I take the long way home, along the seafront. With the sea sparkling and the breeze lifting my hair, I wish I could wind back the clock to when the children were small and we used to spend almost every weekend at the beach. I wish more than anything that Will and Alice were here.
Sitting down on the wall, I watch two tots building a wonky sandcastle, their dad lying underneath the sand where he’s been buried. He isn’t letting on how uncomfortable that must be, sand hoppers jumping against his skin.
Fred used to be good at that stuff too—letting the kids jump on his stomach like a trampoline, or sit on his shoulders and hold his ears.
As Jam and I parted ways just now, she told me to just tell him—to take responsibility and not be a victim. She’s absolutely right. I want to take responsibility, but that means being the one to end things. And I want Fred to do that. I refuse to take the blame.
At some point, I’m probably going to have to though. I can’t remain sitting on a wall, watching families, seagulls, white horses, anything rather than going home to him.
I remember then that I said I’d see his parents today. Pulling my phone from my bag, I scroll through my contacts, ignoring Ellis as I pass her name. I wait as the call connects, banging my shoes against the wall, sand gently cascading. “Hi, Len. How are you?”
“Oh, hello, love.” My father-in-law sounds out of breath, fragile, my stomach churning guiltily. “Just mowing the lawn. How are you?”
“Good.” The lie makes me immensely sad. Len and Monique have been married for fifty-something years. How can they make it work, and we can’t?
I watch as a silver-haired man in rolled-up chinos passes by along the shore, a GD hanging from his arm, practically gliding along in a maxi dress. Coming toward them, the opposite way, is an almost identical match, right down to the clothes, height, and age differences. Aren’t they embarrassed—do they even realize or care?
“So, how was it?” Len asks. “Brutal?”
I nod, looking out to sea, a white yacht passing by. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“It’ll get easier, Gabby. I promise.”
The way he says this brings a lump to my throat. So gentle, tender, exactly how I wanted Fred to be yesterday. I kick the wall a little too hard with my heels, punishing myself for even thinking about hurting Len. He’s solid, decent. People like him are the furniture in families no one realizes they need, until they go to sit down and smack their tailbone.
“I’m sorry, Len, but I’m not going to be able to make it to see you today.” My voice wobbles. I clear my throat. “Hopefully next weekend?”
He’s not the type to drill me for a reason why. “Okay, love.”
And that’s it.
I continue my way along the front, and then at the end, when I can’t go any farther, I turn around and head slowly toward home. It’s time to face him. Chances are he’s not there anyway.
He isn’t. The house is hauntingly quiet. Yet, I notice as I make a cup of tea and take it out to my usual chair by the pool that I don’t feel as lonely now.
I’m halfway through my tea before it dawns on me that I could have deleted Ellis’s name from my contacts, yet didn’t. And it occurs to me then that she’s the reason why I no longer feel so alone.
No matter how close I am to my family, they wouldn’t understand this—my feelings about Fred—like she did. I didn’t have to explain, didn’t have to divulge the darkness in my past that led me here. I didn’t have to justify myself at all, at least I don’t think I did.
I also didn’t have to tell her that our house is the second most important thing in my life, after the kids. She just got it.
I try to picture her face, but can’t. It’s a blurry mix of Alice and Daisy Day. I hated Daisy for a long time. Yet, eventually Fred and I went to couples’ therapy and I was able to get past blaming her for ruining my life.
But him? I told myself I forgave him—told him that too. That’s the official line we went for, but sex was never the same again. It became a calendar event that I marked in pencil, so I could erase it if I felt like doing that, and often did.
I withheld sex whenever I wanted to, and he resented me for it. And in the meantime, we did the school run and went to work and had lunch with Len and Monique and bought a dog—lost a dog—and got grayer and softer and now we’re here.
There’s a noise out in the road and I look up to see the electric gates opening, Fred’s BMW appearing. I lift my hand in a stilted wave, feeling guilty, even though he’s the one pretending to play golf. But I’m the one with a woman’s name in my phone who knows I’d prefer him dead.
“All right, my love?” he says, approaching along the path. “How was lunch?”
This throws me. “How did you know I was going to lunch?”
He sets his golf bag on the decking, crouching to talk to me, grunting with the effort. “Don’t you remember?”
“What?”
He lifts my shades, looks into my eyes. “Must have been a rough night… You woke me last night, said you were going to lunch with Jam.”
“I did?”
“Yep.” He stands again, running his hand through his hair. He looks good today, in chinos and a pale pink polo. He looks like the Fred I once knew. “So, have you heard from Alice yet?”
“No. I was wondering about calling her.”
“Maybe let her settle in?” Lifting his bag, he swings it onto his shoulder, heading for the patio doors.
“Yes, you’re probably right,” I reply, wondering if all this is about to change—these seemingly casual conversations that are in fact priceless because we value each other’s opinion, knowing no one else cares about our kids as much as we do.
Of course it’s about to change. That’s why this is hard. It’s another loss at a time when I’m not sure I can face any more. Middle age isn’t about filling out, as people think, but thinning. My life’s contracting and I’m going to have to find ways of plumping it—making it seem full again, like blowing up a tire.
He’s passing through the open door, when he turns back, stops. “You said something strange last night.”
My heart skips a beat. “Oh?”
“Something about honey.”
Honey? As in trap?
Holy cow.
I can’t look at him. I watch the surface of the pool, a dragonfly skimming, dipping its wings. We used to get a lot of them when we first installed the pool, Will running around the edge with his butterfly net. I was always petrified he’d fall in. I was neurotic, obsessive back then—saw death in every drop of water.
“You know I’m allergic to honey,” Fred says, smiling.
“Oh, right. Yeah.” I pick up my tea, hoping he can’t see my cheeks burning.
He’s about to disappear when he pokes his head back out again, pointing both index fingers at me. “Fancy a fresh cup?”
I’ve not seen him do that for a long while. He used to point his fingers at social gatherings—a playful gesture that he never quite pulled off. It always made me feel a bit sad. He was handsome, charming, didn’t need to feel awkward.
I don’t want more tea, but can’t bring myself to tell him no. I know he regrets everything—wants company too, misses the wife who used to curl onto his lap and deep kiss him until his ears overheated.
“Yes, please,” I say, my mouth trembling a smile.
I well up for the hundredth time since Alice left, and then Fred returns with the tea and I brace myself in case he comes too close, touches me. Sometimes I use dripping washing-up gloves as a barrier, or the laundry basket, especially when full of Will’s pants. But I’ve been caught short on this occasion, a sitting target.
“There you go,” he says, setting a package on the table beside me, stooping to press a kiss onto my cheek, turning me to stone. “A little something for you.”
There’s so much to process here I can’t take it all in. “What is it?”
He rocks on his toes. “Open it and see.”
My hands are clammy, leaving marks—traces of guilt and fear. I pray it’s not jewelry. My reflection looms in the metallic packaging as I untie the ribbon, removing the lid.
“Pralines,” he says. “Your favorite. From the new deli in town.”
What new deli? I don’t know what my face is saying, but I’m confused. He never buys me chocolates. And the pointing fingers? Why the sudden awkwardness around me?
“Right,” he says, rubbing his hands together as though he’s just sealed a deal, and then he turns away, heading for the patio doors.
“Aren’t you having tea too?” I call after him, surprised.
“No. Had a pint at the club. Gonna take a quick shower.”
As the door slides shut, I put my hand to my heart, feeling it race, watching the steam rising from my tea. He chose the mommy mug that Alice bought me, which was right at the back of the cupboard.
I can’t do this anymore. I have to find a way to force him to make the first move, so I don’t lose my family in the bargain.
Only one person has offered to help me do that. Because it’s not a job for a best friend, or someone with any kind of moral code. There’s a reason why executioners made the victim wear a sack over their head before chopping it off. Or was it the other way round? Did the axman wear the mask?
I pull up the last message on my phone, pressing Reply.
It was great to meet you too.
Once it’s sent, I panic. Why did I do that? She knows my most twisted secrets. No good can come of this. I have to delete her from my phone.
Yet, my life feels less painful with her there in the background. And so I don’t.