‘It’s just that she’s so beautiful.’ I started to cry and I felt silly and childish and even worse about the whole situation. This feeling was alien to me. I had never had call to feel jealous or insecure in my marriage before.
‘Hey,’ he said, using his thumbs to gently wipe away my tears. ‘You’re the only woman for me, you know that. I’ve never so much as looked at another woman since you came into my life. Come on, Liv, you know this.’
I relented, my fight leaving me as his words hit home. I rested my head against his chest; the steady drum of his beating heart filled my ear, grounding me, bringing me back down from the rock I had perched myself on. The even pulse reminded me that Jay and I were solid.
‘Besides, I don’t think I’d be Maya’s type,’ he joked, patting his rounded belly.
But for some reason, this did nothing to reassure me.
32
MAYA
After I went home, I felt better for having apologised for what had happened the night before. I was glad I had cleared the air and hopefully, we could put it all behind us. I was in the kitchen prepping lunch while Elliot pottered around with his toys in the play area of our living room. Hugo was upstairs having a shower, having gone to play golf when I returned from Liv’s.
‘Mummy?’ Elliot called.
‘Yes, love?’
‘Why is the man being mean to the lady?’
‘What?’ I asked distractedly as I chopped some peppers to make a salad.
‘The man is being mean to the lady.’
‘What man?’ I asked, looking up and seeing that he had Hugo’s phone in his hand.
‘Look, Mummy,’ he said, holding up the phone for me to see.
I put down the knife, ran my hands under the tap and dried them on a tea towel, before taking it from him.
At first, it took me a moment to work out what he had been watching but when I did, I almost dropped the phone. ‘Where did you find that?’ I cried, my voice trembling.
‘I was playing a game on Daddy’s phone and it came on. Why is the man being mean to the lady?’
I thought I was going to get sick by the horrendous images on the screen before me. Elliot had stumbled across porn on Hugo’s phone.
‘I-I think they’re just pretending,’ I scrambled for a way to explain it. ‘It-it’s a movie. A bad movie.’
‘I don’t like that movie,’ he said, biting down nervously on his lip.
‘Me neither,’ I said, placing the phone up on a high shelf. ‘I’ll talk to Daddy and tell him not to put movies like that on his phone again.’
‘Yeah, bold Daddy.’
‘He is very bold,’ I agreed, trying to keep my voice steady.
As Elliot wandered back over to his toys, I was seething. How could Hugo be so stupid and let Elliot have access to material like this? I knew he liked to watch porn – I guessed it was one of the reasons why he didn’t bother sleeping with me any more – but he had been careless and this was unforgiveable. Seeing obscene material like that could scar our son at such a tender age. He was at a delicate stage where his brain was developing and something like this could have damaging and long-lasting consequences. If I found it disturbing, God only knew what his brain made of it. How would he process it? Would he have questions for us? Would it stay there forever imprinted on his mind? I wished I could wipe his brain clean, my sweet, innocent boy who up until now, had never known there was a darker side to life.
When Hugo came downstairs and appeared in the kitchen at last, I thrust the phone at him.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, scrambling to catch it.
‘Elliot came across something on your phone,’ I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. ‘How could you be so bloody careless?’
He looked confused until he opened his phone and his face dropped when he realised what was on the screen.
‘How did that happen?’ he asked me.
