12
MAYA
I left the café and headed for home. As I fed the cream leather steering wheel of my jeep through my hands and pulled out into the traffic, I felt surprisingly lighter. It had felt good to open up to someone outside of our marriage-counselling sessions. I hadn’t realised how much the state of my marriage was weighing me down and as Liv was going through the same thing, albeit for different reasons, she understood what it was like. Although from the outside I would have assumed that a woman like Liv and I wouldn’t have had much in common, we actually had a lot. We were united by the fact that we both knew the one thing that nobody else knew about us. It was a lonely place to be when you carried such a huge secret around about yourself and felt unable to open up to anyone about it and it was good to know that I wasn’t alone. When I met my friends, we spoke about our kids or holiday plans or what home improvements we were getting. We didn’t go into the deeper, underlying nitty-gritty of our marriages. But with Liv, by virtue of the fact that we knew something about one another that nobody else did, it felt as though we had a deeper connection. I think Liv had been surprised by how candid I had been but I needed to get itall off my chest. It just felt natural opening up to her but as I replayed our conversation in my mind, anxiety started to set in. Had I shared too much? She was a fellow school mum after all; our paths were going to be joined for the next eight years of the boys’ primary-school days whether we liked it or not and I would never be able to take back what I said. She knew my darkest secrets but she had told me things too.
I decided that I would try her suggestion and create a date night at home. I would get dressed up and surprise Hugo with a nice dinner when Elliot was in bed this evening. At least we wouldn’t have the pressure of people looking at us in a restaurant and who knew, I thought wryly to myself, if the night went well, the bedroom was only upstairs.
After I had finished Elliot’s story that evening, I kissed him goodnight and then headed downstairs to start cooking. I decided on a prawn linguine and while the sauce was simmering on the hob, I headed back upstairs to get ready. I leafed through the hangers in my wardrobe and chose a red, slinky dress that was low-cut across my cleavage. It clung to my body and I knew Hugo liked it on me. I hoped that maybe if I brought back the sexiness, we could rekindle some of the spark that we were missing. I took my time styling my hair and doing smoky-eye make-up. I spritzed myself with the perfume I had worn on our wedding day, hoping the scent might evoke good memories for him.
I came back downstairs and poured myself a glass of wine while I waited for him to come home. He still hadn’t arrived by the time I had poured myself a second glass.
I was on my third glass when I eventually heard him coming through the front door. He came into the kitchen and I noticed that the top buttons of his shirt were undone and I could see some of the dark skin of his chest. His hair was tousled and he looked tired. He had a deal closing this week and was working long hours and I had been in bed before he came home every night.
‘Are you going out?’ he asked, taking in my appearance as he scanned my body up and down.
I shook my head. ‘I thought I’d cook dinner for us. I feel like I haven’t seen you at all this week.’
‘Sorry, Maya, I’ve already eaten. We ordered takeout into the office.’
‘Oh,’ I said, gesturing towards the prawns which now sat on a bed of gloopy-looking linguine. ‘I probably should have told you I was cooking.’ I began clearing the meals into the bin. My appetite was gone now too. ‘I bumped into Liv – that’s the woman who goes to counselling before us, you know her son is in Elliot’s class?’ I said to start a conversation as I put the plates into the dishwasher. I was determined not to be put off course. I had gone to so much effort and I didn’t want it to be in vain.
‘Oh yeah, I bet that was awkward.’
‘It was initia?—’
His phone beeped with a message, interrupting me mid-sentence. I watched as he read it, his face breaking into a smile as he began typing out a reply. I waited until he was finished before continuing.
‘She’s nice actual?—’
His phone bleeped again as whoever he was texting replied. I took a deep breath as he picked it up and became engrossed in typing once more. ‘Do you think we could leave our phones down? It’s really hard to talk if we keep being interrupted.’
He put the phone face down onto the countertop and looked at me. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘I’m trying,’ I said desperately. ‘Can’t you see? But it feels one-sided. There’s no point going to counselling if we don’t make an effort to connect with one another.’ I was trying to keep my voice level but the frustration was working its way up inside me.
‘Okay, then.’ He raised his palms towards me in a gesture of mock-defence, which only served to irritate me even more. ‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, tossing my hands up into the air in exasperation. ‘Just normal things. Normal things that couples talk about.’
‘Okay, let’s talk about “normal things”.’ He raised his index fingers to make air quotes.
‘Forget it,’ I sighed, humiliated, and stormed out of the kitchen, defeated.
13
LIV
A warm glow spread through me as I walked home after meeting Maya. I went inside the house where morning light bounced off the white walls, sending geometric shadows dancing across them. I entered the kitchen and tidied up this morning’s breakfast things with a newfound burst of energy. The coffee with Maya had done me the world of good. I hadn’t realised how stressed I was about the counselling and it had been a relief to talk to someone about it. I couldn’t believe that a woman as glamorous and composed as Maya had opened up to me too. We had shared things that not even my closest friends knew about me.
‘Guess what, sweetheart?’ I said to Finn later as we walked home together hand in hand after school had finished. ‘We’re going to go to Elliot’s house tomorrow after school. His mum has invited you over to play.’
He frowned. ‘But I don’t like him.’
‘Now, love, come on, that’s not nice,’ I said, taken aback by my son’s response. ‘You’re going to have lots of fun.’ I had expected him to be excited at the chance to play with one of thelittle boys from school. As an only child, he loved nothing more than playing with other kids.
‘Elliot is mean, Mammy. He doesn’t share the toys at playtime.’
‘I’m sure he’s not that bad,’ I replied, brushing him off. ‘Maybe he is just a little shy. We’ll have fun in their house and if you’re both good, I might even buy you something nice in the sweet shop afterwards, how does that sound?’ I knew bribery wasn’t my finest parenting move but sweets were strong currency in Finn’s world; a lot could be bought with a promise of getting a treat after.
