Three months after she and Grant started dating, they climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Grant’s previous girlfriend could never have done that climb because she wasn’t ‘outdoorsy’ and she had a bad knee. The pain went away when she took the weight off her leg. Cartilage issues, presumably. Brooke didn’t know why she was still diagnosing her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s knee. Maybe it was because Lana’s knee had been so present in the early days of their relationship. Brooke had liked hearing about how much more athletic and easygoing and better in bed she was than Lana. She was a Delaney, she liked winning. Was it possible that this competitive rush had propelled the momentum of her entire ten-year relationship? But how had Grant managed to establish himself as the prize?
Would the next woman in Grant’s life hear about Brooke’s inconvenient migraines, in the same way that Brooke had heard all about Lana’s inconvenient knee?
Grant’s responses to Brooke’s migraines had been exemplary. He helped her into bed in a darkened room. He brought her medication and homemade soup. She couldn’t be offended when he joked to friends, his arm lovingly about her shoulder, ‘She’s just a little defective.’ That wasn’t nasty. It was witty. It was funny! It was her cue to say how supportive Grant was when she had a migraine. She’d never missed her cue.
She imagined him chatting to that woman with the bright red lips and long fake eyelashes. He’d be upfront and honest. He made an excellent first impression. ‘I’m very recently separated,’ he’d say. No lies. He’d be respectful when he spoke about Brooke. He’d say that although he supported Brooke’s career aspirations, a healthy work–life balance was important to him. ‘I just think there’s more to life than work,’ he’d say, and the tumbling-haired girl would agree that there was so much more to life than work, and their eyes would meet for just long enough.
‘It sounds risky,’ Grant said, when Brooke first said she wanted to go into practice on her own, but he didn’t try to stop her. He never said, ‘I told you so’ when she fretted about cash flow. When she said she couldn’t go riding with him on Saturday mornings anymore, because she’d volunteered to be on-site at the local sporting grounds in case of injuries, in hope of injuries, that might lead to patients and raise her profile, he never complained, he just looked faintly bored.
She was no longer ticking quite as many boxes.
There had been no counselling, no tears, no shouting. It was an amicable, grown-up separation. ‘We should feel proud about that,’ Grant had said. It was strange how he’d always made her feel like they were winning as a couple, even when they were breaking up.
‘Do you want me to give up the clinic?’ she’d asked him.
‘Of course not,’ he’d answered. ‘I just think maybe our paths have diverged and we need some time apart to think.’
To think about what? She didn’t have time to think.
When her family asked her about Grant today she planned to tell them he was sick at home with a cold. She wasn’t going to announce the separation on Father’s Day, not with a strange girl at the table. This was going to be a shock for both family and friends. She and Grant had not been a couple who ever fought in public, or even snapped at each other. They were affectionate, without being over the top about it. （There was something suspect about people who were too lovey-dovey.） They socialised and exercised together. They had mutual friends and peaceful dinner parties. She thought people would probably have described their marriage as ‘solid’。
It was not in her nature to shock people with developments in her personal life. That was for Amy. Brooke preferred to go under the radar. She realised she felt ashamed, as if by separating from her husband she’d done something slightly distasteful and seedy, which was ridiculous. This was not Regency England. It was the twenty-first century. Her own brother was divorced. Her friend Ines was divorced.
She undid her seatbelt.
Where’s Grant? He’s at home. He has a bad cold.
She was the worst liar in her family. She used to think it was because she was the youngest, and therefore everyone could see right through her feeble attempts at deceit thanks to their superior knowledge of how the world worked.
She still sometimes caught herself watching for circumspect glances between her older siblings, listening for the nuances of the conversation, as if they might still be keeping secrets from her about sex and Santa, death and Grandma. （Her brothers and sister once convinced Brooke she was adopted because she was the only left-handed member of the family. Brooke believed it. For months! ‘Have you not looked in the mirror, you foolish child?’ Joy said when Brooke finally tearfully asked if she could please meet her real parents. ‘You’re all identical!’）