‘I know, Lis. I’ve always known.’ He nodded and looked at their joined hands on the tabletop, feeling the cold creep of inadequacy that she had chosen that Kelleway prick to sleep with over him. It hurt then. It hurt now. It would always hurt. But was it enough to shatter their family into fragments? To smash the life they had so carefully and lovingly crafted? Did he want to walk out on this little collective of humans that he so loved? He had given this more thought than he dared to admit over the years, but his conclusion was always the same. No. No, he wasn’t going anywhere. This decision based not on weakness or indifference, but on strength. Lisa might pick Lawrence over him on any given day, but he would not allow her actions to separate him from his kids. Not ever.
Not that he hadn’t come close to throwing in the towel, packing up his rucksack and disappearing. In the immediate aftermath of discovery, he had come closer than he cared to admit.
The passing years, however, had given him a different perspective, a rounded and forward-thinking view where he could see that to leave served no one and would have surely broken his heart.Even though it was a matter of such angst-ridden agony to him, he was still a fair man, one who believed that his marriage was worth fighting for and that his wife’s indiscretion should not, could not, be allowed to destroy his family unit. He had grown up without a mum and the thought of grabbing his kids and taking them away from her love, away from the only home they knew, was more than he could consider. If that were to happen, it would feel a lot like Kelleway had won and he was not going to let him win. His job, as he saw it, was to stay, to mitigate the harm done to his children by their mother’s mental absence and to patch up the holes of their lives where and when he could. No, he would not leave, he would instead do what he had always done and find a way to navigate the heartache and sense of betrayal, harnessing the memories of their life before and believing that the happiness they had shared would return. One day.
‘How ... how do you ...’ she managed. Her wide-eyed stare was one of shock and yet also something else – relief, maybe?
He took a deep breath and sat back in the chair, a little surprised how even after all this time it was still almost too painful to recall.
‘It was a Wednesday afternoon about six years ago, just before they went to Australia. The kids were at school, I’d finished my shift early and I remember I was in a really good mood. Happy. I thought I’d come and get you, see if you fancied a walk in the park to get an ice cream. I let myself in and I could just ...’ He swallowed as the memory of that day caused his tears to swell. He cuffed them on to his arm. ‘I could just sense that something wasn’t right. I started to feel anxious, wondering why my sixth sense was tingling; my thoughts ran riot. I wondered if there might be a burglar in the house or something similar. I was looking around the hallway to see what I could grab to use in self-defence, when I heard you laugh.’ He paused, remembering the sound that hadspoken volumes; the memory of it still made him shiver. ‘It was the kind of big-mouthed laugh that you don’t do when you’re alone, as if someone was making you laugh in that way. I took a step into the hallway and could see you both through the gap in the sitting room door. You had your ...’ He took his time, recalling the detail was hard and his heart hammered in his chest now as it had then. ‘You had your head on his shoulder and he had his arm across your back, and I remember thinking that it looked like you fitted there, right next to him.’
‘Marty—’ she began, her face pale, eyes wide.
He held up his hand, knowing that if he stopped talking about it now, he might never start again. ‘No, just let me ...’ He closed his eyes and steadied his voice. ‘I knew you’d been a thing when you were kids, but we’ve all got that, right? All got that someone. I never thought ...’
‘I love you. I love you.’ She spoke as her tears fell. ‘I do, I loveyou.’
‘I know.’ And he did, understanding how a physical indiscretion could happen, despite wishing with his whole being that it had not.
‘The thought of you finding out.’ Her voice, he noted, was small. ‘I thought you might at any time over the last three years when he came back from Australia; it made me scared, so scared! I just ... I just stopped functioning. I shut down, too afraid to breathe, too nervous to look you in the eye in case you could tell. I hate it, I hate that it happened, and I hate that I let you down. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry, Marty. You deserved better from me – the kids too. How could I do that to my kids? It was like it was happening to someone else – I got swept up, carried away and it was surreal. But the moment I came to, realised what I had done, I hated myself. I have wished day and night that I could go back and never go near him!’
He stared at her now, as she spoke with fists clenched, her words like a flame to the ice that sat in his gut. ‘I thought ...’
‘What did you think?’ she asked through her distress, her tone imploring.
‘I thought ... I thought you were broken because he’d come back, but not come back to you. I thought you were sad to have got me, the consolation prize.’ To say the words out loud was like exorcising poison and his hands shook against the tabletop. ‘And so I thought if I kept small, kept busy, kept quiet, we might get away with it because the last thing I wanted to do was break up our family. I didn’t want that. I don’t want that. Not at any cost. It’s a price too high to pay for one mistake, Lis.’
He watched as his wife stood and slowly walked behind him, putting her arms around his chest, and laying her head on his back. It offered a particular closeness, warmth that went through to his very bones.
‘You are not and never have been any consolation prize. You are my love, myloveand my husband. And I’m sorry. Oh my God, I will spend the rest of my days trying to show you that I am so very sorry.’
He nodded, taking a moment to feel the warmth of her holding him fast, just as he had remembered her doing in the time before Lawrence Kelleway took a bite out of his family.
‘I’m so sorry, Marty,’ she repeated.
‘I don’t want you to live in regret. I want us to work, get back to happy. I want us to figure it out.’ This was the truth. ‘You and the kids, you’re everything. But you need to get help, Lis, you need to talk to someone, a professional. You have to.’
She held him tighter. ‘I will, I will. That’s all I want, to get back to happy. It’ll be wonderful. Hard work but wonderful. God, how I have missed you!’ she breathed against him.
‘What’s wonderful?’ Daisy asked as she made her way to the sink for a glass of water. Lisa let go of him and slipped back into the chair.
‘The possibilities of life!’ He beamed at her, feeling quite overwhelmed by the developments and simultaneously like he could punch the sky!
‘Okay, Little MrSunshine – where’s my dad and what have you done with him?’ She turned to stare at her mother. ‘Come to think of it, where’s my mum and what haveyoudone withher?’
‘It’s true, Daisy.’
He watched as Lisa spoke to her daughter with caution, hesitant, as if she wanted to make amends but not really knowing how. Not that she needed to feel so guilty – yes, she had made a mistake, but her failing mental health had seen an opportunity and swooped in, holding her fast. She had been poorly, shewaspoorly, and he was aware more than most, having lived with her shoulder to shoulder in recent years, that one good day did not make her fixed.
‘There are so many possibilities. You have your whole brilliant life to look forward to.’
‘Thank you, Mum.’
He noticed how Daisy never let her eyes leave her mother’s face and it told him how precious this moment was and how much they would all thrive with regular interactions such as this. His gut folded at the thought that it might only be a temporary reprieve and he wondered how long she might be present before slinking up the stairs to seek out the feel of her fleecy blanket. Rather than let this thought rob them of the moment, he banished it, deciding to make the most of whatever time she was ‘present’, hoping it was forever, but fearing it might be much less ...
‘Gia said something similar to me last night. Is there something going on I don’t know about? Should I be scared? Like, “You have your whole brilliant life to look forward to ... but you’ve only gotthree weeks to live!” Because I’m kind of getting that vibe. Plus, I have a stack of library books that need to go back. I’d hate you guys to have to deal with a fine as well as my passing.’
Even Lisa raised a smile and in that split second, it felt like they all had a lot to look forward to.
