The next day, he slopes back to the house. The girls are at school and I have a day off. I realize, belatedly, that if I didn’t, he would have arrived at an empty house. It didn’t occur to me to tell him my schedule. I just don’t think about him anymore.
“So, yesterday was challenging,” he says over a cup of hot water and berry squash I’ve grudgingly handed over.
“What did you expect, Sean? You left us. You left me. You left them.”
He exhales heavily. “I’m their dad. I’m your husband—”
I can’t help but interrupt. “Actually, I got a death certificate for you a few months ago on the basis you were dead, so no. You’re not my husband. Technically, I’m a widow. We’ll probably have to do some paperwork to change it so that we’re divorced instead, seeing as you’re alive and all.”
“I suppose that answers the question I was going to ask then, about us. About the future.”
“Sean, I will never forgive you for what you did.”
“Helen,” he says with this expression of disappointment that makes me want to throttle him until he goes blue, as though I’m the one who has been a disappointment here.
“No, no, no, Sean. You don’t get it. I don’t love you anymore, I don’t need you anymore. The Plague put things into perspective for different people in different ways. It made you think your life was a cage to be escaped, and congratulations. You’ve got more freedom than you had anticipated. I hope you fucking enjoy it.”
“You’re making me sound like an awful person,” he says petulantly. “Like I skipped off into the sunset without a second thought.”
How did I ever love this man? He’s a complete twat.
“You have three children, Sean. You had a wife! You disappeared like a thief in the night. I don’t think you’ve learned a fucking thing from any of this, but I’ll tell you what. The Plague and you leaving made me realize, more than ever, that my children are my world and that I like my life. The worst worries I had were whether having sex once a week was enough for us to ‘keep the spark alive’ and if the girls would find jobs they liked. Jobs they liked! What an idea now.”
Sean slinks down into his seat, mumbling incoherently.
“My job used to be something I enjoyed well enough but if you had told me I could have retired tomorrow, I’d have jumped at the chance. But now I’m an electrician and I’m useful. You never made me feel useful. When I get home at the end of the day, I know I’ve used my hands to do something that not many other people can do. And I get home, I see the girls and I know I’m in the right place.”
“It’s not the same for you, Helen. You weren’t staring at death like it was a gun on your forehead. I couldn’t do what you did.”
I realize I’m not getting through to him. I’m wasting my breath. It feels outrageous that he can just get away with it, but not much about life over the last few years has felt fair. There’s no moral judge and jury that can convince him on my behalf that he is wrong and I am right. He left and I stayed.
“I belong here, Sean,” I say, with a trace of a sigh. “You decided that you didn’t. You made your bed, now you have to lie in it.”
Sean smiles weakly at me. He finishes his drink and tells me he’ll be back at five o’clock to see the girls. I shut the door behind him with a thunk and think how lucky I am that, against the odds, without a husband and in a job I was assigned, I really, really like my life. And when someone isn’t there anymore, you adapt.
ARTICLE IN THE WASHINGTON POST ON SEPTEMBER 5, 2029
This is one of our “Woman Least Likely” series of pieces about the women in the United States who have taken on leadership roles, despite being “unlikely candidates.” This week’s piece, by Maria Ferreira, is about Clare Aspen, 29, the mayor of San Francisco, who was elected last month, beating out eight other candidates, all of whom were women.