by Amelia Hart
Felicity sat quietly listening to the sound of footsteps and eager chatter only someone fluent in toddlerese could have translated. The fridge door opened and closed, then the cupboard door, and Max stopped babbling.
"Alright, where were we?" asked Tanya, still in motion. Felicity pictured her friend going to the sunny window seat in the living room and sprawling out on the cushions as she usually did when settling in for a chat.
"Dan's left me. It was a few weeks ago now, but I just found out he's been cheating on me. I want the number of your divorce lawyer."
"Oh my God! That's . . . of course, I'll get it for you." There was a huff as her friend got up again, and then rustling like paper.
"Thanks."
"I can't believe he did that to you. The man's an idiot. You treated him like a king."
"I know."
"Ugh. I texted him an invitation to our party, too. It's next month. I'll have to get Mark to cancel the invite. I don't even want to talk to that pig. You're invited, by the way. And here's the number for the lawyer."
Tanya gave her the lawyer's details and also those for the party. "Bring a friend or a partner if you like. Are you going to start dating?"
"No. No I . . . er . . . it's too early yet."
"Yeah, I guess so. Early days. I mean I started dating right away but then Phillip and I had been unhappy for so long beforehand I didn't feel like I needed time to get over him, you know? I was just happy to be free. Anyhow the other thing I would say to you is even though Dan's a stinking rat, don't go wild with the revenge thing, will you? I mean you deserve your fair share and all and it's good to have a lawyer, but basically you want to try and forgive him."
"I . . . what?" she had not expected that from Tanya, completely fierce and always so solidly behind her no matter what she chose to do.
"If you're living with that sort of thing, holding on to your anger and refusing to forgive is like taking poison and hoping the other person will die. You're the one who has to live with the bitterness. I mean I . . . well I didn't tell you this at the time because actually I didn't want anyone to know, but when we were at our worst Phillip had a couple of one night stands too."
"He . . . yuck!"
"Yeah, yeah, all of that. And I was fit to be tied about it. Then Caroline gave me the number of this really good counselor and I had a few sessions with her and she helped me chill out about it and let go, which was good because we really needed to get to a point where we could have a good enough relationship to parent the kids together, you know? At least you and Dan don't have kids. That's one blessing."
"I . . . guess so."
"So for sure, get it all sorted out and get some clarity about your finances so it's all separate and you know where you stand; and get the divorce over and done with, but don't hang on to it, is what I'm saying. He's a bastard and he doesn't deserve you but at least you know it now and not ten years down the track and you've got plenty of time to find somebody better. So forget him."
"I'll try," said Felicity, thinking she could not imagine it.
"You know, I can just about hear you saying to yourself 'that's not how these things are supposed to go' and you know what? There really are no rules. You can really decide you are not going to be dictated to by this experience or defined by it. Yes, you acknowledge your feelings and you grieve if you need but you don't . . . sink into it, if that makes any sense."
Felicity gave a sad little laugh. "Not really."
"Well it's like . . . how we experience these things is about us, not the actual event. And if we decide it has to be a certain way – like we have to wait some period of time to get over it or start dating again or we can't forgive an infidelity – then that's how it is. But if we say actually I'm really sad and I'm angry but that's okay and now I'm going to concentrate on other things because my life is not going to be about the stuff I don't like and didn't choose, then we can make it come out that way. You know? Anyway I know I'm not explaining it very well but this is what the counselor told me. She's really good. You should go see her. I'll give you her number."
Felicity opened her mouth to protest that she did not need that number, she was doing okay, but Tanya must have had it to hand because she rattled it off swiftly and Felicity sighed and wrote it down next to the one for the lawyer.
They talked for awhile and eventually Tanya's kids emerged from watching their movie and Tanya rang off.
Felicity wandered the empty house, rearranged her craft supplies until they were meticulously tidy but felt no creative urge. She cleared out the pantry and sorted that too, made a list of meals to make to use up items with expiry dates approaching soon.
Looking out of the window at the garden she saw several of her plants appeared sickly as Fall deepened. She should tend to them, tidy up the yard, rake the leaves, weed and mulch and . . . oh, not today. Not today. Tomorrow maybe, or Monday afternoon after her work appointments. All her energy suddenly drained away like water down a plughole, as the awful truth hit her once more, a new surge of despair.
She went back to bed and spent the rest of the day there, trying to nap, to pass from knowing about Dan, the real Dan, and slip into softer dreams. Mostly she just lay there and thought about it all, picking the clues to Dan's infidelity out of their life together.
It was obvious now she knew. She felt a fool, and humiliated. She tried to figure out how Luke had known. It must surely be something he had heard or seen at work, unless he had heard it from someone else who also knew Dan. Did the rest of the team know? All those nice men who had always been so kind to her, did they pity her? Had she stood and talked to them and all the time they were thinking: 'That poor woman' and feeling sorry about it? Colluding with Dan to keep her in the dark? Horrid thought. She did not know if she could bear to face any of them again and wonder if they had kept Dan's secret for him.
And Luke . . . well . . . she thought she could probably believe him if he said he had not known and once he found out he thought she knew too. She was wrong to take out her hurt on him. But why did it have to be him, breaking it to her? Him knowing all these horrid details about her life, her marriage, so now she was more determined than ever she must not see him again? Which she had already decided, of course, so why should it make her feel even worse to consider it when nothing had changed?
Worse still when she thought about how wide and empty the big bed felt, how well he had filled it and imagined him there again not as a sexual conquest but as a big man to put his arms around her and hold her wrapped up and safe and make her feel sheltered and cherished. It was not her plan or a true desire, just weakness that made her think his presence would improve anything.
When she heard the knock on the front door and turned over so she could look through the filmy gauze drapes of the bedroom out past the driveway to the entryway, the sight of him standing there made her think for a moment her juvenile desire for some sort of rescuer had summoned him. Then she realized it was past four, late enough in the day his training session was finished, yet still early enough he had not had to check into the hotel. It must be a home game or he would be on his way to the airport by now.
He had some perseverance, she could give him that much.
She did not get up. Did not bother to move. Just lay there sideways on the bed and watched him ring the doorbell a second time, then a third. He went to the window of the garage and peered in and she knew he could see her car and would assume she was home and just refusing to see him.
She did not care if he thought she was rude, and she did not care that he was right. Today was not about him and he could just go . . . he could just go away. She sighed heavily, not willing to use nasty language even in the privacy of her own mind.
Let him be offended. If he never came back it would save her trying to repeat the speech she had made such a mess of with him so deep inside her and her mind suffused in a rapturous pink glow. So dreadfully embarrassing, and for a moment she winced but then was distracted by the memory of th
at long, hard body flexing over her, sliding in and out, determined enough and compelling enough to her to win her will away from conscious control and see it lost in a haze of desire.
She stared out the window and dwelt on the recalled sensations, lassitude invading her limbs, a certain languid heaviness pooling in her like honey until she thought if he would just find his way into the house and into her bedroom and not say a word but only strip off her clothes and take her she would not protest, would open her body to him and welcome him in.
It was the talking and being sensible that got in the way. It was her trying to protect him from caring too much. When they just shut up and spoke with their bodies instead of their mouths they communicated just fine and it was a conversation she wanted if she could only find a way to have it and not remember he knew too much that was wrong about her history, nor feel guilty because she had no more to offer him.
He was a good man. She admired him. He deserved better than her. He deserved someone like she had once been, girlish and sweet and innocent and trusting. A naïve little romantic with a wide heart. Now she was all used up and bitter.
He rang the bell a fifth time and she imagined going to open the door naked and just pulling him in and throwing him down on the floor and mounting him and riding him but that would be too wild and cruel and not just because the flagstones on the floor were very chill this time of year.
After five rings he gave up and turned to go down the shrubbery-lined driveway and out to the road and she spent the next twenty minutes fantasizing about what she might have done had he been a more pushy kind of guy who had circled the house and found the open window off her bedroom onto the back garden, climbed in and discovered her naked and spread-eagled on the bed.
It beat thinking about anything else, that was for sure.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Modern pop psychology books recommended one choose one's emotional reality, but she got the feeling it was an acquired skill. As a novice, she had bitten off more than she could chew, trying to come out to dance tonight. This was not fun. All she felt was savage.
Honestly, she just wanted a quiet place to hang out, and someone to cuddle her and tell her everything would be fine. Or the same someone to be here with her right now, taking her hand to haul her onto the dance floor and distract her completely from her own self-pity.
But that someone was not here of course, and she hated that she even thought of him and wanted him like this.
Dancing with him only made her want to rip off his clothes, and she was not going there anymore. Dancing without him made her wistful and frustrated. So obviously dancing was a plain bad idea. No more clubbing. Not for now. Not until she was thinking straight again.
As she nibbled on the end of her straw, her drink virtually untouched on the bar, she thought of the other phase of her post-separation plan: a baby. It was a happier mental space than this one. Something completely new. A huge commitment. An exciting change. Now more than ever she did not want to connect on a romantic level with a man, but the yearning for a child was exactly the same.
Of course she was no fool. This was hardly the time to get started, much as she wanted to. She needed to make her decision calmly in the light of day. But she could still think about it. Could imagine just going ahead and making the life she wanted, reckless as if her choice would impact only her. It made her feel happy on this dark day, a glistening soap bubble of potential joy rising in her chest.
In fact she could probably head home right now, go to bed and lie there fantasizing about babies and feel better than she did at this moment. It was hard, really, knowing what you felt or wanted when you had spent years ignoring your true feelings. She was out of practice, but slowly getting better. So no, not dancing tonight. That had been a mistake. Baby fantasies. That was the medicine she needed for her soul.
All Sunday she concentrated on those thoughts, trying not to upset herself thinking of Dan, trying not to see her own bed and imagine Luke back in it. Just concentrating on babies, googling baby names and checking out nursery décor and furniture. She jogged to the local bookstore and bought a book about pregnancy, one on single parenthood, another about IVF and a fourth of baby names. For hours she flicked between them with fluorescent markers in hand, highlighting sections and making notes. So many decisions, major and minor. So much to learn and organize.
Of course she had several friends who had been through pregnancies, multiple times. She could access plenty of potential advice if she wanted it. But she was reluctant to talk it over just yet. Considering Caroline's dubious reaction, she did not want to worry anyone else with her thoughts. She clung to the fantasy. Reality could wait.
Once she gave herself permission to dwell on her own feelings, it was like a dam had burst. This was what she wanted more than anything. This was the dream she had denied, the path longed for but not taken. All she really needed was the conviction she was acting sensibly enough, not out of her head with grief and anger.
Some space, some time, and when she was ready, she would do this. The certainty was soothing.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She was finishing off the last of the gardening in the late afternoon of Monday when Luke pulled up at the curb, and she felt her lips pinch together tight. For a moment she considered scuttling inside and locking the door but that was too outrageously rude, not to mention cowardly. Instead she stood up and propped one gloved hand on her hip, and made an effort to give him a cool smile instead of the scowl she felt.
It was a dynamic she was not used to managing: too much intimacy, too much anger, too much pain. This was outside her experience.
"Afternoon. Great day for it," he said, nodding in approval at the huge pile of weeds she had assembled on a tarpaulin. It was a brilliant blue sky day, though now the warmth had gone completely with the lowering of the sun, and she shivered a little, cooling quickly as soon as she stopped moving. "Is there someplace you'd like me to haul that?" He pointed at the tarp.
"No thanks. I can manage," she said, not wanting to be beholden to him for even a small thing. She felt so awkward around him, so conscious of everything that had passed between them, of him wearing that big body of his and moving in it just so, making her remember him moving inside her just by the way he walked up her driveway all smooth and graceful with a rhythm on him like-
She was not used to dwelling on a man like that. Sex was good but it had its place and that was not cluttering up her thoughts and getting in the way of having a sensible conversation. She groped for something to say to him as he stood there, his hands shoved into his back pockets, and wearing a friendly smile like she had not run away from him the last time he was here. Like he had not dropped an enormous bomb of a revelation and devastated her.
He had a skillful way about him: of pretending everything was fine so it was terribly difficult to come to grips with him. Did she bring up their last conversation about the adultery, refer to her undignified escape and his naked pursuit or go back to what she had been all ready to say to him on Friday night (or in fact early Saturday morning) before he so effectively distracted her with his body? Or did she follow his lead now and have the sort of friendly conversation he was cuing her into?
For a moment she had the sneaking suspicion it was all deliberate. That he was in fact outwitting her. Then she dismissed the idea.
"I'm not entirely sure why you're here," she began ambiguously, though it would be more accurate to say she wasn't sure how to treat him.
He shrugged and smiled. "It's a fine day. I've got a few hours spare. I thought I'd drop around and say hello."
"Hello," she told him, and waited, unmoving.
"Hello," he replied, and came towards her. She thought he was moving in for a kiss and was prepared to duck away but he did not stoop, just stepped right up and wrapped his arms around her in a gentle hug that totally invaded her space. She sucked in a breath of warm, freshly showered male and opened her mouth, looked up to tell him to back off and that was
when he bent to kiss her, arms releasing so his hands could cup her face, hot on her cold skin. Though she was annoyed at him for the presumption there was no doubt the man could kiss and she got distracted enjoying it for a moment that stretched out into more. Firm and heated and languorous so her eyelids drooped and closed, the touch and textures beguiling. She forgot she had meant to stop him, instead leaned in and sucked on him, her gloved fingers wrapped in his shirt.
There came a moment when she recollected where she was – standing on her front lawn in full sight of the neighborhood at the end of the workday, passionately kissing a man. She pulled back from him and said stupidly: "I can't see you anymore."
He kept right on smiling, his lush lips curved even more and his eyes twinkling down at her. "Are we talking some sort of temporary blindness?"
"You know what I mean," she said, and took another step away so she was no longer in the circle of his arms. "It's a mistake for the two of us to get involved." It felt wrong to just say it out like that, seeming like it was coming out of nowhere, and inappropriate, particularly given a kiss she had not planned on.
"Why is that?"
For a moment she groped for the reason. "Because . . . ah . . . because I'm not really . . . ah . . . emotionally available. It's not fair to you."
"Oh, I don't mind that," he said easily, and stepped forward to follow her retreat.
She backed off hastily, one hand raised in front of her. "No. Wait. I don't think you understand. It would be wrong to care about me because I can't return your feelings."
"Sure. Just sex. I got it." He kept coming, herding her towards her own front door.
"Look, there's no point telling me that's all you want because I may not be the most knowledgeable woman in the world but I'm not stupid either. I know when a guy is . . . is vulnerable and . . . and likely to get hurt and I don't want that to happen to you. We may not see exactly eye-to-eye on things but I believe you mean well and I don't want to treat you like you're some sort of sex object."
