Google Your Husband Back

by Julie Butterfield

  Then she had taken off the top, the trousers and most of the make up after reading another article that warned about false expectations, that husbands should accept the reality of wives looking after young children and the house and not expect stockings and suspenders when they walked through the door at the end of the day.

  She had spent at least an hour in her dressing gown her head reeling with conflicting advice and in the end she had closed the laptop, pulled on her jeans and simply crossed her fingers.

  ‘Hello Alex.’

  ‘Hello Kate.’

  Kate pushed the door open a little wider so Alex could come in.

  ‘Millie in bed?’

  Kate nodded. ‘I thought it was probably for the best.’

  They stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment until Kate waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Shall we …?’

  Alex sat at the table then jumped back to his feet as Kate took a bottle of wine from the fridge.

  ’Shall I open it …’

  ‘Would you like a drink ...’

  They both spoke at the same time and their hands collided over the bottle making Kate jump back just as Alex let go and the bottle nearly ended on the kitchen floor but for Alex’s deft catch.

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Sorry!’ they both echoed in unison.

  Eventually the wine was poured and Kate sat down opposite Alex, both ignoring the glass in front of them.

  ‘Kate,’ he began with such a decisive tone that Kate jumped.

  ‘Sorry,’ he murmured. Then tried again, ‘Kate, I’m sorry.’

  Kate waited.

  ‘I’m sorry for yesterday of course, I had no right to complain that you were going out. But I’m sorry for - well what I’ve done.’

  She watched as Alex ran his fingers through his fringe. ‘I can’t actually believe I could have been so stupid, I can’t believe I could have hurt you like that.’

  Kate nodded, keeping quiet as Alex continued.

  ‘I made a mistake Kate, it was foolish I know but I just felt so unappreciated, unnecessary almost. I didn’t feel as though I had a place in your life anymore and I made a huge mistake.’

  Ah – the unappreciated complaint. She tried to remember what her response should be.

  ‘But Alex, we have Millie now and I have to look after her. She’s so small, she relies on us totally, she has to come first.’

  Kate tried not to make her voice strident or accusing, she let the words fall as gently as she could and watched Alex’s face crumple as she spoke.

  What else, what was the answer to the unappreciated husband?

  ‘But,’ she carried on, smiling reassuringly, ‘I understand that you may feel …’ she struggled for a moment. She didn’t really understand at all how Alex could feel left out because they now had a beautiful baby girl. But Google had said something about being accommodating to change. ‘Maybe we can have a little more ‘us’ time, have one evening each week just for us?’

  Alex couldn’t have been happier. His face lit up like a puppy given a toilet roll.

  ‘Really? That would be great Kate, just great. I don’t want you to think I resent Millie,’ he leaned forward earnestly, ‘it’s not that at all Kate.’

  Kate tried to look as though she understood.

  ‘I love Millie, I just felt quite alone.’

  ‘I understand,’ she repeated.

  ‘It’s hard to put my finger on exactly how I felt but, well, abandoned I suppose.’

  Kate gritted her teeth. For some reason she had a sudden memory of Josh entertaining Millie in the restaurant the previous week. He hadn’t started to sulk when Kate’s attention was distracted, he hadn’t sighed when Millie started to grumble. He had put down his knife and fork and simply played at peek a boo for a few minutes until her good humour was restored.

  She dragged herself back to her husband.

  ‘Yes, I understand Alex,’ she said, not quite as gently as before. ‘Maybe I was too preoccupied with Millie.’ The words hurt.

  ‘Not just Millie,’ suggested Alex.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well it’s not just Millie is it? These days you seem more interested in keeping the kitchen clean than talking to me.’

  Kate’s mouth hung open.

  ‘And the cushions,’ he carried on, ‘why on earth do all the cushions have to be in the same order, and the pans – you polish the pans nearly every day!’

  Kate felt her smile disappear. Had her marriage failed because she kept her beautiful copper pans clean? And the cushions in a straight line? Strangely she didn’t recall Alex complaining in the slightest when he came home at the end of the day to a tidy house, a cooked meal and cushions all standing up straight inviting him to settle into them.

  ‘Right,’ she said shortly. ‘So you want me to spend less time with housework? Because I seem to remember that you were the one who wanted copper pans and colour co-ordinated cushions!’

  Alex looked a little surprised. ‘No! No, I’m sorry Kate. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’ He offered her a conciliatory smile but Kate was becoming less receptive.

  ‘I just meant that you’ve become an amazing person, your cooking and you know all the stuff you do in the house.’

  Stuff, thought Kate. Stuff!

  ‘But it takes up a lot of your time and attention, housework and pans,’ he gave a little laugh,’ yeah, that’s all fine but not instead of – of …’

  ‘Instead of you? suggested Kate.

  ‘Yes – No! Instead of us Kate. Instead of time spent on us.’

  Kate chewed on her lip. This was becoming a little tiring. Sod Google.

  ‘Do you want to come back?’ she asked outright, wincing as she heard the words erupt into the room. Google had been very specific, don’t ask the errant husband to return. Don’t put him on the spot and make him feel pressured. Encourage him, enable him, but let him make the suggestion.

  But Kate was getting a little weary of the advice she was following. She was certainly getting a little tired of accepting her part in the folly that was Alex and Sandra Maddison.

  Alex stared at her, almost frozen to the table.

  ‘I – er – I didn’t think you would …’

  ‘I would consider it.’

  ‘You would?’

  ‘I couldn’t promise anything Alex.’

  ‘Of course not I wouldn’t expect you to …’

  ‘But I would consider moving on -with you.’

  ‘And – er -Sandra?’

  Kate tried to stop the grimace that twitched at her lips. ‘It would be hard Alex, obviously it would be hard.’

  She paused and he watched her, holding his breath.

  ‘But I think I could – forgive you.’

  Alex let out a huge breath, gusting across the table.

  ‘Oh God Kate I can’t believe that you would be prepared to forgive and forget.’

  Oh, thought Kate, there would be no forgetting. And there would probably wouldn’t be a great deal of forgiving. Not deep down inside. But she wanted Alex back and if she had to play the part of the forgiving wife then she would do so. No matter how hard it was.

  Kate frowned, she seemed to have gone completely off course. She wasn’t supposed to be taking the lead in this way, she was supposed to let Alex come to the natural realisation that he wanted to come home and ask Kate if she would forgive him. She wondered what she should do next.

  ‘Right,’ she stood up.

  Alex looked startled. He stood up slowly. ‘Right,’ he echoed uncertainly.

  ‘Well, perhaps we both need to think about – what we’ve said?’ Kate winced, she was acting as though she’d just given him a quote for double glazing. ‘And what we need to do next?’

  Alex nodded, ‘Right- er – okay.’

  They stood in the kitchen, the wine untouched between them.

  ‘So – I’ll go then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate nodded briskly,’ yes, yes. You go.’

&n
bsp; ‘And we’ll speak soon?’

  ‘Definitely!’

  ‘To talk about …’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate was still nodding furiously. ‘Oh, yes to talk about …er?’

  ‘To talk about me coming home?’

  And there it was, the moment.

  Kate closed her eyes briefly, the tension suddenly leaving her shoulders.

  ‘Yes,’ she said gently, a smile lifting her lips and warming her face. ‘Yes Alex, to talk about you coming home.’

  She walked to the door with him and they stood in the shadows of the street light.

  ‘Thank you Kate,’ Alex whispered.

  And then in a rerun of the previous night, Kate saw his face coming closer and closer. She watched as the blue of his eyes became deeper and deeper until it was only centimetres from her face.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Alex whispered again and then his lips were on hers and it was such a familiar and well-loved feeling that she felt the tears immediately spring to her eyes and for a blissful moment it was as though the events of the last few weeks had never happened and she was exactly where she needed to be, back in the arms of her husband.

  Chapter 26

  It was Sunday morning and Kate was feeding Millie, spooning in the porridge that Millie loved and which invariably ended up on Kate’s clothes.

  ‘Good girl Millie darling,’ she crooned as her daughter happily opened her mouth wide. ‘Daddy will be home soon Millie. Won’t that be wonderful?’

  The porridge was finished and she showed Millie the empty dish.

  ‘We’ll be a family again, mummy, daddy and baby Millie. Just like we should be.’

  Millie didn’t appear at all interested as she tried to put her fingers in the bowl.

  ‘We’ll be happy again Millie, I promise. We’ll forget all about what happened and daddy will love us again and we’ll be back to normal. A perfect family.’

  Kate’s eyes strayed to the garden. A perfect family. She had been a perfect wife, or so she thought, a perfect wife looking after the perfect family. And yet Alex hadn’t found that enough. He had complained about being at the back of the queue behind Millie, behind the copper pans and behind the artfully arranged cushions. Well Kate would have to work a little harder this time. The perfection had come at the cost of her husband so this time she needed to alter her tactics. She needed to revert back to the carefree, happy woman he married, full of joy and spontaneity. But, a frown creased Kate’s forehead, of course he wouldn’t want standards to drop. She had to be the Kate he fell in love with but still make a wonderful meal every night, clean the house, iron his shirts, look after Millie, polish the pans. How was she going to manage all that she wondered? She would just have to be even more organised. She would have to make sure she scheduled fun into her week - Wednesday afternoon – be impulsive. Friday morning – remember to have fun. Saturday afternoon – be carefree.

  The phone rang and taking Millie out of her high chair and putting her on the floor where she could chew donkey’s ear, she answered it.

  ‘Kate, Hi, it’s Josh.’

  The room seemed to still as Kate heard his voice. Millie still sat chuntering away, the washing machine still whirled behind her but Kate could hear nothing but her own breathing as she clutched the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hello Josh,’ she answered softly.

  ‘It’s a lovely day outside,’ he started cheerfully. ‘I wondered if Millie might like to feed the ducks? We could take a picnic to the park and introduce her to the lake’s feathered creatures?’

  There was silence.

  ‘Of course if you’re busy, or if Alex …?’

  ‘No. We’re not busy.’

  ‘And Alex?’

  ‘Isn’t here,’ answered Kate truthfully.

  ‘And the ducks?’

  Kate laughed. ‘I think Millie would love to meet the ducks Josh. What a lovely idea.’

  They arranged that Josh would pick them up and he told Kate not to worry about the picnic, he would collect everything they needed from the shop. ‘You just need to relax and have a lovely day,’ he instructed, ‘leave the rest to me!’

  Kate couldn’t help smiling. She realised that whenever she thought of Josh she smiled. Or blushed. Sometimes she smiled and blushed. She also realised that maybe she should have said no. She should have told Josh that Alex had visited the night before and they were on the verge of a reconciliation. She could tell him while they were out she decided. She could update him on her progress. He would be happy for her, even if he was sad about lost opportunities.

  You should have told him on the phone, a little voice in her head remonstrated. You should have told him that Alex was coming home and that going out with Josh was inappropriate. But Kate ignored the little voice and instead carried on smiling as she dressed Millie and fluffed up her baby curls until she looked impossibly sweet and ready to meet the ducks.

  It was an hour after she had spoken to Josh, as she was looking through Millie’s bag to make sure she had a spare of everything that might be needed, that the phone rang again. She grinned, no doubt Josh had suddenly realised he didn’t know what babies ate on picnics.

  ‘Hello!’ she sang down the phone.

  ‘Hi Kate.’

  The smile dropped. ‘Oh, hello Alex.’

  ‘I just wanted to say how happy I was that you were so – understanding last night. I mean I had hoped that we could move on, that you could forgive me but I thought it would take longer! I thought you might be too angry with me for us to move on so quickly.’

  Kate stood still, the phone in her hand. She was angry but she had worked too hard to let any anger surface.

  ‘You made a mistake Alex,’ she said simply. ‘You made a mistake and you want to come back to me and Millie, that’s what’s important.’

  ‘You’re right, I do want to come home. In fact ...’

  Suddenly Kate wasn’t ready. Having waited so long she just wasn’t ready to hear the words.

  ‘I’m sorry Alex,’ she interrupted. ‘I can’t talk, I’m just on my way out.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Well that’s why I was phoning really. I wondered if you and Millie wanted to go to lunch?’

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Yes. After all, we haven’t spent much time as a family lately have we so I thought it would be nice if we went out today. The weather is lovely!’

  ‘I see. It’s a lovely idea Alex, a really lovely idea.’ Kate’s mind was pandemonium. Of course she wanted to go with Alex. She wanted to go out with her husband and her daughter for Sunday lunch. What could be more perfect?

  ‘I thought we could go to the restaurant. The one where we saw each other last week?’

  ‘The restaurant?’

  ‘Yes. It was really nice there wasn’t it?’

  Well, thought Kate, yes it was really nice. Apart from the fact she had been sitting on one table with Millie and Josh and Alex had been sitting on an entirely different table with the woman he was having an affair with. Had Alex always been so totally unimaginative she suddenly wondered.

  ‘We know that Millie will be okay there, she seemed to love it last week.’

  When another man took us there, thought Kate.

  ‘So how about it Kate? A lovely lunch, me, you and Millie. A family again.’

  Just what Kate had waited to hear.

  ‘So, will you come to lunch with me Kate?’

  Millie was ready, a pink cardigan keeping her arms warm and a sweet little sunhat keeping her face cool. There was a knock at the door and she scooped Millie into her arms.

  ‘Ready my darling? Let’s go,’ and she opened the door.

  ‘Hello gorgeous!’ said Josh dropping a kiss on Millie’s head but looking at Kate. ‘Everybody ready?’

  The park was close and in no time at all they were walking along the path in the sunshine as Millie sat upright in her buggy waving her arms in the air and chattering to herself and donkey.

  The unseasonably warm weather had brought out the
hibernating population and the paths were full of strolling couples, children running on the grass, older folk sitting on the benches.

  ’This is lovely,’ said Kate, aware of how close Josh was, how easy it would have been to link arms with him as she pushed the buggy. ‘What a good idea!’

  She didn’t tell him that Alex had phoned and suggested that he take Millie and Kate out. She didn’t explain how she had told Alex, quite gently, that although it was a lovely idea she had already made arrangements and couldn’t join him. And because she didn’t tell him that Alex had phoned in the first place she couldn’t tell him that Alex had been quite desperately upset when Kate turned him down. That he had pleaded with her to change her mind, had said he was desperate to see his wife and daughter and get some sense of normality back into their lives. She couldn’t tell Josh that she had been quite taken aback as suddenly the balance shifted and Alex was anxious to know where Kate was going, who she was going with, what she was doing that meant she couldn’t see her husband. And of course she couldn’t mention that she had snapped ‘estranged husband’ at Alex which had brought yet more apologies and promises. And she certainly couldn’t tell him that she knew Alex was going to ask if he could come home, if they had gone for lunch he was going to ask if he could come home with them right there and then. They would eat roast chicken, smile and laugh and then go home as a family. And she certainly couldn’t mention that she had suddenly become quite claustrophobic at the thought of having Alex back and the thought that everything would swing back to a life centred around keeping Alex happy. Because that is what Kate had devoted herself to over the last few years, keeping Alex happy, a job she had failed to complete. And now she was going to have to try even harder and suddenly it seemed like a very hard task indeed.

  So she told Josh nothing of the conversation with Alex that morning and instead she strolled along the path in the sunshine and imagined linking arms as they wandered to the lake and the greedy ducks.