“It’s understandable. Do you want to go and check on her?” Her voice softens. “If it helps settle your conscience, go. I won’t be offended.”
Her suggestion sends a shiver down my spine. A sudden act of kindness, when I felt I only deserved scorn. The two women are like day and night. Abigail remains grounded in reality. Amy always wants the dream.
“Thank you, but no. I’ll call Ben and ask him to check on her later.”
Abigail nods, accepting what I’ve said.
“I think I might take a walk. Do you mind?” She smiles softly and shakes her head.
“Of course not. We’ll be fine, won’t we, my little angel?” she murmurs to our son, Bailey, pressing a kiss onto his forehead. “Daddy needs to get some fresh air. We’ll be here when he gets back.”
“Thank you,” I say, then bundle myself into my winter coat before heading out onto the wet London streets.
The city feels ominous tonight. Tires splash through puddles as my feet automatically move toward the bus stop. It’s a twenty-minute journey to the place I go every week just to catch a glimpse of her.
The new apartment she’s living in is swanky, well above anything we could ever have afforded together. Often, I stand on the opposite side of the street and gaze up at the building she disappears into, not knowing which apartment is hers. I only know the address because Ben let it slip one afternoon after a few too many beers. Since then, it’s been a regular haunt for me.
Pulling my hood up over my head, I jump off at the stop a short walk from her road. The chances of me seeing her are slight. I normally time my visits to coincide with her returning from the gym.
By hiding behind the huge oak tree adjacent to her front door, I can get an uninterrupted view of her walking up the street from the underground. She almost always is rummaging in her bag for her keys, which buys me a few more seconds of precious viewing.
The news that she’s selling the gym is depressing. She’ll be devastated, and there’s fuck all I can do to support her. Not being her person seems completely alien to me, but having contact isn’t possible. I can’t trust myself, and I doubt she’d want to speak to me.
Today, I’m almost certain she’ll be inside, unless I read the conversation on the phone wrong. But I heard the telltale intake of breath she has before her tears fall. Being here feels as though I’m giving her some sort of silent comfort, even if she doesn’t know.
Abigail and I have created a satisfactory home. The word satisfactory may seem cold and detached when describing what we have, but neither of us are fooled by the situation. We’re friends. I’m lucky that our relationship has turned out to be an enjoyable one, but it has not developed beyond that.
Our sex life, if you can call it that, stopped immediately after she received a positive result on the little blue stick. Up tothat point, it had been regimented and managed to ensure the quickest possible success in conception.
We charted cycles, body temperature, and dates to ensure that when we came together, our chances were the best they could be. The result was a positive test on the second month of trying. After which, we retreated to our own rooms and morphed into flatmates, now friends.
I’ve discovered through our conversations that she was once in love, but the relationship had no long-term future. He was in his fifties when she was in her twenties—a friend of her father, she said. After hanging around for years, hoping he would leave his wife for her, she’d run out of time to find her own soulmate. The possibility of love and contentment disappeared with the days.
We’ve talked at length about how our lives will look moving forward. To the outside world, we will present ourselves as a couple, and in a lot of respects, we will be. All our finances and personal risk are absolved by the meticulous contracts we signed before agreeing to go ahead and create Bailey. Neither of us is at risk of the other leaving with it all, including our son. It has all been very civil and organized.
In the weeks before Bailey was born, doubts infiltrated my mind that I’d made the wrong decision. Was having a child really worth losing the love of my life? Those nights were the worst, lying awake in the dark, imagining Amy’s laugh in a home that no longer existed.
When Abigail and I had been trying for a baby, we were so focused on the end result, I didn’t consider the emotion intertwined. Then, once she was pregnant, our time was taken up with appointments and preparation. It was only when we were two weeks out from her due date, with the nursery ready and all going well, that the insecurities appeared.
However, when I held my son in my arms, all those questions evaporated, and I knew this was where I was meant to be. I was meant to be a father.
The rain falls harder with each minute that passes, and I press my body up against the rough bark to shelter under the deep foliage above. As I glance up, a middle floor apartment window opens, and Amy comes into view.
She places her hands on the windowsill and leans out into the fresh air. I watch as the water soaks her blonde locks, which immediately stick to her face. She stands for a few minutes, leaning forward, allowing herself to be pelted by Mother Nature.
Her eyes are closed, then she tilts her face toward the sky. I wonder if she’s silently trying to speak to her sister?it’s a gesture I’ve seen her do before. Her head then bows, and she tilts her chin into her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. After a moment, she retreats, closing the window as she departs.
The need to protect her, that I’ve buried since I left, reappears with force. Even when she’s drowning, Amy still reaches for the light. And heaven help, I still want to be the one to pull her out.
I pull my phone from my pocket. The only person I trust to ensure her wellbeing is Ben. The call rings out and diverts to voicemail. I disconnect and try again. He picks up on the third ring.
“Terry,” he says in greeting. I’m surprised, as normally he doesn’t look at the caller ID and answers in his professional capacity.
“Hey,” I respond, “can you do me a favor?”
“Normally, it’s etiquette to have a polite amount of chitchat before requesting someone’s aid,” he says, snarky. Honestly, he can be such an ass when he wants to be.
Maybe that’s the result of having four teenage children: you spend your days looking for poor bastards to take your miserable situation out on.
