I never thought it would be Wendy Peterson. Never in a million years! Wendy who lived further down the lane and liked to show her cleavage. Divorced Wendy with the convertible who had garden ornaments that we, as a couple, had secretly mocked, laughing at her lack of taste.
I sat next to him on the sofa as he flicked through the channels. The kids were asleep. I’d stacked the dishwasher, washed up the supper things, the kitchen was clean and tidy.
There was no pre-chat, I asked him outright: Are you having an affair?
His reply?
What a bloody ridiculous thing to say to me! No!
But he was lying.
I wanted to believe him, aware of how much easier life would be for us all, but I didn’t.
I thought we were immune to infidelity, he and I, because we were built on a bedrock of trust. Affairs were what happened to other people. I figured that because of our long history, our buoyant sex life, our communication, our great kids, our lovely, lovely life that it wouldn’t come knocking on our door, but I was wrong.
So yes, that was the first time I felt the ice pick, and this morning, as I sit here in this cosy kitchen, I feel it again, but this time it’s for very different reasons.
The pain is the same, the grief too, but this time it’s me who has caused the ripple.
I woke with a start at 4.25 a.m. and a clarity to my thoughts that has been absent for the longest time. A clarity that is as welcome as it is terrifying.
I thought loving Hugo enough would mean we could conquer anything, rebuild.
I had no idea that when trust is the thing that’s broken, there isn’t a glue in the world that can piece it back together, no matter how hard I try.
Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe others are successful in brushing off the insult, the injury, but not me.
Mine is a scientific brain and I have analysed the facts, sorted the data, and come to the conclusion that this experiment – moving to a new place, living in a new house, and making new neighbours, starting afresh – it has failed.
We have failed.
And right now I feel angry that we took the step at all.
And no matter how hard I try not to, I see her face every time he makes a phone call and a small part of me wonders if they are in touch.
I imagine his hands on her body when his fingers graze my skin.
I picture him ending that call and the way he looked ... caught. And every time it’s like a knife in my gut.
I can’t do it any more.
Annalee Gunn is in my thoughts, of course. Mrs Annalee Gunn. I remember the way she looked at her husband asthey walked around the harbour, entirely engrossed in one another, come rain or shine, as if the whole world existed just for them and whatever was going on around them was merely the backdrop to their love affair.
And I know that it’s the way I used to look at Hugo, and it’s the way Hugo used to look at me, but not now.
Not ever again.
So I guess the question is: what the hell do we do now?
Hugo is right: another school, another house, another move and then we separate and we get a divorce. It’s easy to write. Simple and straightforward, the words on the page making no allowance for the dissection of the whole, the cutting of the emotional ties, the breaking of the routine and the way the heart will jump at the prospect of separation. All of those things much, much harder ...
The sound of Bear’s feet thundering up the front steps and through the front door brought her to the present.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, kicking off his trainers.
‘Just scribbling in my little book.’ She hated the thought of her words being discovered, deciding there and then to hide it somewhere and let it gather dust. She pictured the small wardrobe built into the eaves in the attic room on the top floor, with its loose side panel. That would do. She’d pop it in there, out of sight and out of mind.
