‘Do you? Really?’ He sounded doubtful and I couldn’t honestly blame him. How often had I moaned about the commute in recent years? We’d both said a few times that we were getting too old for the city, but I’d thought we were joking. It was just something we said. It didn’t mean anything. Not really.
‘You’re still working at the same place you worked when Danny was alive.’
‘In a different role!’
‘I know, but even so…’ He massaged the bridge of his nose, clearly stressed.
‘Why is it bothering you now?’ I asked. ‘We’ve been married for ten years. What’s changed?’
‘Nothing’s changed. That’s the problem. After all this time there’s still something there between us, and I can only assume it’s regret that you married me, or grief. I don’t know which would be worse.’
‘I don’t regret marrying you,’ I promised him. ‘I never have.’
‘Well…’ He nodded. ‘In that case, it’s grief. You haven’t let him go, have you? Be honest with me. He’s still there in your mind and heart, isn’t he?’
I wanted to deny it, but how could I? He was right, and if we’d reached the point where my own husband had arranged a make-or-break holiday for us, how could I continue to lie to him? Not about that anyway.
‘I suppose he is,’ I admitted heavily. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’ He squeezed my hand.
‘Is it?’
‘Well… No, not really.’ He managed a smile. ‘It hurts like hell, but at least you’ve told me the truth now so maybe we can start to deal with it. That’s if – if you want to?’
He sounded so uncertain that my heart ached for him.
‘Of course I want to,’ I said. ‘I love you, Rory. You have to believe that. I don’t want to lose you. It’s just…’
‘It’s just that you loved Danny, too, and you’re still struggling to come to terms with losing him. I get it. I completely understand that. I just don’t know how we move on. It’s been eighteen years, Kirsty, and if you’re still in this state I can only suggest that you need some help. Would you consider bereavement counselling?’
‘I don’t need counselling!’ I said at once. My parents had tried to get me to join a group just after Danny died, and I’d felt the same way about it then as I did now. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s – it’s natural to still grieve for a dead spouse. Normal. You can’t expect me to just get over it and pretend that he never existed.’
‘And as I said, I would never expect that. But there’s grief and there’s… This. Eighteen years is a heck of a long time to be stuck in the grieving process. Kirsty, why did you marry me?’
I gave a half laugh. ‘What a stupid question! Because I loved you!’
‘Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure that it was because you lovedme? For who I am. Not as some poor substitute – the next best thing?’
He sounded so sad and so unsure that my heart broke for him.
‘You’re not a substitute,’ I said, wiping tears from my eyes. ‘You’re not! Don’t ever say that. You don’t understand.’
‘Then please, help me to understand,’ he said. ‘What is it? What’s going on in that head of yours? How can we make things better between us?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
‘Maybe if we did move away from London it would be a start? If we bought somewhere that was just ours. Began again. I can work from home, you know that. And there are options for you. We could?—’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t start all that about living in the country again. Please.’
‘Okay,’ he said flatly. ‘Not the country then. But we could move to somewhere a bit more rural in Hertfordshire, or to Berkshire or Surrey or somewhere. Find a nice town so you wouldn’t feel isolated. Somewhere with good connections to London so you could stay at Rochester’s.’
‘I can’t.’
Rory threw up his hands in despair. ‘Can’t or won’t? Work with me, Kirsty. You don’t want to move to the countryside and that’s fine. I accept that. But what’s wrong with moving a bit further away from London if you can commute to it easily enough? You’re happy to commute at the moment. We could at least look at some properties, couldn’t we?’
I shook my head. ‘We’re fine where we are, aren’t we?’
