Once More With Feeling (32 page)

You’re not convincing at all
, I’d said with a snort.

It’s the prettiest suburban house I’ve seen
, she’d said, grinning at me.
But I’m not cut out for the suburbs, Sarah. You shouldn’t pay any attention to what I like or don’t like. It’s what
you
like that matters
.

But … what did I like? Why was that question still so hard to answer?

The fact was, I was all Goldilocksed out. There was no
just right
. I didn’t want Brooke’s life, much as it made me nostalgic for the one I’d left behind. I didn’t want whatever life was with Alec, where it was so great when he was around and then I could wait for him to come back
to me as if from the wars, doing God knows what with myself in the meantime. And here I was back in my marriage, playing the dutiful wife to a husband who, for all I knew, would hate me the way Carolyn said he did when he fully recovered from his accident.

It was all borrowed time and hand-me-downs. None of it was mine. None of it fitted. I was paralysed. Still. Waiting around for someone to notice how well-behaved and
worthy
I was, and reward me for it. As if that were likely to happen.

It was well after midnight on New Year’s Eve. I was all alone, and I still had no idea what to do about it.

‘Carolyn was here today,’ Tim said.

I looked up from the foot of his bed, where I was busying myself by unnecessarily folding and refolding his blankets as he sprawled there, catching his breath. He had just returned from another gruelling session with his physical therapist and was still sweating, but he looked like the Tim I remembered, coming home from a workout at the gym and throwing himself on the couch in sweats and a T-shirt. Only the fact that we were in this rehab centre rather than our house indicated that he was anything but healthy. That and his spotty memory.

And, of course, all the small details about his little love triangle that we hadn’t discussed until today. Until now. Because he hadn’t let Carolyn in to see him before today – or so I’d thought. But it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been the last to know something, would it?

‘Oh?’ He wasn’t looking at me when I glanced at him.
His attention was focused on his hands, as if there were secrets tattooed there. ‘How was that?’

Tim looked at me then, and my heart lurched slightly. Or maybe it was my stomach. Those blue eyes, so very bright. That open, trustworthy face. For some reason, I remembered then how much I’d loved it on the rare occasions he’d danced, because he did it so badly, and with such glee. I remembered how I’d used to laugh and laugh …

Everything can’t be a lie
, I assured myself.
Not everything
.

‘Is it true?’ he asked, his voice quiet. But his gaze stayed steady on mine. ‘Everything she said … The baby. Is it … Did I do that?’

It had been two weeks since I’d last seen Carolyn. Two weeks since we’d had that quietly shattering conversation, and I’d worked overtime to convince myself I’d forgotten all about it. Tim was doing so well, recovering so quickly, that it was easy to get wrapped up in that and act as if that were all that mattered. It was easy to live in crisis mode; it was easy to arrange my life around his schedule, to play the doting wife. It wasn’t even an act, entirely. The doctors had advised us to let him ask the questions rather than bombard him with information he wouldn’t be able to remember and which might upset him, and maybe I’d gone too far with that. Maybe I’d tried a little too hard to climb back into my marriage and hide there.

Just as I’d told Carolyn I wanted to do. Why was I surprised that she’d taken matters into her own hands?

‘Yes,’ I said now. ‘I think you did.’

‘Okay,’ he said. He shook his head slightly, which made me notice that the blonde hair he liked to keep short was longer now. Bordering on the very far edge of unruly. The Tim I knew would have hated that. ‘Wow.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘Wow.’

I stopped pretending that I was accomplishing anything with the blankets, and sat down in his visitor’s chair. A little heavily. The rehab centre was much roomier than the hospital, and his entire windowsill was cluttered with flowers and cards, a whole town’s worth of
get well soon
wishes. I reached over and straightened one of the cards. And then I accepted that I was nervous. And that I wasn’t sure I wanted to have this conversation.

And as I sat there and waited to see what he would say next, I wondered why. Why was I waiting for him? Why was I even here? Why was I floating around my own life, waiting for other people to solve it?

‘I know I can’t remember everything,’ he said slowly. He laughed slightly, like he was aware of the understatement there. ‘But I’m kind of shocked. I always thought that if someone was going to cheat, it would be you.’

Um. What?

‘What?’ I scowled at him. ‘What did you say?’

‘I don’t know, I kind of thought you’d be the one to cross that line,’ he said again, in that conversational way, as if what he was saying wasn’t completely fucked up. As
if it didn’t make a mockery of everything I’d suffered these past months.

‘Sorry.’ My voice was definitely on the hostile side. ‘It was all you. Doggy-style – did she mention that part? I saw it with my very own, until-that-moment-totally-faithful eyes.’

The room was silent.

‘Until that moment?’ Tim asked. He laughed, and it sounded rusty that time. Or, possibly, a little bit forced. ‘Does that mean that afterward you weren’t faithful?’

I immediately felt guilty. And was then furious with myself. If anyone should feel guilty, it certainly wasn’t me. No way.

‘I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,’ I said, squeezing my eyes shut for a second as if that could contain the sudden blooming headache. ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Tim. Why don’t you tell me what you remember? Because you really did have an affair with Carolyn and she really is pregnant with your child, and any line-crossing in our marriage was done by you, not me. Is that clear enough? Does that help?’

‘I don’t want to fight with you,’ he said. ‘That’s the last thing I want. Really.’

He settled back against his bed, and folded his arms beneath his head, and I couldn’t help studying him as he lay there. He was a good-looking guy. A little scrawnier at the moment than he usually was, and a bit more pale.
But still attractive. It wasn’t so much his individual features but the sum of them put together. He had charisma. He was the kind of guy who made you
want
to do things for him –
want
to please him. Notably unlike Alec, who was hostile and often rude. If not downright surly.

Not that I was making comparisons.

‘Good,’ I said now, feeling annoyance like adrenalin pulsing through me, making me feel jittery and wired. ‘Let’s not fight.’

‘You look different,’ he said after a moment, studying me. He pointed at his hair, as if to indicate mine. ‘I mean, you look the way you did when I met you.’

I didn’t know if there were layers of meaning there that I should attempt to excavate. I decided against it. I reached up and ran a hand along my hair, which grew like a weed and was now nearly to my shoulders, every new inch making me feel less like the wife he’d betrayed and more like the woman who’d chosen him very deliberately all those years ago. A crucial distinction.

‘If that’s your way of telling me I look younger,’ I said, ‘thank you.’

‘You’ve been so good to me,’ he said quietly. ‘You were all I wanted when I woke up. I was completely delirious and you were the only thing that made me feel any better.’

‘I’m glad I could be here for you,’ I said, and that wasn’t a lie. It was perfectly true. It was just that there were complications surrounding that. Shouldn’t it mean something that I was willing to put it all aside at a time like
this? Shouldn’t that prove what a good person I was, unlike Carolyn – what an excellent and longsuffering wife? I shouldn’t be the one he left. It was so unfair.

It wasn’t that I wanted a medal. But a kinder word or two wouldn’t hurt, either.

‘Sarah …’ He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I don’t think we were happy.’

I felt myself deflate. I wondered if it was visible. And when I was small again, I felt the rest of it: shame. Regret. Humiliation. And that panic.

‘Did Carolyn tell you that?’ I asked, battling to remain calm. ‘It seems a little convenient.’

‘She told me a lot of things,’ he said. ‘But the part about us, the things I remember …’ His blue eyes were intent on mine, and perfectly clear. ‘Do you think we were happy? Really?’

‘I was happy,’ I said simply. Wasn’t I, back then? Or anyway, I’d never been
unhappy
. What was the difference? I raised my hands slightly and let them fall to my lap. ‘I know it would be so much easier if I could say everything was terrible, but it wasn’t. Not for me. And if you weren’t happy, you never told me. You let me walk in on you. And then you raced right ahead into the divorce like it was a foregone conclusion.’

‘Carolyn says you refused to listen,’ he said. ‘To even entertain the conversation when I tried to have it with you. She thinks you wanted—’

‘Carolyn is, to put it mildly, an unreliable source,’ I
pointed out, interrupting him, and trying not to bite his head off. He was still a patient. He was still recovering. He looked weak, and I had to remind myself that this was all a mystery to him. He wasn’t trying to hurt me – he honestly couldn’t remember. But it was hard. ‘And I’m not sure you should use your pillow talk with her as evidence against me when you’re the one who can’t remember anything.’

He let out a breath, as if it hurt, and I was so angry with him and trying so hard to keep it locked inside that I didn’t even ask him if he was okay.

‘Why are you here?’ he asked, frowning like he was truly confused. By me. Carolyn struck again. ‘Why are you helping me, if it’s not out of some kind of guilty conscience?’

I stared at him, shaken. More shaken than I wanted to admit, much less share. I knew I didn’t have a guilty conscience. Not even about Alec, not really. But I wasn’t exactly pure of heart, either, and that was the part that was getting to me.

‘Because you’re my husband.’ I shook my head, realizing only then that I was much too close to tears. Again. ‘That meant something to me, Tim. Even if it didn’t mean anything to you. Obviously.’

I met my father for coffee in the cute little independent coffee shop in the village a day or so later, at his request. He looked ill at ease and severe, scowling at the selection
of pastries in the glass case as if he suspected a trick.

‘They’re just croissants, Dad,’ I said, trying to be reassuring, and ordered one. ‘They’re not going to hurt you.’

He ordered plain coffee, black, and closely monitored the barista behind the counter as if he anticipated some kind of bait and switch, as if he suspected he might be given a latte instead and be expected to make do. We settled down at one of the empty tables and marinated for a moment or two in the familial awkwardness. I thought about the meetings I’d had to have with the local lawyers still handling our case load, and with the ever-loathsome Annette. I’d finally admitted the truth to myself: the law I practised at Lowery & Lowery bored me. I had no desire to defend drunk drivers. In fact, I kind of hated them. I’d have thought that revelation might have come with a trumpet or two, at the very least. Instead, I was having a notably non-Parisian croissant in a Rivermark coffee house with my remarkably uncomfortable father.
Six of one, half dozen of another
, I told myself.

‘I’m sorry you won’t come to the house,’ he said after a while. ‘I wanted to see how you’re doing. Your mother’s feelings are very hurt, you know.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ I said. Not nicely.

‘She’s doing the best she can,’ Dad said, that stern note in his voice. Defending her, as ever. Well, maybe he had to. ‘This situation between you girls is very tricky.’

I should have expected that. The
tricky situation
bullshit that people trotted out because they didn’t want to tell
me to get over it to my face, and they were uncomfortable that I couldn’t seem to do it on command anyway. That I had
feelings
about what Carolyn had done to me. Very tricky, indeed.

‘It’s not that tricky,’ I replied. I wasn’t even angry this time, or not very. I sounded well-rehearsed to my own ears. Or maybe that was real weariness with all of this, finally taking me over. ‘All you and Mom had to do was try to be a little compassionate to
both
your daughters. And maybe a little less openly supportive of the one who caused this whole thing. I get that you couldn’t do that. It’s fine.’ I fiddled with my cup. I drank so much coffee these days, sitting in hospital rooms and trying to combat my largely sleepless nights, that I wondered if it was running in my veins instead of blood. ‘But I’m obviously going to have a lot of feelings about that, Dad. I’m going to feel abandoned. And that’s not something a lasagne dinner is likely to cure.’

‘This bitterness can’t be good for you, sweetheart,’ he said gently.

You would know all about that
, I thought but kept myself from saying. My mother had made a career out of her own bitterness. She let it infuse every last part of her life. She had never so much as voiced a single syllable that didn’t drip with it, as far as I knew. And she seemed perfectly fine with her life, didn’t she? So did my father, for that matter. And on some level, I got it. There was a grandchild in the mix now, or would be soon enough. I
was sure they told themselves they were taking the long view, and maybe they were. If I squinted, I could almost see where they were coming from.

And maybe, in time, I would get to a place where that stopped hurting me so much. But I wasn’t optimistic.

‘Don’t be so sure,’ I told my father then, and I even smiled. ‘Some days I think it’s all I have left.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Lianne said, scoffing. We stood in her cosy kitchen, basking in our Wednesday afternoon coffee date. Or anyway, I was basking. She was mad, and rapidly getting even madder. ‘You can’t keep waiting on him hand and foot while he’s lounging around musing about what
you
did to the marriage. What the hell?’