Chapter 109
Savannah
Last week
Savannah looked down at her phone, then up at the front door as the bell rang a second time.
Who on earth was calling now? Someone else ready to attack her for no good reason?
Once bitten, twice shy: she wasn’t going to open the door so easily again.
She moved quietly further into the hall and craned her neck, but she couldn’t see much now that she’d closed the blind on the hall window, leaving only a slice of daylight down near the floor.
Silently, she slipped upstairs to look down from her bedroom window.
A man this time, someone she’d never seen before, though it was hard to tell from up high.
Then she noticed he was carrying a Brown Thomas bag.
Had she ordered anything from Brown Thomas?
She didn’t think so, but she didn’t always keep track of what she ordered online, especially after a few glasses of wine.
The sequined leggings she’d bought during the first lockdown Christmas sprang to mind.
A little fizz of excitement bubbled up now—the same fizz she always felt when packages arrived.
Even—it turns out—on days when she’s been slapped by strangers and discovered her boyfriend is married.
As she dropped the blind, the rose-gold bangle clinked against her watch and, on autopilot, she pushed it up her forearm.
Then caught herself. What was she doing?
That meaningless inscription. The effort she’d gone to, replacing it when she’d lost it.
Getting the same words inscribed, so Jon would never know.
And what did he care? She wasn’t the love of his life; she was the bit on the side.
As she passed the bathroom to go downstairs, she flung the bangle into the bin. Time to move on.
She skipped back down the stairs, happier now with the dopamine hit an impending delivery always brought.
At the bottom of the stairs, she stepped toward the front door, not noticing the puddle of rum still on the floor since last night.
Her silver ballet pumps—new, not yet broken in, smooth and slippy—slid out from under her, and she landed flat on her back, her head cracking against the corner of the radiator on the way down.
· · ·
Outside, the man waited, then rang the doorbell a third time. Still no answer. He checked his phone, clicking into the Adverts app. That’s when he realized his mistake. The person taking his bag of old CDs was at 36 Oakpark, not 26. He was at the wrong house. He turned and walked away.