It had been twenty-four hours since I’d seen him.
When his energy had started to return a few weeks earlier, I’d allowed myself to hope that things might be getting better. And indeed he had stopped sleeping around the clock. Unfortunately, things quickly went the other way. Now, as far as I could tell, he wasn’t sleeping at all.
The speed of the transition was what alarmed me. One day, out of the blue, he mentioned something about going out for drinks after work. He went out the next night too, and the one after that. I knew he was drinking on these nights; it was impossible to hide it. I began to wonder, though, if that was all he was doing. I knew some of his younger colleagues did cocaine, but Gabe was in his thirties, he had a child. He also had an addictive personality, I realised.
I started to nag him about it. ‘Gabe, it’s nearly six in the morning,’ I’d said to him last Saturday morning when he crawled into bed after a night out. ‘Where have you been?’
‘We don’t have plans today,’ he said testily. ‘What does it matter?’
‘I was worried.’
‘You worry too much.’
Now, as I listened to Freya’s first word, the question came to me: How long will you live like this?
It felt like a betrayal even to think it. Obviously, I could never leave Gabe. The idea was as ridiculous as leaving Freya. Eventually, he’d come back. After all, his adolescent black periods had ended eventually. This phase would pass too. I just needed to wait it out.
After Freya finished her breakfast, I glanced out the window, checking again for Gabe. It was a workday for me, and Freya was going to child care. I didn’t need his help. I had our routine down pat. Each morning, we showered together and got ready for the day. I packed our bags, while she sat on the kitchen floor and banged the pots and pans. It wasn’t terrible. We had a roof over our heads, money in the bank.
When we were ready, I picked up Freya and our bags and headed out the door just in time to see Gabe pull up in an Uber.
‘Off to work?’ he asked cheerfully, taking the steps up the porch.
He kissed Freya’s cheek, then mine. He reeked of whisky. He was wearing his suit from the day before, but his shirt was buttoned up wrongly and untucked. One trouser leg was rucked up and his sock was missing.
‘Why are your clothes like that?’ I asked.
He looked down and, seeing the state of himself, chuckled. ‘I’m a mess, aren’t I?’ He reached for Freya, but I yanked her away.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
My gaze was still caught on the missing sock. I couldn’t look away from it.
‘Have you been with a woman?’
At first, he looked confused, amused even. Then he looked down at himself.
When he looked up again, his expression was blank. It was as though he couldn’t think of another explanation for his missing sock, even though there must have been one, surely. After everything I’d put up with, every blind eye I’d turned . . . he couldn’t have been with another woman. He couldn’t because I didn’t have the capacity to withstand it.
Gabe still hadn’t spoken, but his expression had become resigned. Resigned. The most hateful of all emotions.
Freya put her arms out towards Gabe, and I pulled her away. How long had it been since she said ‘dada’？ How long had it been since I wished that Gabe was here with us? It was astonishing how much your life could change between locking your front door and getting into the car.
Gabe dropped to his knees. ‘Oh God, Pip. Oh God.’
‘Oh God what?’ I demanded. ‘Were you with a woman?’
Like a fool, I was still hoping desperately it wasn’t true. Part of me wanted him to lie to me, so that I could keep lying to myself. Perhaps all of me wanted that.
But he nodded.
I thought of all the other nights he’d stayed out. When was the last time I’d asked him about it? Why hadn’t I asked him? What was wrong with me? Was this my fault?
It was strange, then, the way we snapped into our roles. There was no emotion, just an exchange of facts. For two emotional people, perhaps it was the only way we could get through it.
‘Who?’
‘A bartender. At Young and Jackson.’
‘Do you love her?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did you . . .?’
‘I don’t know.’ He went quiet and still. Then, suddenly, he smacked himself in the face with his hand, once, and then again. He made his hand into a fist.
‘Stop it,’ I said. And he did.
I closed my eyes. It felt undeniable. That this was it. All the problems we’d had – all the nights out, the drinking, the ups and downs – they had been terrible but, ultimately, they hadn’t broken our vows. They hadn’t breached our marriage contract. But this . . . this was different. Our one non-negotiable had always been loyalty. And what was infidelity if not a lapse in loyalty?
Still on his knees, he grasped the hem of my shirt. ‘It will never happen again, Pippa. I swear. I will kill myself before I’ll let that happen.’
It wasn’t the first time he’d used that kind of emotive language. It worked to throw me off balance.
‘You were right – I need help. I haven’t been okay for a while now. I need to see a psychiatrist. Something is wrong with me; I know it is. Normal people don’t cheat on the woman they love with a barmaid they don’t care about.’
He knew the buttons to press, the things I needed to hear. It was cruel and comforting and humiliating in its mind-fuckery.
‘Let me prove how sorry I am by getting help and becoming the man you deserve. The father Freya deserves.’
It’s shocking how easy I made it for him. How, despite what he had told me, I actually felt hopeful. He wanted to get help. He needed it. And so, at what should have been the lowest point of my life, I felt my heart lift. This was what I’d been waiting for.
I made an appointment for him within the hour.
29
AMANDA
AFTER
I am starting to wonder where I am. It’s not heaven or hell. Not even purgatory. I’m still on earth, but removed; everywhere and nowhere at once.
It makes me question . . . what’s next? Or is this it? Will I spend eternity like this, suspended between life and death? I wonder if it’s to do with the suddenness of my demise. The unexpectedness of it. Perhaps someone upstairs is scrambling to complete the paperwork? Or maybe I won’t be going upstairs at all.
I am, after all, no angel.
Max is in my wardrobe again. It’s the second time he’s been in there today. I’m not sure what he’s doing, and judging by his uncertainty he feels the same. He opens a drawer, pushes my underwear to one side, closes it again. What does he expect to find? Then he just steps back and stares at my dresses, my jeans, my neatly folded T-shirts. He’s already looked through the photographs on my camera and those I saved to my computer recently. Clearly he hasn’t found what he’s looking for.
He hasn’t been in the office all week. Not surprising, some might say, given his wife’s unexpected death, but it is surprising to me. The office, after all, is Max’s church. His yoga studio. His place of work, but also his place of equilibrium. In the past twenty-five years, the only time I’ve seen him spend this long away from it was when we were on holiday and after his hernia operation. I wonder if I should be flattered.