Hugo nodded.
‘I trusted you. Always have. And I don’t believe there are degrees of trust. It’s either implicit or it’s not, and I trusted you. I trusted us. I thought what we had was solid. I thought it was enough.’
‘I guess that’s why I thought I could get away with it.’ He was direct, a little cool, and she knew him well enough to recognise that this was what he did when cornered: he tried to hurt in order to mirror his own pain.
She was actually grateful for his candour but no less cut by his words. She felt sick and swallowed the bile that rose in her throat.
‘I don’t really know what to say, H, none of this feels real for me, any of it. I fucked up so badly.’ And just like that his shoulders fell and he was back to crying.
She sat quietly, waiting for the moment to pass, wanting to get back to the planning stage while they had a moment, before the kids came down.
‘So this is really happening? Us living apart, the kids divvying up their time, is that the plan?’ he asked again, looking up at her through bloodshot eyes, and she felt the shift in their exchange, if not a shift in their relationship. He was asking her, not in a rhetorical sense, but because she now had the power.
Her words, when they came, were wrapped in sadness. ‘I meant what I said: I don’t believe there are degrees of trust.’
‘And now you don’t trust me.’ He completed her sentence.
‘No, Hugo, now Ican’ttrust you. That’s the thing. And so we need to speak plainly, but calmly. We need to make arrangements, so that we can get it straight in our heads and explain it rationally to the kids.’
‘So what exactly do we do now?’ He sniffed. ‘Instruct lawyers? Get a divorce?’ His face again crumpled. ‘Jesus!’
‘Yes.’ An image of her lying in her student bed, her head flat on his stomach, his fingers lingering on her skin. Sleeping so soundly ... She blinked it away. ‘Yes, we instruct lawyers. We get a divorce.’
‘We’re that couple.’ He sniffed again.
‘We are now that couple.’ She confirmed the horror of it.
‘Dad! Dad!’ Bear came running down the stairs. ‘There’s a seal in the harbour! I was hanging out of the window and a lady shouted up, she’s just seen it! Can you take me?’
‘Of course I can, sport! Just need to go to the bathroom. Meet me by the front door in two minutes, tell Dilly!’
She watched as Hugo jumped up and Bear ran off to find his sister. It was a reminder that no matter what came next, they would both always love their children more than anything, anyone. All this excitement over a seal. She was glad of the distraction, aware of the fact that her family was on a timer. Few would be the days they would all be together. Instead it would be the kids with one adult missing, or a new adult, or they’d meet at Granny’s house, or a thousand other scenarios that would be different from this – the four of them, living under one roof. It was Harriet’s turn for tears. She felt swamped by sadness for all they would be denied in the future and all they had lost.
Her husband was right about one thing: nothing about this felt like winning.
Dear Diary – haven’t written that phrase for a while. I tend rather to launch into it, but right now I feel like I need a friend and so ‘Dear Diary’ it is, like we’re mates, chatting. Although I must admit, it’s a fairly one-sided conversation.
Hugo has taken the kids seal-spotting in the harbour and I’m glad. Not only is it a chance for me to be alone, to catch my breath, but also, I hope, an event that might help shift the focus a little from the death of Daniel Gunn. I figure that for Annalee and little Tawrie, if their friends and neighbours are even momentarily distracted, it might help them move forward, even if only a bit.
It’s been one helluva few days.
Truth is, I’m in a tailspin, hanging on by a thread. And in the absence of a friend close by and not wanting to eatup so much of my sister’s time, I’ve come to look upon you as a confidante of sorts. I’m thankful for this ritual. A steadfast thing in the choppiest of seas. And boy do I need the ritual right now.
4.25 a.m., that’s when I woke with a start, sweating as if emerging from a nightmare, my skin clammy, heart pounding, nightdress rucked around my hips and my throat dry.
How to describe it?
Like getting hit by a bus
No, not that.
Like being shot
No, not that either.
She took a moment, closed her eyes and tipped her head back in the chair as she tried to recall exactly how it had felt, sitting up in the bed and doing her level best not to howl out loud, as her husband slumbered soundly by her side. There had been a short discussion and, on her part, much thought, on the most appropriate sleeping arrangements following their decision to call time on their marriage. Yet when the time for bed came, both, felled by the news of Daniel’s death, had fallen exhausted into the double bed. Close together, yet miles and miles apart.
It came to her.
