He called her himself the next morning and asked to have lunch with her that day. He had stayed at Pattie’s the night before, so he hadn’t called her. He couldn’t. The kids had gone to their father’s for the night, and Pattie had threatened Ted with suicide again, and then made love to him as never before. The sex just got better and better, but there was something so intense and frantic about it that sometimes it frightened him. The hook she used to keep him close to her was sex. It was addictive, but the threat she had made the night before woke him up. He never wanted to have her suicide on his hands. And she sounded like she meant it. She had said it several times. Ted looked somber when he met Annie at Bread, which she knew he liked. And when Annie saw him walk toward her, her heart ached for him. He didn’t have to say a word to her. She could see that he was in way, way over his head, and he knew it whether he admitted it to her or not. Annie was worried sick about him.
