Warrick moves out of the way and I discover Sam, standing there, having obviously heard the news too.
“I didn’t know you two knew one another,” gushes Warrick, surprised.
“Old mates from uni,” Sam says, holding out a bouquet of daisies towards me.
We lock eyes and that’s when something in me shuts down and closes off. I don’t deserve to feel happy. I don’t deserve anything. I don’t deserve Sam or to feel the ultimate love his heart and his soul offered me last weekend.
“I can’t do this,” I state calmly, returning to the kitchen.
I stand by the counter, hugging myself. I stare down at the bottom of the garden, willing my father to whoosh out of there, come flying up the garden path, take me in his arms and rescue me.
But that has never happened. Not once. Why would it happen now?
I feel someone enter the room and I know it’s not Warrick. I know that because Sam casts a bigger shadow. A bigger presence.
He places the flowers on the sideboard and remains at a safe distance.
“I can’t say how sorry I am, Liza.”
“I know. I’ve heard it all day. Nobody knows what to say.”
“Did you find him?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”
“It was.”
“If you need anything… absolutely anything. If you need taking anywhere or you need help with legal stuff or if you need to be driven out of here just to get some fresh air, you just have to say. You just have to call and I’ll be here, okay?”
My bottom lip wobbles out of control and I turn towards him, unable to communicate just how awful all of this is.
He takes tentative strides towards me and opens his arms, allowing me to fall into them. I start crying loudly, but Warrick hustles the kids out when they try to find out what’s going on. He shuts the door on us and takes them into the playroom. I can hear him asking who wants a horsey ride first and I have another moment where everything feels just fine, because I’ve got all these wonderful people around me…
But then in the next breath, I remember my husband’s dead and my children are left fatherless.
A widow at twenty-four.
Eventually my tears abate, but I’m still staring past Sam at my father’s shed, wondering when I’ll get my hugs from him. It’s not like he’s been a bad father to me, but he’s never been affectionate with me, not once.
“There’s something you can do for me,” I tell Sam.
“Name it.”
“Will you ask your cleaner if she’d do a proper job on my place? I need it sparkling clean from top to bottom, and I want the bed removed from the master. In fact, I want all his stuff gone and taken to his mother’s. I don’t want to see it ever again. I can’t stay with my parents forever. My father’s taken up residence in the shed. I’m only going to end up laying into him.”
“If you give me a key, I’ll sort it all out for you, okay? Just leave it with me.”
“Thank you.”
“And just… maybe have a think about his stuff, okay?”
“I won’t change my mind. I want all his clothes and stuff gone. I don’t want to look at it.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Yes, that’s what I want.”
“That’s okay, Liz.”
He doesn’t let go of me the whole time we’re having our conversation. Eventually, my mother taps on the door, holding Rupert in her arms.
“Hello, is this another of Gage’s friends?” she asks.
I take Rupert in my arms. He smells utterly gorgeous and I bury my face in his chest, trying to stop myself crying. He clings hard to me, knocking his head against mine.
Sam walks forward and holds out his hand. “I’m Sam. I’m here for Liza.”
A storm gathers in my mother’s eyes in response to Sam. Well, he could’ve lied, but he’s only told the truth. He’s my friend and he’s here for me, not for Gage. Someone actually fucking cares about me, for a change.
“Is this really appropriate?” my mother mutters, giving me daggers.
“I’ve known Sam since university. He’s my friend, Mother,” I say, grinding out my words.
“I’d better go, Liz,” he says, picking up on my mother’s toxic vibes, “but I’ll ring my cleaner for you, okay? And let you know.”
“Thanks Sam.”
He leaves the house, saying a friendly goodbye to Warrick as he passes by.
“Are you feeding Warrick, then?” she asks, gesturing at the oven.
“Aye, I am.”
“Okay. I’ll leave you to it, then. I’m going to my knitting club. I need to get out of the house.”
I say nothing. If she needs to go, she needs to go. I understand completely.
While she’s gone, I’ll unplug the doorbell and leave a sign on the front door saying: Bugger Off.
It’s only what Hetty would do.
After I’ve hung the notice, I head to the playroom to check on the children. “Are you going to be good while me and this big idiot have some dinner?”
“Yes, Mummy,” Emily says, while Warrick’s boys grin with that wicked look in their eye. Oh boy, Jules must have her work cut out.
I plop Rupert in his highchair in the kitchen dining area and give him his usual bedtime milk. He slurps it like nobody’s business.
Meanwhile I carve out two chunks of lasagne and raid the fridge for coleslaw and salad.
We eat at the kitchen table. Warrick starts troughing like he’s been starved.
“First meal of the day?” I ask him.
“How did you guess?”
“Me too,” I say, while pushing mine around the plate. “Of course, there’s more if you want it.”
“I think I’ll be going up for more.”
“How is the community centre?” I ask him straight, even though we both know it’s a drain not only on him, but on his family too.
“It’s okay. It’d be better if we had Hetty back.”
“I expect so.”
“I’m managing all right logistically, but the centre was more fun with her around. It all gets a bit serious without her.”
“I see.”
I let him eat his dinner in peace because he’s clearly starved.
“So, how did you meet Sam?” he asks, leaving his seat to serve himself more lasagne. I manage a couple of forkfuls before giving my attention to Rupert, who has finished his milk and is ready for cuddles.
“We studied English together but kept in touch. He went on and did his MA and all that. I probably would’ve taken the same route if I hadn’t fallen pregnant, though I did get my degree eventually.”
“I met him at a careers thing recently. He seems very intelligent and aside from being a southerner, quite nice.”
“Yeah, he is.”
Warrick sits back down and begins demolishing his second portion.
“So, do you want me to put you in touch with someone?” he asks, stabbing his food energetically.
“I don’t get you.”
“About that, out there,” he says, pointing at where my dad’s hiding out.
“What do you mean?”
“If you were my daughter, it would take a bulldozer to cart me away from you right now.”
He makes me smile and I reach out to touch his hand. “That’s the thing. I don’t think he is my father.” I have nothing in common with my father and I also don’t look anything like him or Mum.
He stares at me, eyes going from side to side. “So, you don’t need therapy?”
“Probably. Yeah. I more than likely do.”
“Well, at least you’re aware of it.”
“Always best to be aware. Sometimes I feel too aware, you know?”
“You and me, we should start a support group. You know?”
“The worst thing is when you can’t help someone, right?”
He reaches out and holds my hand, agreeing, “Truly.”
He’s
been there, I suspect: trying to help a partner who didn’t want any help whatsoever.
The front door opens and I’m half expecting it to be my mother returning, when Jules meekly says, “Room for a little one? It says bugger off on the front door?”
“Come in,” I shout through.
On the way to the kitchen she gets accosted by her boys, but after satiating them with kisses and cuddles, she makes her way towards us.
“I just popped to the shops. I got you a care package thing… I saw it in magazine. Fuck knows what it really means, but I thought you’d like some bits and bobs.”
She hands me a bag of stuff, including new pyjamas and big fluffy socks, a kilogram of chocolate, a hot water bottle with a Disney cover and a big clip for my hair.
“You’re the best, Jules. How lucky am I?”
“That’s my girl,” she says, kissing my forehead. “Now, I’m starved. What are we having?”
Chapter Twelve
IT’S WHEN IT GETS TO night-time it’s the worst. With the house quiet and no nearby traffic like there is in mine and Gage’s neighbourhood, the silence feels deafening. The thoughts in my head have no distraction.
I stand in my new pyjamas and bed socks, staring out of the window at the shed at the bottom of the garden. He’s not in there anymore, of course. He’s in bed with Mum now. Everyone’s asleep but me.
It took Emily a while to get off to sleep tonight, so we’ve agreed she will stay off school for the rest of the week. I’ve arranged with Warrick for her to have plenty of playdates with the Jones twins and for Emily to have a day out with Grandma Fitzpatrick, too. I’m fairly expecting Granny F to cancel on us last-minute – she always does – but she can’t say I haven’t tried. Gage’s relationship with his mother Nora is just another item on a long list of things I never understood about him.
Cradling the hot water bottle to me, even though it’s cold now, tears continue sliding down my face as I stare at the world outside. It’s not just Gage; it’s a part of me that has died, too. He’s taken so much with him and he never could have imagined the hurt he had the potential to cause, not in a million years, and yet I still feel vindictive and bitter towards him. I hope a part of his soul is as much tormented as mine. Another part of me believes he never had the capacity to love me in the same way I once loved him. I wonder what or who I will be saying goodbye to at the funeral – my memories? A ghost? Or the love I once had which clearly went away? I can’t compartmentalise it all right now; it’s going to take a long time to process.
Memories sweep through my mind on a loop. He was so sweet when I discovered I was pregnant with Emily. He told me we’d get a house and everything would be okay. Then my mother whispered words in his ears about it not being right to live together out of wedlock, let alone bring a child into the world outside the institution of marriage. He acted on her words and presented me with a ring in bed one morning. Overwhelmed, I didn’t have time to think and I said yes. We had a small register office wedding and had the marriage blessed at a church later on, owing to Gage not being religious enough to warrant a full church service.
There were times when I was utterly content. I would spend my days walking Emily out and about in the pram. I’d meet Mum for coffee, or Hetty. Sometimes friends from uni would even show up at my house with tales of debauchery, before remembering all that was behind me. Then they’d leave. Only a few – like Sam – remained true friends.
At first, I was entirely content to mother my child and my husband, who seemed never to have been taught how to use a washing machine, make beans on toast or brew a good cup of tea. Then tensions grew. I grew. I yearned for more. Was it wrong of me to yearn for more?
It really was when Hetty got together with Joe that I became more reluctant to continue wiping up his mess and washing his clothes as though I was merely a mother, not a wife or partner. In the back of my mind, I’d always yearned for more. I would have been entirely content to stay home, look after his children and look after him – except for the fact that there was nothing I was getting in return. I would have happily scrubbed the floors each and every day if it meant him coming home and giving me love and appreciation in return.
But love wasn’t a part of the bargain, was it? And it is love I’ve always yearned for.
Being his cleaner, and the mother of his kids, was the role he was happy for me to fill. That was the vacant position he’d held open for someone like me – someone content to put up and shut up.
He never saw me as a sexual being and he hardly (if ever) made me come.
Is his death retribution for his own actions? Or my punishment for sleeping with Sam? I still haven’t decided which. I just know the timing couldn’t have been worse. I just know that life is something we all take for granted even though it can be stolen away at any time, just like that – and it’s the people left behind who hurt, not the ones gone. That’s the utter diabolical truth of it.
When I met Gage, I was like a mouse. That’s probably how I appeared, anyway: quiet and twitchy and withdrawn – always veering from conflict. However, the real me has always been here – just dormant – and the more unsettled I became with our life, the more I displayed my displeasure and the more we grew apart. He didn’t appreciate my true self when I finally did speak up.
And now he’s dead because we grew apart.
He died because he didn’t have a mother nursing him anymore.
Recently, I began failing as his replacement mother and he died because of me.
He also died because his own mother never encouraged him to look after himself.
There’s my own tragedy, too: I’m nearly twenty-five years old, with two children and a dead husband, and yet I’ve never once been on a romantic holiday – not even our honeymoon was romantic. Gage took more trips abroad in one month sometimes than I ever have in my whole life. It was never said but it was insinuated that my job was to keep the home fires burning while he went and did as he pleased. My tragedy is that I married him and stayed with him, even when I was severely unhappy. My tragedy is that I never thought I deserved any better.
My tragedy is that the squeaky mouse continues to hold me hostage, all the while my true self gets buried and shelved because of my own fears.
I have no way of knowing if I would have actually gone through with it and left him. No way. I probably would have gone back to him. I would. I’d have done it out of fear. I’d have done it because life is dangerous. It’s a risk. What I had with Gage was a safe existence, but it wasn’t living. It was surviving. It was getting by. It was wishing, day after day, that my husband would just for once surprise me or make love to me passionately, or even just tell me that he couldn’t live without me. I’ve never had that. Never.
And I know why.
It’s that man in the next bedroom.
Dad.
He never taught me my own worth.
In fact, he taught me the opposite.
Withdrawn and distancing himself from me, he only taught me that I wasn’t important.
And so, when a man gave me a baby and a house, I felt important for the very first time.
But I didn’t see that feeling important is much different to feeling loved.
Chapter Thirteen
THREE DAYS LATER, I PULL up on the drive and park next to Gage’s car, another thing I shall have to arrange to be carted off.
I suppose I’ve gone from feeling bitter, to accepting it all. He was cheating on me, but then I cheated on him. I guess the only thing I’m really angry about is that he could’ve been a better husband – but for some reason he always chose not to be – and now I will never know why. I will never get chance to ask him. The remains of our marriage are going to haunt me forever because I can’t tie it up inside a neat box and convince myself it’s really actually over – because it isn’t. We could have maybe worked things out, but now I shall never, ever know. Now all I’ve got is this vision in my head of him dressed in women’s clothing, kissing a random wom
an on a debauched night out that eventually killed him. That’s all I’m left with: garish nightmares and no answers.
While the kids make themselves comfortable in the living room, I check the house. The cleaner came in yesterday and did a full sweep, but I still just want to make sure.
The master bedroom is missing a bed but that doesn’t matter. I can sleep in the spare room for now. All his clothes and things have been boxed up along one wall. The cleaner has even written what’s gone into what boxes: sports kit, toiletries, underwear, shoes and trainers, trousers and shirts, suits, misc.
The funeral is Friday next week and he’ll have been dead almost two weeks when we bid our final farewell.
I hesitate on the threshold to the en suite bathroom before walking inside. The room smells like it’s had the full works and there’s not a trace of Gage’s rank bodily fluids, nor the towels he left lying around or any of his toiletries – not even any of his black curly hair left in the plughole.
I need a moment, so I pop the toilet lid down and sit on it, then put my head between my legs.
It hits me again… how unfair it all is. How easily it happened. How I’ll never find out why he couldn’t love me. It’s like a nightmare I’m becoming detached from. It feels like it never even happened to me, like it must have been someone else. Since I slept with Sam, my marriage has felt like the dirty secret, not my love for Sam. My marriage was disgusting in comparison to the love I share with Sam. It was unfulfilling and almost, I hate to say it, abusive.
I’m still yo-yoing, unable to find one train of thought that I can stick with which will help me get through. I’m all over the place, and while I know that’s normal, it’s leaving me so exhausted at the end of every day – almost too exhausted to sleep peacefully at night, if at all.
AT THE DINNER table, I’m pushing chicken around my plate while Emily is enjoying her carrots, peas and gravy. Rupert has his bowl of pasta shapes and still requires me to help him out.
“Mummy, when’s Daddy coming home?” Emily asks out of the blue.
I turn to her, taken aback. “Pardon me, darling?”
Guilt Page 9
