“Clearly not, if he’s still messaging you after all this time.”
“Caleb and Helen... they’re still married. They’re not divorced.”
“So, what are you saying?” says Jools, her voice softening. “You think he’s still in love with her?”
I sigh, and frown. “No, of course not. I just... it’s so weird Max has sent me this when... I always used to think he and I were meant to be, you know?”
“Max is in your past, Luce. Caleb is very much in the here and now, and to be brutally honest, I think you’d be an idiot to answer that message.”
I’m about to reply when I see a shadow momentarily darken the slice of light at the edge of the kitchen door, which is slightly ajar. Then comes the sound of footsteps making their way upstairs.
Horrified, I stare at Jools. “Was that Caleb?”
She bites her lip. “No idea. Could have been Nigel, or Sal, or—”
I shut my eyes.Or Caleb.
She puts a hand on my arm. “Go upstairs, be with Caleb. Forget about Max. You’ve moved on now. Max Gardner is your past, nothing more. Caleb is your future.”
Go
“I’m just asking you to think about it. Please. You’ve been so desperately unhappy since all this happened.”
I sigh, shift the weight to my other leg. Mum’s right, of course—I have been miserable since finding out about Tash and Max. But her view on how easy it could be to fix is optimistic to say the least.
I’m standing on the street outside the Supernova offices, waiting for our pizza delivery to arrive. Seb and I are working late again, on one of the first campaigns I was assigned when I started at Supernova. It’s a series of animations for a global wildlife charity, reimagining well-known children’s stories in the light of climate change.
“Dylan’s birthday isn’t the time or the place,” I tell Mum. “I can’t bring all that... anger and tension to his party. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“But Lucy—that’s my point,” Mum says. “I think you’d only have to look at his little face to feel better about everything.”
“You reckon I’d feel better... about the fact that Tash slept with Max?” I say, to check I’m understanding her correctly.
“Well, itwasa long time ago. I’m not condoning what she did,” Mum clarifies, before I can interrupt, “but nearly a decade has passed now. Are you going to let one drunken mistake destroy your relationship with your sister?”
It wasn’t just a drunken mistake, I want to say.It was the very worst kind of betrayal.
I tip my head back, stare up at the indigo sky of the evening and the ungainly clatter of pigeons flapping between the rooftops, the only nature visible from this particular patch of Soho pavement. It’s a hot Friday night, almost steamy, and for a moment I imagine I’msomewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, as far as I can be from reality.
To think, the whole time I was traveling through climates like that all those years ago, I was pining for Max and questioning myself... when all along, he’d done the most unthinkable thing.
“You need to find a way to move forward,” Mum’s saying. Then, generously conceding my sistermayalso have a part to play in all this: “Both of you.”
I try to think of a way to explain it to her that might topple her from whatever maternal fence she’s claiming neutrality from the top of. “How wouldyoufeel, Mum? If Dad had slept with... Auntie Kath?”
There’s a short silence, during which I can’t tell if Mum’s trying not to laugh, or seriously attempting to picture it. Could be both, I suppose: whether Auntie Kath—Leicester’s fiercest head teacher—has ever so much as kissed a man is a mystery my mother is no closer to solving now than she was thirty years ago.
“Well, I think the big difference is that you and Max weren’t married with children when all this happened, darling.”
No, I think, bitterly.But we might have been, one day. Andthat’swhat Tash stole from me: a future, possibility, a shot at true happiness. What if I never meet another Max in my lifetime?
“Tash has apologized, hasn’t she? Can’t you at least try to meet her halfway?”
Mum knows she has. Flowers to my office and home, a voucher for a two-night stay at a health spa in Berkshire so “we can talk,” which I promptly sent back. Five long e-mails, two letters, multiple messages, voice notes, and missed calls.
But I’m not ignoring her to make a point. I’m ignoring her because I honestly don’t know what to say, how to even take one step toward forgiveness. Do I evenwantto forgive her?
On the street in front of me, a guy about my age passes by. He’s anoffice worker with swagger: sunglasses on, tie loosened, confident gait. He glances at me, and for a moment I feel self-conscious standing here in my flimsy chiffon dress. I catch the edge of his smile, but it doesn’t make me feel good. It just makes me ache for Max.
