Rachel

She’d slept with him. She’d crossed the line from friendship to adultery, from inappropriate-but-forgivable to outright unforgivable.

‘It was meant to be,’ Nico declared, lying on his side, naked. ‘We are meant to be. I knew from the moment we met.’

A motel room, mid-afternoon on a Saturday, curtains drawn: the definition of sordid. Nico’s young daughter was at a birthday party for a couple of hours. The clock had been ticking since the moment they’d checked in with the hard-faced receptionist.

‘Rachel, Rachel, what are you thinking?’ Nico murmured, his hazel eyes seeking hers.

She couldn’t confess what she was thinking. That the sex had been slightly disappointing. That whatever weird spell she’d been under had dissipated as she’d lain in the muted light, scratchy sheets under her back, her lover’s grunts and thrusts harsh jolts of reality.

What have I done? she asked herself silently. What the fuck have I done?

She had been seduced by his certainty that they were meant to be together, by his conviction that they were ‘unique’. The sex had been similar to his kisses: weird, intrinsically wrong. She should have listened to her instincts, not his.

‘Rachel, are you regretting this?’ Nico asked gravely, leaning on one arm to look down on her.

‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘Yes, I am.’ She shimmied to the side of the bed, gathered her clothes from the floor. ‘I’m going for a shower.’

The bathroom was as dated and miserable as the bedroom. Beige tiles, beige laminate vanity, frosted glass in the shower cubicle. Rachel used the complimentary shower gel to cleanse Nico’s touch and sperm from her skin. She lathered her breasts, the tips of her fingers gauging the scar from her surgery and the missing tissue and lymph nodes. The shower gel was cheap and stung her skin, or perhaps the stinging sensation was because the water was too hot. Maybe it was shame, scratchy, uncomfortable shame.

What the fuck have I done?

By the time Rachel came out of the shower, she knew three things. Rory was a better lover than Nico (so much for Frenchmen being great in bed!). Today – this sordid motel room and the not-worth-it sex – marked the end of her and Nico. And Amy was right: the chemo must have killed her brain cells as well as her cancer
cells.

Rachel dried herself roughly and got dressed, her T-shirt sticking to a wet patch between her uneven breasts. She put on her wig and took a moment to regard herself in the mirror. Rachel Sullivan: cancer survivor. Rachel Sullivan: adulterer. Rachel Sullivan: wife and mother who had made a terrible misjudgement. Her face was pink with a combination of heat and guilt. Hopefully, Rory and the kids wouldn’t notice anything untoward when she got home from her ‘walk’.

She pushed back her shoulders, took a deep breath of steamy air, and opened the bathroom door.

‘It’s over, Nico,’ she declared. ‘This was a mistake.’

~

Life was Saturday-afternoon normal when Rachel got home. Emmet and Bridie were presumably in their rooms, where they’d spent the majority of the two-week break from school. Rory was out the back, washing down the deck, getting it ready for summer. This, in addition to the gardening earlier today. Rachel spent a few moments at the kitchen window watching him, her gentle-hearted, hardworking, oblivious husband. He was wearing an old T-shirt and shorts, his arms and legs sinewy and tanned. His eyes were concentrated on the broom as he scrubbed it back and forth on the wood, making sure that the special cleaning solution was liberally applied. As Rachel stared at her husband, she tried to resurrect some of the old attraction, the old tenderness, the old love. The only thing she felt was pity.

She turned to go upstairs, seeking tenderness and love from her children instead. She knocked on Emmet’s door first, opened it a crack without waiting for him to answer. An unmade bed, a lingering smell of male teen, but no sign of her boy. Well, that was a nice change. Her son had spent the last two weeks cooped up in his room playing music, sketching, watching videos. He hadn’t seen his friends, as far as Rachel was aware. She assumed that sides had been taken following the fight. She also assumed that the rift was short-term, that the appropriate apologies would be duly issued, and the boys would put it behind them. Fitz would understand that perving on his friend’s younger sister was out of order. Unfortunately, the school principal hadn’t seen it that way. Rachel’s meeting with Mr Norris hadn’t changed the outcome of Emmet’s two-day suspension or Bridie’s detention. The meeting had been a waste of time, just as the children had warned it would be.

She tried Bridie next. A knock, a head stuck tentatively around the door. Her pyjama-clad daughter was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, watching something on her laptop.

Bridie clicked pause, and smiled with a warmth that made Rachel’s heart constrict with love. ‘Hi, Mum. How was your walk?’

Flashes of the dingy motel room, Nico’s glaring nakedness, the scalding shower.

She blinked. ‘Lovely, thanks. It’s such a beautiful afternoon. Any plans on getting dressed and breathing in some fresh air?’

Bridie shrugged, noncommittal. She hadn’t seen any schoolfriends over the holidays either. Rachel suspected that the situation wasn’t as short-term as Emmet’s. Lily Pearson was a very intense girl. She’d been fully devoted to Bridie, but now was obviously fully devoted to her boyfriend; Lily didn’t do things by halves. Not the first time in history that an incoming boyfriend had ousted a loyal friend. The problem was, Bridie had no other friends to fill the void, and her shyness meant that future friendships would take time to form.

‘You know what, love? I have a craving for sushi. How about we head down to the mall and treat ourselves?’

Bridie grinned and nodded. Her love of sushi was incentive enough to make the effort to get dressed.

‘Be ready in fifteen minutes.’ Rachel closed the door softly. Poor Bridie. Being ditched by a close friend was more devastating than being ditched by a boy, especially at this age, when boy–girl relationships had none of the intensity or history that you shared with your BFF.

Rachel swapped her ‘walking’ clothes for jeans and a white linen shirt. Lip gloss, a touch-up of her pencilled-in eyebrows, and a generous spray of perfume; she was ready with five minutes to spare.

She sat down on her bed, her phone in her hand. She’d been avoiding Amy the last few weeks, letting her calls ring out and sending short responses to her long texts. She regretted telling her about Nico. There was resentment too, that Amy hadn’t been more supportive, or asked the probing questions a good friend should have asked: Why have you fallen out of love with your husband? What is it about Nico that makes you feel alive? Maybe if Amy had asked more questions and listened to the answers, instead of handing down judgement and harassing Rachel, the sordid hotel scene could have been avoided.

She shook her head. Now she was close to blaming Amy for the affair, which was ridiculous and undeserved. I am to blame. Whatever it was – a subconscious item on my bucket list, a crazy desire to test the boundaries, or a genuinely deep attraction that subsequently waned – it’s on me.

She decided to send Amy a text to let her know that she didn’t need to concern herself anymore. She also decided that she would never admit to Amy that she’d slept with Nico, never admit to the seedy motel, the immediate anticlimax and self-reckoning, the abrupt manner in which she’d ended it, his shock and distress or her own guilt and shame. Amy had a history of being indiscreet, of dropping heavy hints, especially after a few drinks. The less Amy knew the better.

It’s over. I’ve come to my senses. Sorry for being such an idiot.

Rachel pressed send. Damage mitigation was important in friendships. Bridie and Emmet would learn that one day.