‘Sometimes it’s good to release a bit of excess energy.’
‘What’s going on?’ Josie asked, squeezing past their son to reach the fridge.
‘Dad’s being weird.’ James picked up a hand-held games console from the kitchen table and shuffled out of the room.
‘How are you being weird?’
‘The kids think anyone over the age of eight is weird.’
Josie stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her forehead upon his neck. ‘What time do you have to leave in the morning?’
‘I’ve set the alarm for five-thirty. The car is charged and the roads should be quiet.’
‘Do you still think you’ll be able to take a couple of days off work for our anniversary?’
‘Yes, I don’t see why not,’ he nodded. ‘I have meetings in London earlier that week but after that should be okay.’
One of the many things Sam had failed to mention to his second wife was that while he was in the capital, he would be celebrating his tenth anniversary to his first spouse. Throughout almost a decade, he had learned simplicity, not elaborate lies, was the secret to maintaining two families who were completely oblivious to one another. It was why, when Josie gave birth to a daughter a year after Heidi had done the same, he insisted they name her after his late sister. His sister wasn’t dead, nor was she called Beccy. But his daughter with Heidi was called Beccy.
And when, by chance, he and Josie’s second child was a boy like his and Heidi’s, baby James inherited the name of his half-brother. Sam knew that if he kept both family set-ups as identical as possible, his chances of making mistakes were reduced. It didn’t stop the occasional errors from slipping through the net, like calling his first wife by his second wife’s name.
It was two days after he and Heidi had returned from their honeymoon when the results of his Match Your DNA test arrived by email. Sam had taken the test long before he’d met and fallen in love with Heidi the traditional way and before the security breach that almost destroyed the company’s reputation. And by the time he’d received a notification to say he and Heidi were not genetically made for one another, they were already married.
However, as content as he felt with his new bride, Sam could not rid himself of a nagging doubt – who was the greater love waiting for him out there? After much to-ing and fro-ing, he reasoned it would do no harm to find out and requested the details of his Match.
Within minutes of meeting near her home in Sheffield, some two hundred miles from his in Luton, Sam knew that Josie was the one. It was more than love at first sight, the intensity of what he felt for her was multiplied countless times. He likened it to a thousand small, but pleasurable, explosions going off in his body all at once. And he knew he was in trouble.
On appearance alone, Josie was a dead ringer for Heidi. But when it came to their personalities, they were worlds apart. Josie was homely, sweet-natured and gave him her undivided attention. Meanwhile Heidi was confident, ambitious and wore the trousers in their relationship. Together they’d have made the perfect woman.
Josie had assumed that, like her, Sam was single and he couldn’t bring himself to correct her and risk losing her. But as much as he wanted to explore what they might potentially have between them, he had a wife. Both he and Heidi had come from broken homes and had witnessed the trail of devastation divorce could leave behind. He was not strong enough to put himself through that, especially as he still loved Heidi deeply. So he decided to remain with them both instead.
‘I’ve been offered a new contract,’ he announced to Heidi back then over dinner at their local pub. ‘And it’s a big one.’
‘How big?’
‘Really big.’
‘Oh babe, that’s amazing,’ Heidi beamed and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. ‘What’s it for?’
‘The grounds of a new university. I tendered for the refurbishment of nearby student housing – an entire halls of residence needs a refurb and a rebuild. It’s the biggest contract we’ve ever won.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything earlier?’
‘Because there’s a catch – it’s up in Sheffield. They want me to set up an on-site base, which means I’ll be working away from home three or four days a week.’
‘Oh,’ she replied, her elation curbed. ‘How long will it take to get there?’
‘About three hours. I appreciate it’s not ideal but if it means we can afford to start doing all the things we’ve talked about, then isn’t it worth considering?’ Sam put his free hand over hers. ‘We can move out of the flat and buy a house, then think about filling it up with kids much sooner than we planned. But, look, if you really don’t want me to go for it, then I’ll turn it down.’ Inside, he was counting on her broodiness to override her irritation at his part-time absence. Eventually, she agreed.
‘I’ve got some good news,’ he told Josie in Sheffield later that week. ‘I’ve been offered a contract for a university student accommodation refurb, but it’s down in Dunstable. It means I’ll only get to be up here three or four days a week.’
As Sam explained the non-existent tender, he could tell her elation for him was tainted by the distance they’d spend apart. He didn’t think twice before the words left his mouth. ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked. And ten months after walking down the aisle with Heidi, he made his way down another one with Josie.
Holding together two marriages and two families became an acquired skill. He lived his life constantly on a knife-edge, questioning whether he had said the right thing to the right wife. On the rare nights his sleep was unbroken, he’d wake up in the morning scared that he might have sleep-talked and given something away unconsciously. Some nights that same conscience kept him awake as he worried about the present and the future. What would happen when he retired? Which wife would he pick to grow old with? What if he were to die suddenly? If he wasn’t at eitherhome, who would the authorities inform first? When his children discovered they had a half-brother and half-sister, would they forgive him? Would Heidi or Josie ever understand what it was like for him to love two people at once?
As both families grew, Sam rotated his time between his homes; three days with Heidi one week, four days with her the next. But there were many sacrifices to be made. He shied away from holidays abroad with either family as it created too many potential complications such as emergency contact and unexplainable suntans. On his phone, he kept hidden two calendars on two apps so he knew where he would be sleeping each night and wouldn’t forget anniversaries, birthdays and appointments. Sam painted, redecorated and renovated two almost identical properties in almost identical ways. Toolboxes contained the same equipment; sheds the same brand of lawnmowers, strimmers and trimmers. Everything that could be replicated, was.
More flexibility was required when the children fell ill with colds and bugs and he’d lost count of the times he passed on germs from one family to the other. Christmases were the trickiest times to negotiate, so he’d spend Christmas day with Heidi and Boxing Day with Josie, then rotate the following year. To explain his absence, he would tell both families he was visiting his mum who now lived alone in Spain. His whole life was a balancing act.
