tinkling in tandem, I pull that wretched note out of my pocket. I read it all again, every damn word, feeling sicker at every line. As I shove it back into my pocket, I reach for my phone for the umpteenth time. But there’s no reply to my text; no ‘Sorry, I just went a bit mad there but don’t worry – I’ll be back home very soon.’
Out of habit, I tap my email icon. As the messages roll in, I spot one from her, sent less than an hour ago at 7.40 a.m:
Nate, I assume you’ve found my note by now. At least, I hope it’s you who found it and not Flynn. I’m sorry if it’s shocking but I had to tell you how I felt. I didn’t know what else to do. It’s just got so bad and you’re not hearing me. I have tried to talk to you but you won’t listen. I’ll be in touch soon, and of course I’ll spend time with Flynn and talk things through with him. It’s important that he understands that none of this is his fault.
I know we’ll be okay eventually. We’ll still be Flynn’s parents together and do the job as well as we possibly can, just as we have always done. He knows we love him and that’s never going to change. In time, I’m sure the three of us can work out the practical issues. I know it might seem alarming right now, but when you look at Flynn’s friends, it’s hardly unusual to have divorced parents—
‘What the fuck?’ I blurt out loud.
So now you have read all my reasons, my wife concludes, I hope you’ll understand why I have been so unhappy lately, and why I am leaving you.
I’m sorry, Nate.
Sinead
I have done an unspeakable thing. I have left my child. It hadn’t been my plan to do this; at least not last night after a shitload of cheap white wine. But then, something had to happen.
Installed at my friend Abby’s across town now, I just wish I could erase the image in my mind of Nate’s horrified face when he discovered my list this morning. He had no idea how bad things were. The only person who really knew was Rachel, my therapist.
Yesterday, after work, I sat in her small, sparse room with its brown nylon carpet, trying to figure out whether my marriage was definitely over. Was it really that bad? Or, after nineteen years together, was this just what being married was like? Rachel – or ‘that Rachel woman’, as Nate tends to refer to her – tucked her shiny black hair behind her ears and clasped her hands primly. ‘You might find it helpful to write down all the aspects you’re unhappy with,’ she suggested, ‘and then all the good things too.’
‘The aspects of what?’ I asked.
‘Well, of Nate and you. Of your relationship.’
I’d first come to see her six weeks ago, having googled ‘therapist’ and booked an appointment simply because I was sort of unravelling and the voice on her answerphone sounded kind. I’d deliberately chosen someone based in Solworth, rather than Hesslevale – I didn’t want to keep running into her in our local Sainsbury’s. And so I went along, dry-mouthed and nervous, anticipating an older woman full of wisdom, with an instruction book for life. I hadn’t expected to be greeted by a chic young thing in red lipstick and a short black shift with a Peter Pan collar, who probably considered Britpop to be ‘history’.
‘Writing a list is like talking to a friend,’ she explained. ‘It can help to clarify your thoughts and work through complex emotions. It’s a way of distilling the very essence of your togetherness with Nate.’
‘I’m not sure there’s anything left to distil,’ I murmured.
‘Of course there is,’ she insisted, ‘and this exercise will help you to identify what’s still there, and worth saving, underneath the pressures and resentments that clutter up our lives.’
I nodded, trying to process this. I’d been feeling awful for the past year or so: lost and alone, as if I was just going through the motions of getting through each day. Friends had listened as I’d tried to explain how I felt – but there’s only so much you can go on before you start to imagine they’re glazing over. Anxiety, depression or whatever it was; these things happened to other people, I’d always thought. As a younger woman, I’d always been pretty happy and optimistic, the last person I’d have imagined to end up feeling this way. And so I’d seen my GP, a kindly woman who knew all about the stresses we’d been through with Flynn over the years, who said, ‘I think you need a helping hand, Sinead, just to ease you through this rough patch.’ She prescribed an antidepressant that had made me feel as if I was viewing the world through net curtains, and killed off my libido stone dead. I’d swapped pills for therapy – and so there I was, blinking back tears in front of a woman who probably has a Snapchat account.
‘So, what should I do with this list, once I’ve made it?’ I asked. ‘I mean, should I show it to Nate?’
Rachel tipped her head to one side. ‘What do you think?’
She often does this, batting a question straight back at me.
‘I don’t know,’ I murmured. Sixty pounds an hour, I paid her. Couldn’t she tell me what to think?
She cleared her throat; my time was nearly up. Age-wise, I’d put her at thirty tops. What could she possibly know about marriage and love? ‘The important part is putting it all down,’ she replied, ‘in writing.’
And that was that. As far as Rachel was concerned, as long as I’d written the darn thing, it didn’t matter what I did with it: I could use it to line a budgie’s cage – if we had one – or set it on fire. I handed her my debit card, which she popped into the slot of her little machine. In went my pin number, as if I’d just done a grocery shop. I almost expected her to ask if I had a Nectar card.
That was hard-earned money I’d just spent. A whole day’s earnings in the shop, come to think of it. It could have bought new trainers for Flynn, the ingredients for a week’s worth of dinners or – what the hell – several bottles of industrial cheap white wine from Londis, the kind Nate calls ‘lady petrol’. ‘Fancy a fine vintage from L’Ondice tonight, darling?’ he used to ask in a faux-plummy voice, in the days when we still joked around …
When we still laughed and had fun …
When I still loved him madly and regarded him as my best friend in the world. Nate Turner, my soulmate: the brightest, kindest, funniest – and sweetest – man I had ever met.
And now?
I know he’s a hardworking man, and a good dad; we function together, but that no longer feels like enough. How can I be expected to love him when he barely registers my feelings?
Rachel had turned to her laptop and tapped something quickly. ‘Gosh, I’m busy next week. Could you do Thursday, Sinead? Same time?’
‘That’d be great,’ I replied, flashing a smile as I trotted
