can’t or you won’t?’ I growled at it and tried again. And again. At the sixth time, he answered. ‘I cannot talk to you right now,’ he hissed. ‘I’m on site.’
Had I always been married to such a selfish coward? Did he think I could just put my own life on hold until he had time to spare for me?
‘You were meant to be coming back here at eleven.’ My anger reverberated through my body so hard I thought he must be able to hear it down the phone line. ‘I need to know. Is that it for our marriage? For our kids? How long has this been going on for?’ I spat the words at my computer screen.
‘I don’t know.’
There was a sound of movement, a door slammed. He must have gone to sit in his truck.
‘A month maybe. Two. I’ve developed feelings for her.’ His voice trailed off as if I was meant to just accept it. Like, oh you’re in love with her? That’s all right, then. Please carry on. Don’t let me be an impediment to your happiness.
Instead, I let the silence hang between us. He might as well have been speaking a different language. The Stephen I knew thought ‘feelings’ should be approached in the same way as a particularly virulent infectious disease. The first time I’d told him I loved him, he said: ‘me too’. We’d got engaged while on holiday in Hawaii because, watching loved-up Japanese couples exchanging vows on the sand, he’d said: ‘I suppose you want to do that, too?’
At last, he sighed. ‘I’ll move out while we figure out what to do.’
‘You’ll move out?’ I was suddenly shouting so loud it made my throat hurt. ‘Damn right you’ll move out. I never want to see your face again.’
I pressed the button to end the call, my hands shaking as if I had downed twenty-six coffees. A month or two? In that time, I had dragged him to midwife appointments, he had sat with me while I agonised over paint colours for the new baby’s room and we had planned Thomas’s third birthday party. We’d even pored over which species of dinosaur Thomas might like on his cake. All that time he had been talking to someone else, confiding in her? The crushing weight of the loss was overwhelming.
Every aspect of my life had been moulded to fit our family. Before Thomas was born, I had wanted to use an inheritance from my grandfather to set up a little yoga studio but Stephen had argued it was too risky to both be self-employed. Then, I’d passed up promotions so that I could work from home to be there for Thomas. For a while, I’d provided the only income as he channelled everything he earned into growing his business and paying the staff (he’d employed prematurely). We’d even decided the time was right to try for a second baby this year because he’d taken on a big contract that would double his workload in twelve months’ time.
I gritted my teeth. If he wanted to destroy our little family, I was going to make him pay.
How to make a teepee
What you’ll need:
Rope
Dowels
A canvas drop cloth
Screws and washers
Cut a length of rope. Drill a hole near the top of one of your poles and string the rope through it. Tie a knot. Prop your poles up in the teepee position to see where they’ll need to sit to be stable. Drill a hole in your second pole where the two poles meet and feed the rope through. Do the same for the third and fourth poles. Start draping your drop cloth over the poles and secure it where they meet with a screw. If you can wrestle the cloth off your kids, who will want to pretend to be ghosts in it, screw it into each of the poles to hold it in place.
Erect the teepee in your living room or some other high-traffic area of your home where it will be sure to be in the way. You’ll fall over it at least four times a day, and it will soon become a hiding place for toys you can’t find space to put away. Depending on the strength of your construction, you and your kids may even be able to live in it, if you’re giving up on that suburban dream that was never really yours to begin with.
I locked my phone and pushed it away from me on my desk, as if touching it again might prompt another world-destroying revelation. Thomas was still at my parents’ house but there was no hope of me getting any of the work on my to-do list done. What was I meant to do next?
I tapped an email out to my boss. Being very pregnant afforded few luxuries but no-questions-asked sick leave seemed to be one of them.
I was walking aimlessly around the living room when a car pulled up outside. Through the venetian blinds, I could see a woman in sharp stiletto heels, black culottes and a spaghetti-strap pink camisole that did not quite cover her red bra, extracting herself from the driver’s seat. Her long, almost puce hair caught in the door as she closed it behind her. My sister, Amy. She looked as though she was ready for a night out, not an excursion into deepest suburbia to visit me.
My shoulders slumped. Could I face a visit? I was still seesawing between a scream and hysterical laughter. I had had to bury my head in the fridge and pretend I was organising dinner when my parents came to pick up Thomas – and that was before that phone call. My neck was tense all the way down my spine, but I couldn’t even lie flat to stretch out.
I opened the door before she could knock. She swayed slightly, her heels digging into the soft ground as she picked her way across the lawn. ‘Rachel, darling.’
I gestured to her to wipe a spot of pink lipstick from her top teeth. ‘Amy. You didn’t tell me you were coming by.’
She kissed my cheek as she pushed past me. She was still wearing the lanyard and security pass that let her into the double-storey restaurant and bar complex where she worked. ‘Are you on maternity leave yet? I figured you might be bored. Thought we could have a bit of a catch-up. Maybe get some lunch?’
‘I’ve still got a week and a bit. Look, I’ve got something I need to deal with.’ I shot her a look. When we were ten, she’d been able to tell when I had stashed KitKats in the wardrobe. Surely there would be no way I was hiding this one. ‘Now really isn’t a good time.’
She wasn’t looking at me. ‘What are you talking about? It’s been ages since we got together.’
It hadn’t, we’d had lunch last week.
Amy was picking through a pile of magazines on my coffee table. ‘Mind if I take this one?’ It was the latest issue of Women’s Health, promising ten ways to bring on labour. I’d figured if my baby was still tucked up in there the day before my due date, I’d allow myself to read it.
I shrugged. ‘Sure, go for it. Look, can I give you a call a bit later? We can make time for coffee. Is everything okay?’
She collapsed on to an armchair. ‘I’m tired after a long, crappy night at work. Can you believe we didn’t get out of there until 6 a.m.? Then I went to one of the waiters’ houses for a bit … I really need to get a real job.’
She stretched and yawned. ‘None of the losers tipped, either. Can you spot me £50?’
I sighed. ‘My wallet’s on the
