Chapter 20
IZZY
From my position in front of the window, I watch his polished oxfords disappear up the stairs. No wonder he wants to get away from me. I’m a self-involved bitch who can’t follow clues—who jumped to conclusions. A bitch who made this all about her.
Greg tried to make today the highlight of my stay, and I’ve ruined it by not listening and by my childish display.
Not only am I a bitch, but I’m a nightmare house guest, too. One there’s no escape from in this tiny blizzard-covered tomb. I wouldn’t blame him if he was up there attempting to escape from a window or something. While my natural instinct is to follow him upstairs, I get that he might need a little time away from me right now.
But probably just a couple of years or so.
So I don’t follow him upstairs. I’m a grown-up, and whether I choose to behave like one or not could be probable cause for throwing me out into the snow. Not to mention, certain death.
So I take myself off the table, clearing the dinner detritus while swallowing great mouthfuls of my glass of wine. I stack the dishes, top up my wine, and blow out the candles, feeling more than a little sad as Greg’s words settle in my brain.
Infertile.
Divorce.
Cast aside.
I carry the dishes into the kitchen to where the remains of the beef lies on a thick wooden shopping board, and pile the plates from our entrée next to the sink. I pull open the fridge and notice there’s no pudding in here.
Maybe his plan was to partake of dessert bedroom style.
That won’t be happening now.
I’m not hungry in the slightest, but I need to do something and find myself scanning the shelves for produce.
Milk. Cream. Chocolate.
Okay, so maybe not so random.
I suddenly swallow uncomfortably, the motion hampered by the lump of glass in my throat. A lump of glass to match the tiny splinters making my eyes prick and burn. Picking up the folded tea towel from the countertop, I bury my face in it. I won’t cry, even if I feel like it. I won’t cry for Greg, and I won’t cry for myself.There are worse things, I remind myself.War. Famine. Death. Puppies left abandoned.Those kinds of heartbreaking, terrible things. Lifting my head again, I take a deep breath, discarding the towel to the counter again.
I am not going to cry. And I am going to make this better between us somehow.
Hands balled into fists by my side, I swallow again, choking back the threatening tide of emotions. Sorrow. Hurt. Anger. I feel them all for us both. I’m also wildly conscious of how I’ve behaved. Of my childishness and my own bloody-mindedness.
I want to go to him, throw my arms around him, and tell him it’s all okay. But how can I? How can it be okay for him?
Oh, sod this for a bloody pastime.
Returning to the fridge, I begin pulling outallthe things. Julia Child, I am not, and no one would ever mistake me for Mary Berry’s love child. But I have to do something. Because if I don’t, that tide of emotions is likely to swell and swell, and I might end up crying enough to wash this cottage away.
My armfuls of ingredients roll and scatter across the counter, and I only just manage to grab the tub of cream before it drops from the far edge. Next, I successfully locate a clean chopping board and a sharp knife before opening a bar of dark chocolate and beginning to chop indiscriminately at the hard, cold block.
Because boozy hot chocolate makes everything seem better.
God, how awful must he feel to have to discuss such a delicate subject? Not that we really discussed it, rather I goaded him into sharing something intensely personal. Private. I wonder if my insensitivity has brought a fresh wave of pain? I can only imagine. I want children, and I’ve always sort of been aware of the possibility of not being able to have them, whether by medical issues or the lack of finding the right man in time.Before my biological clock strikes midnight. But it has always been an amorphous, distant kind of concern. Not a stark finality. And it suddenly strikes me that finding out I would never be able to conceive, for whatever reason, would be truly devastating.
I begin to chop the chocolate viciously. I’m angry with myself, absolutely livid actually, but I’m also inexplicably angry with her—at his ex. What kind of excuse for a human abandons someone they’re supposed to love both in sickness and in health? Through the trials and tribulations of life?
‘That chocolate must’ve really pissed you off.’
The shock of his voice, so deep and so even, well, it’s.. . shocking. So much so, I almost slice the top of my finger off.
‘Ow! Ow, ow, owww!’
