t forgotten you, though. He was asking after you the other day.”
“Send him my regards, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
An awkward silence fell over the conversation.
Rebecca finally spoke. “You know what to do. Good luck. Let me know how you get on.”
“Will do.”
“Anna?” Rebecca paused for a moment. “Thanks for ringing.”
Anna was about to reply when the line went dead.
It felt good to have an ally. It didn’t feel great to be working with that ally against Katherine. Rebecca was right, though; she was sure of it.
No more hiding. It was time for Katherine to confront her past.
How on earth she was going to convince Katherine was one problem; what it would cost Anna in doing it was another. Katherine’s wellbeing went well beyond their relationship, though, and that was what she would need to focus on.
CHAPTER22
Anna’s chat with Rebecca the previous day was still playing on her mind as she woke. It had kept her awake until at least one o’clock in the morning, which was part of the reason she found herself dragging herself through to her dressing room. She slumped into her Chesterfield chair at the dressing table. Her fingers found their way to one of its many depressions and fiddled with the sunken buttons.
She didn’t need to get to Laura’s for another hour or so, and she’d already packed her bag for the weekend the previous night in the hope it would distract her. It hadn’t.
How was she going to raise the letter again without upsetting Katherine? Was there even a way to prevent her from getting upset? Unlikely. She couldn’t put it off forever, as much as she wanted to. It was another hurdle standing in the way of their happiness, and it needed to be jumped over, or most likely crashed through, if they were going to get on with their lives. Rebecca was right: It was an opportunity to heal, if Katherine could just find the courage.
She pulled open the top drawer to extract her brush, reminding her she needed to put it in her bag when she was finished with it. The box of beta blockers had moved again, or had opening the drawer simply caused it to move? Opening it revealed that more had gone. There were very few left in fact. She let out a breath, not realising she had been holding it.
The sound of Katherine unpacking the dishwasher in the kitchen below resonated through the floor. There was never going to be a right time to persuade Katherine to visit the man who had killed her wife and child, so surely now was as good as any before Anna lost her nerve completely.
She dressed, keeping it casual since she wasn’t going to work, packed the brush into her bag with a new packet of beta blockers, and took it downstairs. She placed it by the front door and headed to the kitchen, half-empty box of tablets in hand.
“Morning,” Katherine said through a mouthful of cereal. She smiled up at Anna, who let out an internal sigh, and returned her attention to her phone.
If Katherine was cheery, it was only going to be harder. Anna sighed softly and approached the work surface, her heart beginning to pound in her chest. She placed the packet of pills down in front of Katherine.
Katherine’s eyes moved from her phone to the box. She placed the spoon that she was about to put in her mouth back into the bowl.
Anna waited for some response.
Katherine pushed her stool back and carried her bowl over to the sink and placed it down. Her hands gripped the butler sink, and her frame stretched up as she inhaled deeply. “What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing… anything… everything? I don’t know. What I do know is I can’t live in the shadow of Helena.”
Katherine turned in a flash. “You don’t!”
“I don’t;wedo. I don’t want you to forget Helena, but I do want you to remember me. I’m here; she’s not. I know I said I understand why you don’t want to go to the prison, but I’m not sure I do. I can’t see why you don’t want to go when it could help you.”
“It sounds like you’ve been talking to Becks.”
Anna drew in her bottom lip and chewed at it. She cursed herself; it was enough to tell Katherine the truth.
“You have.” She nodded accusatorily. “You two have been conspiring behind my back, haven’t you?”
Anna folded her arms across her chest. “I called her, yes. I didn’t know what else to do when I realised you’d been stealing my pills.”
