The kitchen feels uncomfortably small with Max Waters in it. He's not showy or overbearing, but he's got the kind of charisma that oozes out even when he's doing absolutely nothing.

I stand at the sink, filling up a saucepan with water.

This is surreal. I've spent time around famous people before, but it was fifteen years ago and on film sets and studio lots, not in my kitchen.

"What's that for?" he asks, pointing at the pan.

"Tea."

"I thought people used kettles?"

Smiling, I light the gas, put the water on to boil, and lean back against the sideboard. "Where have you been?" I tease. "And when was the last time you made your own cup of tea, anyway?"

"I make them all the time. Always with a kettle. I'll have to talk to Annie about equipping this place properly for her guests."

I shrug. "I like it. I always think we use too many gadgets, anyway. Simplicity is liberating."

My comment earns a Max Waters under the spotlight stare. Intense. So intense I feel my face heating up again, and my hands growing shaky. I struggle to find something to distract him.

"What's it like having people know who you are where ever you go?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.

"You didn't."

"In my defense, you were wearing sunglasses and a hat. They're a very effective disguise."

"But then I took them off."

That's right. And everything vanished. All I saw were his translucent, incredible eyes. He seemed so familiar, I thought I must know him in some other realm. I did. It's called Hollywood.

"I was distracted," I say, reaching into the cupboard for mugs, grateful that people cannot read minds. "Your driving is atrocious."

"You were so distracted you couldn't recognize someone famous?"

"Yeah, it's a condition." I pop down the mugs and shake my hand at my head to imply that something up top isn't functioning properly.

"Hope it doesn't happen with your kids."

"Not so far. But if it makes you feel better, you're looking at a woman who has no idea what's going on in the world. I don't watch the news. I'm not disaster-avoidant, but French news is irritating, and I don't see the point in following catastrophes you're powerless to change. As for social media, I just find it depressing. Can't see the appeal."

"So what do you do with all that not-watching-screen time?"

My smile suddenly feels awkward, like it's sticking to my lips. "Good question."

"You paint," he prompts.

"I do," I confirm, forcing myself not to say anything derogatory about how well I paint. Let other people judge, the artist's job is to produce the art. After a moment's hesitation, I add, "I also write. Takes up a lot of time."

I don't want to talk about the scripts but if I don't give the subject a vague mention, it'll be hard to be explain what I do all day. "And there are the kids. Kids are a black-hole as far as time's concerned." I take the pan of boiling water from the stove and fill up the mugs. "You blink and years have whooshed past."

As I reach for the fridge, a sudden weight presses on my chest. My hand hesitates before I grab the milk. Keeping my back to Max, I pour the carton slowly, then wrap my palms around a mug, letting the warmth soak into my skin. The feeling of wishing to go back to the kids' early years passes, and I breathe deeply, focusing on the present.

"Do you ever wonder what your life might look like today," Max asks, "if you hadn't married your ex?"

"Sometimes," I say, squeezing the tea bags and popping them in the bin. Hell, that's a lie. I'd thought about it even when I was married. And now? Far more often than was probably healthy. "It would be pretty different," I say, passing Max a mug and then picking up my own. The dimpled texture of the ceramic and the leaching heat are reassuring. "What about you? Ever wonder what your life might look like if you didn't get into acting?"

He smiles, but the sparkle doesn't reach his eyes. "More often than I'd like at the moment."

"What would you be doing?"

"Originally, I wanted to be an architect. Studied for it at university. Worked in an architectural firm for a few years. Then there was the 2008 crisis and the company I was with closed. A friend of mine was doing extra work and acting. He got me on an agent's books. It was supposed to be temporary. But I kept getting jobs, and the jobs got bigger. And then I got addicted."

I nod, blowing on my tea. "Makes me wonder if I'm wasting my time with writing," I say lightly, though the thought has crossed my mind a hundred times.

"Why?"

"Because maybe things aren't meant to be so hard. Maybe if it's what you're supposed to do, it happens without so much struggle."

"Hmm." Max sips his tea, eyebrows drawing together as he considers my point. "I don't think we're supposed to do anything. I wasn't supposed to become an actor. It was just the easiest path through the woods."

"And some paths lead to swamps and others to castles," I say, smiling, though if that's true, it seems rather unfair.

He looks at me, and for a moment I forget that he's famous and engaged. We're just two people talking. "Why do you write?" he asks.

"Because I can't stop."

He nods as though I've proved his point.

"Except for when I get writer's block."

There's a long pause, where we both drink tea. I don't know what he's thinking. But to me there's something precious about the silence. Claude Debussy said, 'Music is in the space between the notes,' and right at this moment, I get it. This conversation with Max seems to be as much about what we're not saying in the spaces as what we're both saying.

"I'm going to have to have a word with Annie," he says, putting down his half-finished mug.

A whoosh of heat swoops across me as he gets too close. I am acutely aware of where his arm is and how near he's standing. He seems confused by the lack of a dishwasher and ends up placing his mug in the sink.

"That was the worst cup of tea I've ever had."

"Those tea bags weren't with the rental," I say. "I bought them yesterday."

'Oh.' Instead of looking embarrassed, he seems amused.

"Your sister," I go on, "actually left me a couple of proper PG Tips teabags, but between last night and this morning, I'm afraid they've been used."

"I stand by my verdict. That was a terrible cup of tea. Might also have something to do with the kettle situation or the weird French milk. Are you going to be all right? Annie said you're staying till the end of the summer. That's a lot of time without any decent tea."

"I've been in France for nearly seventeen years. I think I'll survive."

***

After Max has gone, the cottage feels empty. I unpack the memento box, selecting a couple of Mother's Day Cards, sewn birthday gifts, and my favorite framed photos of Ellie and Josh to bring my children into the space. The rest I squash into a small cupboard under the stairs. My enormous suitcase is too heavy to carry to the first floor, so I make several trips with my clothes, carting up piles and arranging them in the available cupboards.

Eventually, I jump back into the shower and finish rinsing my hair. Then I blow dry it to add shape and volume. Max might never know what I look like when I haven't been caught breaking down in the rain or running around town desperate to recover my belongings, but it makes me feel better.

Afterwards, I spend a few minutes sifting through my summer clothes and picking something to wear.

When I first met Pierre, my utter lack of French chic was a problem he thought needed fixing. One weekend, a couple of months into our relationship, we were sitting in a cafe when he told me he wanted me to dress better. I had just tried to broach our communication issues. He had a habit of shutting down, and I couldn't figure out what brought it on, or why he stopped talking to me.

"Sometimes," I said, tentatively, reaching across the table to take his hand, "I have no idea if you're upset with me, or distracted, or stressed with work. I'd like you to communicate more."

He'd looked up from the fried eggs and bacon that he'd been shoveling into his mouth like he hadn't eaten for a week. "And I'd like you to pay more attention to how you dress."

I was wearing a white v-neck t-shirt and a pair of women's beige chinos. I'd actually put some thought into it and not worn my usual jeans. Offended and shocked by his comment, I couldn't respond. I was trying to address the foundations of a good relationship and he was talking fashion. Besides, the simple, casual way I dressed was a direct reflection of who I was. If he didn't like it, why had he proposed after only knowing me for one month?

But that was how Pierre twisted everything we needed to work on as a couple to something I needed to change. Redirection. It doesn't take long before you learn to stop speaking up. More than that, you begin to twist everything in on yourself. For the majority of our marriage, I was flying solo in our relationship to keep it going. If the course we were on needed correcting so that we didn't break apart, I did all the maneuvering.

But when Pierre forgot my fortieth birthday, it dawned on me that no matter how much I gave, there would never come a time when it would be enough. The abandoned child in him wasn't going to heal. He needed me to orbit around him. The deal was, he would work hard and earn the money, and I would be standing in the wings, ready to look after him when he decided it was time to come home.

When I finally stopped being afraid of what life might look like without him, and began moving on my own trajectory, he tried the usual tactics to put me back in my place. Anger, guilt, victimization. He would venture down late on a Saturday morning and give me the irritated 'writing again?' look. And because I didn't drop everything to make him coffee, and talk to him, he would bang about the kitchen, complaining about the state of everything. His most frequent question became,

"How long until you finish the script?"

I suppose I hoped he would alter his course a bit for us to find a middle ground. But I knew the risk I was taking. By now I'd got to grips with the man I'd married.

We began growing apart. I waited and gave him space. He didn't come and find me. Instead, he joined Tinder, a dating app I'd never heard of, and found a mistress, and a passion for sexting. And that was my answer. Do you love me enough to do something that doesn't suit your needs, to meet mine? An abrasively loud 'no'.

Even today, Pierre feels the infidelity and deceit are as much my fault as they are his. If I could just admit that I'd stopped paying him attention, we could fix it all, and go back to how we were. But some things aren't meant to be rebuilt. Now there's only the rubble of what once stood proudly at the center of everything, rubble waiting to be sorted and cleared away. And who would try to make something out of that?