by Billy London
“Then go,” she offered, lifting and waving an imperious hand. “I’m just here sleeping.”
“You’re going to be a constant distraction in my life, aren’t you?” The weariness in his voice made her press her lips together to hide a grin.
“Might be,” she said, lifting her shoulder in a careless shrug and turning her face back into the pillow.
Nice to know he felt just as affected as she did...
Chapter Twenty-Two
They sat at the surfline, the waves rushing underneath their bottoms. Niels rested his arms on his drawn-up knees, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.
They’d shared a busy day, topped with calling the boys, who were still miffed their parents had abandoned them for a holiday. Again, rather than talking, Niels arranged for them to drive a little further along the coast, to snorkel with sea turtles, irritable with the human presence in their waters. There’d been a moment, floating next to a huge turtle, trying to stay still to not disturb the creature, when Niels waved at her underwater, and gave her the peace sign, grinning around the tube in his mouth. She had to swim for air, or choke on her laughter. He swam up next to her, lifted his mask and snorkel from his mouth and kissed her.
Standing in the shallow waters, fish wriggling around them, Niels’ sun-warmed body pressed against hers, with salt water trickling over his lips and between hers, Stella felt blazed with lust. With love. With everything in her soul.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, a little moan escaping her the moment he cupped a hand over her buttocks and pulled her closer to him. If she hadn’t found out from prior experience how much seawater hurt her nether regions, she’d have told him to swim them out further, into deeper, quieter water to just do it. That kiss, every groan from him, each tiny little nibble on her top lip, the drag of his tongue over the column of her neck, leading back to her mouth, the grip of his hand on her arse… All of it told her one simple thing. Her body knew what it wanted. Her heart knew. Why she kept fighting it, God only knew.
He broke off the kiss, and sighed her name, with such longing, it prickled at her eyes. “Now we really need to talk.”
She’d simply nodded. Once they’d dried off and accepted a taxi back to the hotel, they simply sat by the shore, watching the waves, thinking of what to say to bridge between the breakdown of their marriage to the start of something different and familiar and new and known.
“We tried this,” she started, very aware that Niels remained stubbornly silent. “And it didn’t work. And I accept that I did my part. But you didn’t fight for me. For us. So all this effort now… I don’t know where it’s coming from.”
“Yes you do,” he retorted. “You know exactly where it came from. The moment you even showed you still cared, where was I?”
Trying to get into her knickers. She waved a white flag and he sent her kisses. He offered friendship. His attention. Advice. She spat fire at him and he waited patiently for her to calm. Had he not fought for her or did she give up too easily?
“Why?”
Niels pressed his lips together and took a deep breath. “Have you ever been poor, Stella? Scraping into the sofa for pennies, not knowing where your next meal is coming from, hiding-from-bailiffs poor?”
“What?”
“Dirt. Poor. Me. I was. My family.”
She’d known him nearly fifteen years and he never once mentioned struggling growing up. “Oh my God,” she whispered in horror. “Oh my God, Niels you never said! Never, ever, ever! You said you had a great childhood.”
“I did. For the most part. I turned eleven and we lost everything. Bad business deal. My parents both took on about three jobs each to have enough for rent. I got through school with scholarships.” Stella couldn’t take her hands from her mouth. Her husband had painted the most glorious view of his past. Growing up near lakes and forestry. Fishing the old fashioned way. How did he simply leave out poverty?
“Why do you think I work so hard?” he asked her abruptly. “To never be that poor again. When the crash hit again, the company was falling apart. Our shares dropped and we were haemorrhaging money.”
“You were travelling so much. I just thought you were wrapped up in business.”
“I was scared.”
The scales fell from her eyes. She’d let him down. All the resentment she felt, left alone with the twins, working so hard to keep their family in a life to which they were accustomed… All that time, he suffered alone.
“But if you had talked to me, you’d know that we were fine.”
“The salon was fine,” he corrected her. “You don’t remember we agreed a remortgage on the house to fund a project in Sweden?”
I would have covered that, she thought. I did cover that. Didn’t I?
Maybe, she’d have had to shuffle money around, sell some shares elsewhere that had seriously lost value in any case, but they’d have managed. “We’d have managed. If you told me. If you’d just trusted me…”
He shook his head, looking down at the wet sand between his knees. “It was too much money. You don’t understand how ashamed I felt that I’d put our family at risk of losing everything. The investor wanted all his money back. And he started proceedings against the house.”
“But you went and just bought the house with our savings!”
“Did you read everything?”
“Nope.”
“If you had, you’d know that house is in trust for the boys. It’s not mine. It’s never been mine. It was a way to keep a roof over our heads. And then, the investor tried another tactic. Going after the only other named guarantor on the loan.”
“Me.”
“I spoke to several solicitors and the consensus was… If I divorced you, it wouldn’t be an asset the investor could take. Stella, most of this was in my financial information.”
“I told Eden, I didn’t care. Just to make sure I kept the house. That’s all I was worried about.”
Suddenly, it all fit together and she knew the moment he couldn’t and wouldn’t believe she would stand by him…
***
Two months before divorce
Not pregnant. Stella ran her hands through her hair in relief, then realised she’d touched her hair with a pee-covered stick. Disgusting.
She’d been irritable and snappish for weeks. Finally, she twigged. Late period, right after one of hers and Niels’ ships-passing-in-the-night, fly-by bangs. That night hadn’t been quick. Slow. Repeated. Contraception-forgetting.
The next morning, she’d gone to work and he… for some reason, tried to coax her to stay. He didn’t seem to understand the whole world was in the midst of the worst financial crisis for a century, and she needed to keep things moving. Make sure the boys could go to a quality school, the mortgage could be paid on time, now that every mortgage lender was cracking down on missed payments. Several houses in the street were repossessed by the banks, waiting on auction sale. Spouses committing suicide over the stress. The last thing, the very last thing she wanted to do was to stay at home when there was money to be made. A family to support.
God forbid, they had another baby, or thank you, Mr. Over-Potent, two babies to look after. Only the two. Or three, if she counted Niels and his demands.
Thank you, God, she breathed, putting the stick to the side of the sink to wash her hands and splash much-needed cold water on her face. She padded into the bedroom and slapped on some moisturiser.
Niels stalked into the room, his mobile clamped to his ear. He spoke in rapid Finnish. Why come here and do that, she thought irritably. He nodded to her, acknowledging her presence and went into the bathroom.
Oh. Fuck. Pregnancy. Test.
He came out of the bathroom in thirty seconds, his phone in one hand, the test in the other.
“What is this?”
“If you’re asking, either you need to see an optician or a neurosurgeon.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “For just a moment, why don’t you tak
e that tone from your voice and talk to me as if perhaps I am not one of your eight-year-old children?”
She paused to regain her composure. Maybe it was the hormones from being close to a cycle, or perhaps it based on her frantic mood swings around her husband. To be honest, he seemed to fly in, fuck her, and fly out again. If he left money beside the bed, she’d perhaps feel a little less used. At that moment? She felt nothing but anger. “I thought I was pregnant. I’m not. There we are.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?”
“Yeah. What else do you want? A round table conference? You’re going to have to keep on foot in this country for longer than five minutes for that to happen.”
“I have been here for weeks,” he ground out. “And it didn’t occur to you to talk to me?”
“Why? This is a non-issue. We’re not pregnant. Look, I even said we.”
He stared at her in shock. “You’re happy about this.”
“We said only two. We’ve got two! We’ve no need for any more. I mean, the inconvenience. I’d be out of work for years on end. The boys wouldn’t understand for a second. And to be fair, you’re hardly here at the moment, so what would I do? I’d be pregnant on my own.”
“For helvede, Stella. The whole world isn’t against you. You are surrounded by people who will support you. But you want to suffer on your own. Pretend to everyone how strong and singular you are. How well you cope on your own.”
“Don’t I? Tell me, Niels, what the hell would we do with another baby? Or two more, knowing you?” He shook his head at her, throwing the test into the bathroom where it cracked in two and bounced on the marble floor.
“Why are you so angry?” she asked, into the shocked silence. “We can’t afford a baby.”
“Financially or emotionally?” he asked bitterly. “When did I become the enemy, Stella?”
“That’s a ridiculous thing to say…”
“Is it? Because either I’m one step above a vibrator or I’m deliberately irritating the shit out of you. Just so you can play mother. I am not one of your children. I am supposed to be your husband, but for some reason, you don’t want a husband. You want a robot. Something that fits in with what you want, when you want it.” He shook his head again. “Just… do what you want to. What I think or what I feel or what I need is irrelevant to you.”
Before she could answer, he left the bedroom. It would be the last time they exchanged words before Niels told her their marriage was over.
***
Stella pressed her face into her knees, trying to stem the tidal wave of tears. The argument burned to the very marrow of her bones, knowing that maybe, if she’d done one single thing differently that day… It may have given Niels the hope to trust her. They could have weathered his business failures together. She’d have understood. If she hadn’t, like he said, treated him like one more child to tend to.
“I know why you didn’t talk to me. You were so hurt. But I didn’t know how to comfort you. Or explain myself. And I didn’t feel like you deserved it. I was so wrong.”
Niels caught her by the thigh and dragged her over the sand into his arms. “Don’t cry.” His voice sounded as shaky as hers. She looked up and saw his glasses were on top of his head and his eyes were bloodshot and red. “I don’t know why... I have trouble trusting people. Even you. So I allowed that to manifest. I was relieved you didn’t want to talk to me. Because it meant I didn’t have to explain myself. And once the distance was there… It was as if I couldn’t find you. The easiest thing was to let you go. I thought. I tried. Half-arsed trying, yes, I know before you say.”
They sat quietly, and watched another couple pass by them, hand-in-hand. Water rushed over their feet suddenly, bringing them back. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now? Obviously I lied to myself. I haven’t lasted a week without talking to you.”
“We seem to keep ending up in bed together.”
“Kitchen floor.”
“Or on the kitchen floor together.”
“Back yard…”
“You are losing momentum of conversation here.”
“Sorry.” He rubbed his palm over her shoulder and down her bicep. “My therapist helped me understand that I wanted you to show me something. Anything, so I could going. Keep thinking that there’d be a point where you’d forgive me and we’d be all right again.”
“God’s sake, man. Why would I be constantly cross if I didn’t care? If I wasn’t broken-hearted. And desperate for you to change your mind. Anything.”
“Because that’s how you’d been for the last year or three of our marriage. I couldn’t give you what you wanted. I’d never be that man. Listen to me,” he turned her towards him and he framed her face between two slightly sandy palms. “I love you. I don’t know how to do anything else. I never stopped loving you. Not for a single minute. We don’t have to get married again. We don’t have to explain anything to our parents or friends. It’s none of their fucking business. I don’t want to be apart from you anymore. You’re my life, Stella. You and the boys.” He touched his forehead to hers.
Such words. Such sweet, beautiful, needed words. At last. Finally. Stella covered his hands with her own and said softly, “Then just come home. If you leave me again, I’ll just kill you.”
“Dump my body here?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Pretty much, yes.”
“Good. I know the rules.”
Stella shook her head. “No more rules. Just two. I won’t leave you. And you don’t leave me. That’s one.”
“Mutual, okay. And the second?”
She had to take a breath before she could speak, to compose herself. “You talk to me. Even if I don’t want to, you know I’m a stubborn bitch, just grab me, sit me down and vent. I don’t care what it’s about, I don’t care if I fight you. Just talk to me. Please?”
“I swear. I always will.”
He kissed her on the forehead and embraced her. For a long time, they sat together on the beach, legs and arms entwined as the sun set over Tulum’s long stretch of paradisiacal beach. Eventually, he got up and pulled her to her feet.
“Let’s get cleaned up and go and eat. There’s a Thai restaurant inside a club, about ten minutes from us.”
Stella’s stomach rumbled immediately and Niels laughed. “Food. Good to know that’s still a priority for you.”
“What? We ate five long hours ago!”
“Uh huh,” he murmured, curling his hand into hers and walking her back to their room. As soon as he opened the bungalow door, Stella walked into his body. “Before you say something,” he said slowly, “I had nothing to do with this.”
“What?” she asked, peeking around him to see the bed laid with an intertwined towel swan couple. The path to the bed had been laid with blush red rose petals and lit candles in the dusk.
“What the hell?” she breathed, stepping around him. Their room had been obviously cleaned, but the petals and the candles and the swan towels added intense romanticism to the space.
She reached for his bag and took a photo. Several. Most of the expression on Niels’ face. “It’s okay,” she assured him, patting his cheek. “You’ve more than topped this with just the spoken word. You haven’t been outdone by the hotel staff.”
He locked the bungalow door and plucked the camera from her fingers, throwing it back into his bag.
“Erm, what are you doing?”
“Proving I can do better than the spoken word,” he murmured, tugging at the ties of her bikini with one determined hand.
The End
Epilogue
The boys were still at their grandmother’s house when Stella and Niels wheeled in their suitcases. They hadn’t warned anyone what was coming. A lot of questions. A lot of questions for them both. Stella could have cared less.
“Let me put your things in the laundry…”
Niels put a restraining hand on her arm, as she reached for his bag. “Leave it where it is for a moment. I
just want to sit down for a moment with you.”
The obsessive-compulsive in her really wanted to sort through the cases and put everything away .The romantic in her recognised her husband’s need to feel assured before the normalcy of life spoiled the view. She led him into the living room and as soon as he sat down, she curled up in his lap, burying her face in his neck. Feels better, she thought. Feels normal.
“How soon can you get your things together?”
“It’ll take a few days,” he replied, his voice rumbling against her forehead. “Why?”
“This is going to sound really stupid, but I’m kinda worried that if you go, you’ll realise just how much hard work this all is and you’ll stay put in your home.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’m not leaving you again. I promise.”
She heard him, but Mexico, their beach, bungalow and the stillness that came with being so many thousands of miles away were long gone. With a deep breath, inhaling her husband’s scent, she snuggled closer. “Isn’t it weird? That it’s so quiet?”
He caught her chin on the edge of his hand and pulled her into a kiss. “Not even a bit.”
Before she knew it, they were both fast asleep in a tangle of limbs and the sofa throw. The banging of the door forced one eye open and Danny came barging into the room. He observed his parents, his divorced, living-in-separate-houses, forced-civility parents, curled up on the sofa together and backed out of the room without another word, slamming the door as he went.
“Uh oh,” Niels sighed heavily, lifting his body from Stella and walking into the corridor. Stella followed him where Judith helped Will with his jacket.
“You’re back!” their youngest son said in delight, holding his arms out for a hug. Stella scooped him into her arms and he murmured, “You smell like the beach, Muma.”
She squeezed him tighter and smoothed a hand over his cheek. “We’re going to have to get a take-away. There’s nothing to eat and we all need to talk.” A lot sooner than either of them intended, but considering their faux pas, the talk had to happen.
