I take a hot shower in a futile attempt to wash my poisoned mind clean, but the tears keep coming. As I close my eyes, my mind instantly races ahead, questioning, accusing, though of what I don’t know. I will my brain to shut down, just for a minute, so I can have a moment of peace and quiet. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t control the rattling in my head. It feels as if a dark secret is thrashing around in a cage, banging at the bars, desperate to get out. So much for the mindfulness techniques I’ve learned during yoga these past few months.
Beth and I had suppressed our laughter as Monica, our spiritual guru, passed around the class and placed her fingertips to our temples, chanting in a meditative state.
“What good is that ever going to do?” laughed Beth as we had coffee afterward.
She was more into the blood, sweat, and tears of the gym, preferring a fifty-minute boot camp session to anything remotely holistic. I had to agree that I saw little benefit in lying in a dark room, humming and having my eyelids rubbed. Yet as the weeks went on, I found myself looking forward to the end of the sessions, relishing the prospect of Monica breathing in and out with me, her soothing voice helping me transcend into another universe, just for a moment, or at least until Beth’s stifled cackle penetrated the quiet, mystical mood.
I don’t know whether to be thankful or not when I receive a text from Nathan telling me that he’s going to pop into the office for a couple of hours. It certainly gives me more time to get my head together, for although I may look just the same as when he left, so much has changed. Yet it also allows my mind to wander and meander, dwelling on where he’s really going, and acknowledging how this thought will now be my immediate go-to whenever he leaves the house. For the first time, my anxiety isn’t caused by the fear of something happening to him. This new feeling is more oppressive, more claustrophobic.
I desperately claw at the possibility that he’s going to her; to tell her that I’m getting suspicious; that what they have needs to stop before anyone gets hurt. But what if my aroused suspicions push him the other way? Make him see that it’s now or never. Give him the strength to tell me that he’s met someone else and he’s leaving. Will he feel relieved when it’s all out in the open? Free to lead the life he clearly wants to lead. Or will I beg him to stay? Believing that an unfaithful husband and father is better than not having one at all.
My mind flashes back to the “Girls Night In” that Beth and I had enjoyed at the Berkeley hotel in town a couple of months ago. We’d laid on the bed in our face masks, helping ourselves to the mountain of chocolate freely supplied, as we watched a chick flick; The Other Woman.
“What would you do if Nathan was cheating on you?” she’d asked, as room service knocked on the door with what looked like a lifetime’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s.
I’d rolled a Malteser around in my mouth. “Can we define cheating?” I’d mumbled.
“What’s your definition?” she asked as she brazenly answered the door, mud pack and all.
The man didn’t bat an eyelid.
“Well, everything,” I said. “From a kiss to the full shebang.”
“Okay, so if he kissed someone, what would you do?”
“Once?” I asked, for clarification.
“Does it matter?”
“Well, if it was a drunken slip-up, I’d be more likely to be able to see past it,” I said, matter-of-factly. “But if it was more than once, or God forbid, more than once with the same person, then we’d have a bit of an issue on our hands.”
“So, if he had sex with a prostitute once, and kissed the same girl three times, what would you be less likely to forgive?” she asked, playing devil’s advocate.
“Definitely the kiss,” I said, feeling slightly nauseous at the sight of her spooning Cookie Dough ice cream into her mouth. “Are you honestly going to eat all of that?”
She’d looked around our luxuriously decorated room. “Well, in the absence of a freezer, I might have to,” she laughed.
“I think there would be a lot to talk about if he had a one-night stand with anyone, but if it happened more than once, then that would imply that there’s a whole other level to it. I wouldn’t be able to get past him having a relationship. If he had an emotional connection with someone, then he’d be out on his ear.”
“No questions?” she asked.
“Absolutely not. It would haunt me—wondering if he was thinking about her every time we were together. Every row we had, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from bringing it up, and every time he walked out the door, I’d think he was going to her. It would destroy us.”
“Are you about to destroy us?” I ask, out loud, as I look at Nathan’s text message again.
Have you got time to pop in? I text Beth, all too aware that she may not give me a get-out clause from the adamant resolution I’d made when I thought it was just a hypothetical conversation.
I can’t, sorry, she texts back.
Me: I could really do with speaking to you, just for a minute. It’s about Nathan
I wait for what seems an eternity for her to reply. Is he home? she texts.
Me: No
Beth: Okay, I can’t stop for long
Half an hour later she’s at the door with a worried, furtive look on her face.
“Hey,” she says. “You okay?”
It’s a simple turn of phrase and one that she’s probably expecting nothing more than a yes to. But the tears come as soon as I see her.
“No,” I blurt out. “No, I’m not.”
She ushers the girls in and sets them up in front of the TV.
“Oh Alice, what on earth’s wrong?” she says as she comes toward me, taking me in her arms. I’m oddly comforted by the warm, familiar smell of my dear friend. “What’s happened?”
“I just…” I start. “I … it’s just that Nathan…”
There’s a sharp intake of breath, but I’m not sure if it’s from me or her. “Oh my God, is he okay?” she asks, as she no doubt wonders if history has repeated itself.
“Yes … yes, it’s just…”
“Where is he?” she asks.
“He’s gone into the office, but I … I think he’s having an affair.”
She holds me at arm’s length. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I shake my head as she pulls me into her again.
I tell her about the earring, bouquet, and hotel bill, hoping that saying it out loud will somehow make my suspicions implausible, though it only serves to confirm them.
“Jesus,” says Beth, as she falls back onto the dining chair she’s sitting on.
“It’s not looking good, is it?”
She grimaces. “Look, I know I’ve not met Nathan, but I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. There may be a perfectly good explanation for all this. Only you know him well enough to say, hand on your heart, that something might be going on. They say a woman instinctively knows when her other half is up to no good, but hey, look at me—I didn’t have a bloody clue.” She smiles to try and lighten the mood. “What’s your gut feeling? Has he got it in him?”
“Hasn’t every man?” The words are no sooner on my lips than they’re being furiously brushed aside by the thought of Tom. Not every man. Not Tom. “I didn’t think so,” I add. “This time last week, I’d be happy to bet my life on it, but now…”
“Has nothing like this ever presented itself before?” she asks.
I shake my head vehemently.
“Was he with someone else when you first met?”
I think back to that day; our coming together, like most things in life, being entirely dependent on a “sliding doors” moment. If the sun hadn’t been shining. If I hadn’t been sat on a bench in the hospital grounds. If I hadn’t been frustrated about being held against my will in a place that looked after people unlike me. Then perhaps I wouldn’t have been open to the idea of talking to a stranger.
But that day, for whatever reason, I turned at the sound of crunching gravel on the drive and watched as a man, dressed in a well-tailored suit, got out of a sleek Mercedes. He laid his jacket on the back seat and reached in for his briefcase. In that simple action, I was reminded that there was still a world going on out there. Without me in it.
I imagined him having just come from meeting important clients. Perhaps he’d won their business and was still flush from the thrill of it. My stomach lurched at the memory of how that felt; the adrenaline that rushed through my veins whenever AT Designs won a pitch. I closed my eyes and pictured the scene, wishing, more than anything, that I was in his day, rather than him being in mine.
It was a turning point for me. For the first time since losing Tom three months earlier, I wanted to be out there, living the life I still had to live. The sudden realization shocked me.
I didn’t think the man would ever know the part he played in breathing air into my deflated lungs. Not until he came through the day room and out onto the terrace, shielding his eyes as the low sun sliced across his vision.
“If you take a seat here, I’ll just go and see if Mr. Miller is up to seeing you,” said Eileen, the only staff member who bent the visiting hour rules.
By the time she came back out to say Mr. Miller was sleeping, the man in the suit and I were exchanging pleasantries.
“Thanks, I’ll wait,” he said to Eileen. “I’m Nathan, by the way,” he said to me, extending his hand.
And that was it. We’d talked until the sun had gone down that day; about his life outside the hospital and mine on the inside. I can’t remember whether that was when he told me that he was going through a messy split, or whether that came later. It had felt like we talked about anything and everything. Poor Mr. Miller didn’t ever get to see his visitor.
“I think it was over by the time we met,” I say, in answer to Beth’s question.
“You think?” she asks. “Wouldn’t you know whether your new boyfriend was still with someone?”
“Well, our early days weren’t very clear cut. I wasn’t my normal self and wanted to take things slowly. He was working away a lot, which suited me at the time, but now, come to think of it, perhaps he was still tying up loose ends with her.”
“So, he cheated on her with you?”
I’m taken aback at her accusatory tone. “No, it wasn’t like that. They’d split up—I’m sure they had.”
She raises her eyebrows. “It doesn’t make you seem like a great advocate for the sisterhood, does it?”
Didn’t it? I’d never thought of it in that way. Had I blatantly ignored the silent code of conduct in my desperation to feel wanted and needed?
“No,” I say, shaking my head, denying the implication. “He’s not that kind of man, at least … I didn’t think he was.”
“Once a cheater, always a cheater, is all I’m saying. A leopard never changes its spots, it just creates a smokescreen for them.”
“So, you think everything is pointing to him having an affair?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
She grimaces. “There may be a perfectly understandable explanation, but…”
“So, what should I do?” I ask.
“Just keep looking for clues,” she says. “Check his phone, his emails, anything that might incriminate him.”
“Isn’t that crossing a line?”
She looks at me aghast. “So, let me get this right. He gets to sleep with anyone he wants, and yet you’re not even allowed to look at his phone? There’s something of a double standard going on here.”
I feel too foolish to even respond.
“Just carry on with what you’re doing,” she continues. “Check social media for any accounts that he might have set up. Keep an eye on the credit card bill. Find out whatever you can and when you’re sure of the facts, front him up with it.”
I nod.
“What are you going to do if your worst fears are confirmed?” she says.
My face crumples, but I refuse to cry. “My head says leave, but my heart…”
She puts her hand on mine. “You’ve got to think of the girls,” she says.
“That’s exactly the problem. They would be the only reason I’d stay.”
She looks at me, her brow furrowed.
“I can’t let them down again,” I say in answer. “Sophia has already lost one father, the fallout of which she’ll always blame me for in some way. I can’t be the reason for it happening again.”
“You’re not the reason,” she says, “he is.” Her voice is loud and clipped and I put a finger to my lips to remind her of Olivia and Millie’s close proximity.
“I will not be responsible for taking them away from their father,” I say, my tone suddenly authoritative. “I will do everything in my power to make my marriage work before I allow him to walk away.”
“Jeez,” she says, puffing out her cheeks. “You’re a more forgiving woman than I’d ever be.”
“Do you want a drink?” I ask.
“I’ll have a coffee if you’re making one.”
“I was thinking of something stronger.”
“It’s only three thirty,” she says, looking at her watch. “What time is Nathan likely to be back?”
“Probably any time now.”
“I’d better get going then,” she says. “It’s not going to take a rocket scientist to work out what’s going on if he walks into this.”
“Thanks for coming over,” I say, hugging her at the door.
“I’m here if you need me,” she says, before dragging a reluctant Millie down the path.
They bump into Sophia on the sidewalk and say a cheery hello and goodbye. “You look like crap,” she says when she reaches me. “What’s up?”
If that’s her way of showing she cares, I’ll take it right now.
“I just haven’t got any makeup on,” I say, as she alternates between looking at me and the phone in her hand. “And I’d really prefer it if you didn’t use that kind of language. You’re at home now—you’re not with your mates.”
“Soz,” she says, and I roll my eyes in exasperation at her inability to use complete words.
Her phone rings and she looks at me half apologetically as she answers it.
“Hiya,” she says with a smile. “It’s Nathan,” she mouths.
I can’t stop my features from hardening.
“He’s asking if we want to meet him at the Cuckoo Club, near the office, for something to eat.”
I know exactly where it is. Does he think I’m stupid? Does he think that him asking us to meet him there verifies his whereabouts for the previous three hours? Is he using Sophia to test what mood I’m in?
I look at my watch. “It’s getting late,” I say. “I’d rather do dinner here.” The thought of forced joviality, pretending to anyone looking on that all is well, is just not in my remit right now.
“Okay,” she nods. “Yep, I’ll tell her.” She turns to me. “He’s on his way home, says we can have a barbecue if you fancy.”
No, is what I think. “Okay then,” is what I say.
Just a few days ago, I’d have proudly told anyone who asked that my stomach still did butterflies every time I heard Nathan’s key in the front door. Now, I wait here, dreading it. How the hell did this happen?
I can’t carry this burden with me into another day. It’s eating away at my insides.