Feeling like a princess in her duchesse satin gown, she had beamed as they had danced together at their reception – their eyes brimming with happiness and love.
‘Can you believe we did it?’ he had whispered in her ear as he held her close.
‘It’s mad, isn’t it?’ she had answered, giddy with the joy of it all. Here they were just two people in a world of billions and they had found each other. Fate had brought them together and she couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest woman in the world.
Kitty had smiled at her, delighted her daughter had found happiness and a good man who would take care of her. Earlier, as they waited at the top of the aisle to start their walk towards Aidan, her mother had squeezed her hand tightly. ‘Be happy,’ she had said. ‘If you do anything in your life, be happy.’
It’s only now that Laura realises that being happy looks different for everyone. And it’s perfectly okay to move on from something that once made you happy but no longer does.
She doesn’t want to live a life where all that is left between her and Aidan is a growing sense of resentment. You can’t continue in a life where you are not respected for the person you are. Where you can’t show your silly, or smart, or vulnerable side without being shamed for it. Without being misunderstood.
Does she think Aidan O’Kane is a bad person? Well, he’s a bit of a knob. Niamh is definitely right about that. And he has done some pretty knobby things. But no, she doesn’t think he’s a bad person as such. He’s just not her person any more. He is not, and never again will be, her knob.
Life has changed them both. She happens to think it changed her for the better and him for the worse but she’s willing to concede that he might see it differently. He’d be wrong, of course, but very much entitled to his wrongness.
They had good years. There are a lot of good memories. They have Robyn, and she is the greatest prize of all. But now it is time to take a leap of faith – towards her own happiness – and move on.
Knowing she is doing the right thing does not make it any easier when the living room window is illuminated by the lightsof Aidan’s car as he arrives home. She’s kind of thinking a glass of wine would be great around now – a little bit of Dutch courage. But, no, she wants to keep her wits about her. She wants to be strong and determined, but she also wants to be gentle. His disrespect towards her should not echo back at him. Her mother always told her that two wrongs don’t make a right and she swears she hears Kitty saying that to her now, telling her she will be okay.
She takes a deep breath as she hears his key turn in the lock. Takes another as he comes into the house and closes the front door behind him.
‘Laura!’ he calls. ‘Are you home?’
Here goes nothing, she thinks as she perches on the sofa. ‘Yeah. I’m in the living room,’ she calls back.
‘I’ll just hang my coat up and take my shoes off and I’ll be in,’ he calls.
He sounds calm. Normal. There’s no hint of sarcasm or judgement or foreboding. He just sounds like him.
As he walks into the room, Laura looks at him as if she is seeing him properly for the first time in a long time. Gone is the young man she married, in his late twenties with a full head of dark hair.
In his place, this older man, his hair thinning, and what isn’t thinning is definitely greying. He’s not quite as lithe as he was when they married but then again neither is she.
How is it possible, she wonders, that you can live with someone – see them every day – and not really recognise them any more?
‘Aidan,’ she says, and she hears a crack in her voice. Clearing her throat, she continues. ‘Aidan, I think we need to talk.’
‘I think you’re right,’ he says as he walks across the room andtakes a seat in the armchair opposite her. ‘And I think I know what you’re going to say.’
‘You do?’ she asks, wondering if it would easier to let him pull the plaster off than to say the words herself.
‘We’ve tried,’ he says sadly.
Laura quietens the voice that whispers in her ear that referring to her as an angry bird is not a sign of trying. There’s no point in bringing it up. It doesn’t change anything. Even if he apologised for it now on bended knee, it wouldn’t change anything. It’s still done. They are still done.
‘It’s not working any more, is it?’ she says, and she thinks of the couple who held each other and twirled around the dance floor. The couple who fell in love under a moonlit sky on the beach. Who laughed until their ribs could take no more playing charades on their first Christmas together. The couple who chose this house, this sofa, this life… who both really believed it would work forever. It is them she is crying for now as tears start to roll down her face.
‘I don’t think it is,’ Aidan says. ‘Do you think it ever could again?’
This is her moment. Her sink or swim. She hears her mother whisper in her ear, ‘Be happy,’ and she looks directly at her husband and gives a sad, resigned smile. ‘No. I don’t think it could.’
Aidan O’Kane nods in agreement.
42
MILFS & COUGARS & ALL THE SINGLE LADIES
Becca
