‘Convenience. Habit. Kindness...’ The first three that sprang to mind.
‘Life is short, Enya.’
‘That much I do know.’ She stared at the empty seat that Jonathan had vacated.
‘Yes, of course. But whycan’tI feel this way? Why can’t I grab this joy that is filling me up!’
Joy!She filled him with joy! This in turn filled her with something similar. She had quite forgotten what it felt like, the beginning, the excitement, the endless possibilities of a relationship that might just be the greatest love story ever told, or something that could crash and burn very quickly, and therein lay the thrill of it.
‘Because,’ she spoke plainly, ‘it would cause the greatest upset to our children and would very likely come to nothing. It’s a lovely, lovely distraction, but it would be a lot for our kids to pick through, would cause disruption, sadness, conflict, and I for one go out of my way to never do that to my son. He’s been through quite enough.’
She made no mention of all he was about to go through.
‘What if it was worth it?’
‘It would never be worth that! I don’t know what else to say.’ This the truth, floored again, as she was by his frank and flattering admissions that she knew she would replay in the early hours, when her bed felt too big.
‘Well, I do know what to say. I want to say that I’m entirely sick of not moving forward or making progress, of feeling stuck, and like Trish and I are simmering with nothing to light the dark winter mornings. I’m sick of it, and I think I deserve better, I think we both do.’
‘That’s... that’s your right, your decision, but I don’t really know you, Dominic, and so to be telling me this—’
‘When you popped up in the car park,’ he carried on, as if she hadn’t spoken, and she held her breath, listening to his every word, ‘it was like...’ he laughed, as if he too remembered the way it had felt, ‘it was like shaving decades from my jaded self. The way I felt, the way Ifeel, a little jittery, excited, it was like being seventeen again! I was excited! Properly excited, and not just in the way I am when my seedlings sprout or the boat gets a spring clean, but in the way that...’ He appeared to have run out of words, words that mirrored her own feelings and which to hear aloud filled her right up. She felt light, excited, as her muscles contracted and her heart danced with joy.
‘In the way that it felt when you borrowed your dad’s Land Rover and went a-wooing?’
‘Yes, Enya.’ There was no hint of frivolity in his tone. ‘Exactly like that. And what with having signed the lease on the flat, it felt possible! Everything felt possible!’
She wanted to remind him that signing a lease on a flat and being divorced or officially separated were very different things. There was no guarantee he would ever live in the place, or worse,what if he only intended to use it to conduct an illicit affair? It was a thought that horrified. Simultaneously, she wondered if Trish felt the same level of enthusiasm, and just picturing the pretty woman who had stood in her kitchen was enough to shape her words.
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to call me. Not a good idea at all. Not that I don’t, or not that I haven’t...’ What did she want to say? Was she brave enough to voice the words that would end this lovely feeling of happiness, of connection to another human when she craved it most? Words that would shatter the frail and beautiful cage of happiness that she could feel forming all around her, around them. ‘It’s not fair on any of us.’ She closed her eyes.
It was true, the thought of dumping this on Aiden when he was facing so much was unthinkable. Plus, if Iris didn’t bolt at the news of Holly’s pregnancy, then surely hearing her future mother-in-law had feelings for her father... Enya screwed her eyes shut at the mere thought. And then there was the sharp stick of betrayal that jabbed her awake in the early hours. She and Jonathan had created a wonderful life, and she had done her best to carry it on without him, but to change course, swap teams, fall into the arms of another man, do differently, then it meant he had really gone. It meant everything would change. It would feel like erasing all that they had built. She was the sole custodian of their old life, their old love, and to start over would be akin to abandoning it, abandoning Jonathan.
‘Life, life is complicated enough right now,’ she stuttered. ‘For me to take a leap and go all in, I just can’t. It needs to be easy, and this is far, far from easy.’
There was a silence that crackled down the line and her heart raced with lament, understanding it was a silence that would replace these calls. Jonathan, Jenny, Aiden to a certain degree, and now Dominic, the list of people who had slipped or were slipping out of reach was growing, a thought that was as depressing as it was true. She felt the clock of solitude beat loudly in her chest.
‘Of course. I’m sorry. I just thought, I don’t know what I thought. I guess I’m finding it a little harder to let go than I would like to admit.’
And just like that he was gone.
Gripping the phone like a preoccupied teen, she wondered whether to text, to try and explain thatifthings were different...
But the simple truth was that things were not different.
And that was that.
Chapter Eighteen
Aiden had arrived home after Enya had gone to bed, and she was unsure if it was a good or bad thing that there had been so much for him and Holly to discuss. She wanted him to support Holly, that went without saying, but was also aware of her son’s fragility, having to navigate these new and uncharted waters while a storm raged. No matter it was a storm of his own making. Losing his dad had, unsurprisingly, changed him, forced him to grow up, and came with a tendency for him to bottle up his feelings and pretend, for her sake, that all was dandy. She knew him well enough to peer beneath the veneer of confidence that he sometimes presented.
In the morning he had left for work while she was in the shower. The only tell-tale sign of his presence a lingering scent of his cologne in the hallway and the carton of milk, left to warm on the countertop.
‘I sometimes long for those days when I was a little bored! This is all too much for me, Jonathan.’ She spoke to her husband, who sat at the breakfast bar on the far side of the island in the kitchen. ‘I still love you,’ she added, her voice cracking with emotion, ‘you know that, don’t you?’, aware of the disloyalty of her thoughts and fantasies to which she was certain her dead husband was privy.
A brisk knock at the door pulled her from the conversation.
‘Oh!’ She clasped her hands under her chin and resisted the temptation to wrap her arms around the visitor, her eyes instantly filled with tears.
