‘Why are you even bothering going to counselling? I want this to work, Hugo but if you want to end our marriage, just do it,’ I challenged. ‘Go on, walk out. I’m not stopping you.’ It was a question that I had been asking myself a lot lately. Why didn’t he just leave? Was he staying for Elliot’s sake because like me, he didn’t want our son to come from a broken home or maybe he was afraid how much it would cost him if we divorced. That was the most likely reason, knowing Hugo. It always came down to money and status.
He fell quiet and walked out of the room and I heard him heading up the stairs. Once again, the argument sat thick and sinewy between us like a python growing fatter. As I entered the living room, its white-toned neutrals that I had carefully chosen to give a calming feel in our house did nothing to soothe me. I sat down onto the sofa and folded my feet up beneath me. Night after night, I sat in here alone while Hugo was either out somewhere or watching TV upstairs. We no longer shared a bed; Hugo had been sleeping in the spare room for months now. I never imagined marriage could be so lonely. Counselling had always been in my back pocket, our last hope of saving our marriage, but tonight, I was feeling even more despondent than I had been going in. I thought about the homework that Julia had given us. She had advised us to spend some time thinking about what had attracted us to one another in the first place but I found I couldn’t. Hugo was an undeniably good-looking man – his chiselled, angular features had once caused my heart to flutter – but it had been his confidence that I had found most attractive; it was his power that had seduced me initially. But now I found his confidence bordered on arrogance and his power, brash and obnoxious. I didn’t hold out much hope for us.
3
LIV
The following Tuesday morning, I handed Jay a plastic lunchbox with some of last night’s lasagne and he put it into his rucksack. Jay worked as a nurse in St Francis’s hospital. That was where we had met. I had also trained as a nurse and we were both working alongside each other when one day, he had asked me to go to the cinema with him. That was over ten years ago now and we had been together ever since. I hadn’t returned to work after having Finn and was on a career break, which allowed me to be at home with him. I had had bad postnatal depression following his birth and it had taken almost two years for the clouds to part and to finally start coming back to myself again. When I had begun to get better, I still hadn’t felt able to return to work so Jay and I had agreed it would be better if I stayed at home with our son. Although money was tight with only one income, neither of us would have wanted to put Finn in a crèche or have a childminder taking care of him so it suited us at the moment. We didn’t live an extravagant lifestyle; we had one car and were happy to sacrifice holidays and socialising so we could afford for me to be at home with our son.
‘Don’t forget, we have our appointment with Julia later,’ he reminded me as he zipped up the bag. Our second session of marriage counselling was tonight and I was really dreading it. After managing to skirt around our issues last week, I knew this time, I’d have no choice but to talk about them. When we had been leaving, Julia had warned me that we would be diving in a little deeper the following week.
‘How could I forget?’ I asked sardonically. ‘Our sessions with Julia are turning into the highlight of my week.’
Jay laughed at my sarcasm. ‘Come on, Liv,’ he coaxed. ‘I’m doing this for us. Just try and open up a little more tonight; we’re both on the same side.’ He pulled me in for a hug.
‘I know…’ I sighed. ‘I just hate revisiting it all.’
He held me close and just being in his arms reassured me.
‘Oh, by the way, my mum said she can mind Finn for us tonight,’ he said as he picked up his bag. We had never left Finn with anyone other than family and I hadn’t wanted to ask my mother for the second week in a row. I knew she’d start to suspect something was wrong if I told her we were going for dinner again – she knew money was tight for us – so Jay had said he’d check whether his mother was available.
‘Great.’ I forced my lips back into an attempt at a smile. ‘You’d better go or you’ll be late.’
‘Welcome back,’ Julia greeted when we entered her office that evening. ‘How’ve you both been?’
‘Good,’ we replied in unison.
‘Good, good,’ she repeated before turning to me. ‘I know last week, you found it difficult to open up, Liv, but hopefully, it’ll be a little easier for you tonight.’ She smiled warmly. ‘This week,I want to talk a little more in depth about what you mentioned last time.’ She turned to my husband. ‘Jay, you touched on the fact that you would like another baby but that Liv is finding the decision a little harder.’
I squeezed my eyes shut. I hated talking about such personal things with a stranger even if this was what we were paying her to do.
‘Yeah, Liv had a tough time after Finn was born so it’s hard for her…’ Jay began, looking across at me to make sure I was okay.
‘Liv, could you tell me what happened after Finn was born, please?’ Julia asked.
I felt my chest tighten and my heart began to race as it always did whenever I let my head go back to that time. Day to day, I was usually able to push it out of my mind and get on with life. It was only when something triggered it that I was brought back to that awful time again. Jay reached out and took my sweaty hand in his.
‘W-well…’ I stammered.
‘It might be easier to tell me about the pregnancy. Was it a surprise?’ Julia tried a different tack.
‘We had been trying for about two years but nothing was happening,’ I began. ‘We had given ourselves one more month and we said if we hadn’t fallen pregnant by then, we’d go to our doctor and lo and behold, at exactly twenty-four months since we had first started trying, we found out we were pregnant. Our little miracle.’
Jay grinned fondly at me as I recalled the story. ‘We joked that he was always going to be a child who left everything until the last minute,’ he added.
Julia smiled. ‘Okay, and then the pregnancy, did that go okay?’
I nodded. ‘It was textbook. I wasn’t sick; I felt well. Yes, I had a couple of aches and pains and swollen ankles but what pregnant woman doesn’t?’
‘Okay,’ Julia said. ‘So did you go into spontaneous labour?’
I nodded, remembering it all so vividly. The sounds, the smells. ‘My waters broke at thirty-eight weeks, which was a surprise, but we weren’t worried; we knew he’d be big enough at that stage.’
‘And how did the labour go and the delivery?’
‘They were both fine. It was obviously painful but Jay and I had done everything to prepare for it. We had gone to antenatal classes, we had practiced hypnobirthing. I really wanted an active birth so I had a bouncy ball and personalised essential oils that my homeopathist had prescribed. I did everything I could to prepare for it – or so I thought. It was so beautiful, everything was going according to my birth plan until they put Finn on my chest…’ I paused to gather myself as the memory came rushing back to me. ‘They… eh… they said he was breathing well and he was a good weight and then I remember feeling really weak; my vision went blurry like I was watching everything from afar. After that, I remember nothing until I woke up in the Intensive Care Unit.’
‘That sounds very stressful, Liv.’ Julia turned to Jay. ‘And for you too, you’ve just had a beautiful baby boy but then your wife is seriously ill.’
