‘But it isn’t fine. And it will never be fine.’ Elliott starts to weep again. ‘How could you do this to me, Gabby? How could you do this to us? How could you take a marriage that was so damn good and drop a bomb on it? Was I not a good husband to you? Was I deficient? How could you sleep with another man?’ His voice is rising in anger again as he speaks. ‘How could you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Gabby says. ‘It wasn’t about you. I think it was about me feeling middle-aged. I know how awful that sounds, but it meant nothing. I swear.’
‘When did it happen?’ Elliott, tortured by not knowing, will be doubly tortured by knowing, but he cannot resist asking.
‘It was the weekend you were away.’
He shakes his head. ‘Jesus. You planned the whole thing. You waited for me to go.’
‘No. It wasn’t like that. He was going to be in town,’ she says. ‘And it was coincidence. I was just meeting him for a drink.’
‘Where did it happen?’
‘Elliott. Please. Don’t do this. Don’t ask. You don’t want to know.’
‘Just tell me it wasn’t in our bed. Tell me you didn’t fuck another man in our bed.’
‘No, I didn’t fuck another man in our bed. I … I wouldn’t do that. It happened in the barn.’
‘In our barn? So he was here? He was in my home?’
‘Elliott, I told you not to do this. He was barely here.’
‘You mean he came in, went out to the barn, fucked my wife and left?’
‘Elliott. Please. It was nothing.’
‘No, Gabriella. It wasn’t “nothing”. It was a betrayal. And now it’s a new life.’
Gabby turns pale; she can almost feel her blood freeze as he says these words. She has always been able to get through to Elliott, but, for the first time ever, she knows she has lost him. Permanently.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gabby weeps. ‘I’m so sorry. I love you.’
‘You should have thought of that before.’ Elliott gets up, and wearily goes upstairs.
‘What are you doing?’
Elliott is walking down the hallway with some clothes and toiletries under his arm.
‘I’m going to sleep in the spare room.’
Gabby’s face starts to crumple. ‘Elliott, please don’t leave our room. I won’t touch you, I swear, but please stay in our room. I need you. Please.’
He hesitates, and Gabby thinks she has got through to him, but then he shakes his head. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. It’s just too painful. I need to be on my own.’
Gabby crawls into bed and sobs until the bedroom door opens and Elliott is standing there. Flooded with relief, Gabby looks up at him, her eyes puffy and red raw.
‘I just have to ask,’ Elliott says. ‘Was he better than me?’
‘What?’ Gabby says in disbelief. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘In bed. Was he better? More creative? Was he bigger than me?’
‘Oh Jesus, Elliott. I’m not doing this. Please.’
‘Please? You owe me, Gabby. You fucked another man so now you have to tell me. Was he?’
‘No, he was not better than you, and no, he was not bigger. I don’t even know. I barely even looked. It was over so quickly.’
Elliott says nothing. Just stares at Gabby. Then he backs out of the room and closes the door.
Elliott is gone by the time Gabby wakes up the next morning.
‘Mom? You look terrible.’ Olivia glances up at her. ‘What’s the matter with your eyes?’
‘I had a migraine last night,’ Gabby lies. ‘It’s still there. It’s made me puff up like a balloon.’
Alanna looks up. ‘Is that why Dad slept in the spare room?’
Gabby nods.
‘So it wasn’t because of that fight you had?’
‘What fight?’ Olivia says.
‘Never mind what fight,’ Gabby says. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve been very headachy and I get up a lot, which disturbs Dad. Can you please not ask any more about it?’
‘Okay, okay,’ Alanna says. ‘Sorry I asked.’
‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I just get grouchy when I’m tired. Did you see your dad this morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did he seem?’
Alanna looks at her mother weirdly. ‘Fine. Why?’
‘Oh. Good. Just glad he slept well.’ Gabby turns to go upstairs, trying to hide a fresh round of tears. How can her husband, the love of her life, have turned into a stranger overnight, into someone she has to ask her daughter about in order to know his state of mind?
This is the man she is supposed to know best in the world, the man she turns to when the rest of her life is falling apart; if she can’t turn to him, if he can’t ease her pain, what is she supposed to do?
Gabby thinks perhaps she should just end it. Terminate the pregnancy. She should have done it before she even told Elliott. Why didn’t she? It’s a question Gabby doesn’t have an answer to.
Chapter Eighteen
Gabby and Elliott circle each other all week, as polite as strangers. Each time Gabby makes an overture, suggesting dinner, a walk, some time to talk, Elliott politely declines. He has made no move to leave the guest room, and Gabby is shrouded in sadness at the knowledge that there will be no good ending to this, and that it is entirely her fault.
She makes dinner and they sit at the table with the girls, Elliott pretending to be his normal self, making jokes and asking them about their day, while Gabby sits quietly opposite him, attempting to join in, feeling him drifting further and further away from her.
When Alanna came home yesterday she didn’t run straight to her room. Instead she came to the kitchen and sat down with her mother at the table.
‘I’m worried about you, Mom,’ she said, her small brow furrowed with anxiety. ‘And I’m worried about Dad. Something’s going on and I’m scared you’re going to get divorced.’
Gabby gasped. ‘What?’ she said, immediately welling up. ‘Oh, baby. I’m so sorry. We’re not getting divorced, we’re just …’ She had no idea what to say. ‘Sometimes grown-ups go through some hard times. It’s nothing for you to worry about, and Dad and I will figure it out.’
‘So you’re not going to get divorced? Promise me you won’t get divorced.’
Gabby winced at the prospect, but knew she couldn’t lie any more. She didn’t know herself what would happen. How could she make a promise to her daughter knowing it wasn’t up to her to fulfil it?
‘I promise you this,’ she said. ‘I love your father more than any other man in the world and I do not want a divorce. I know it seems like the end of the world when your parents are having a rough time, but I do not want a divorce. We will figure this out.’
It was as close to the truth as she was able to get, and seemed to placate Alanna. For now.
Before she sits down at the dinner table these days Gabby makes mental lists of what to talk about, stories she can tell about her day, newspaper articles she can share to ensure they are not sitting in an awkward silence.
She studies Elliott across the table, astonished at how fragile her marriage is, at how quickly and easily their relationship can unravel. Of course this is her fault; she knows this is her fault. But it was one mistake, and now she will do anything, will fight with all that she has, to save her marriage.
Why doesn’t Elliott feel the same way?
He has to. He must. It will just take him a little longer. In the meantime Gabby will be the perfect wife, will cook him all the foods he loves, will tend to his every need, will show him that he cannot find better, that he must not leave.
On Thursday morning, she gets a text from Claire.
So excited for tonight – the four of us
haven’t been out for ages! I booked at
Finalmente at 7.30. OK?
She had forgotten. It is Tim’s birthday, therefore dinner with Claire and Tim. Oh God. The prospect of even leaving her house right now is terrifying, let alone seeing other people. But Cl
aire and Tim don’t really count as other people. They are almost family. Perhaps seeing them will be a good thing, will remind Elliott of the life they have built, the friends they have; perhaps it will give him a dose of reality.
Sounds great. See you later. G xx
‘I don’t think we should be seeing them,’ Elliott says as they pull out of the driveway. ‘We should have cancelled.’
‘We can’t cancel. It’s Tim’s birthday. We have to go.’
‘I’m not ready for this. How do we tell other people what’s happened?’
‘Elliott! We don’t tell other people what’s happened. No one needs to know anything. We’re just going to have a nice evening with our closest friends.’
‘You don’t think you need to let our closest friends know you’re pregnant – with another man’s baby?’ He mutters the last part of the sentence, disgust in his eyes.
‘I don’t think we need to tell them anything. Maybe they’ll just think I’ve put on weight during the holidays.’
Elliott rolls his eyes.
‘Elliott, please. Can you at least pretend? Can you at least be civil to me tonight? I’m not asking you to profess undying love, but can you at least try to look at me with something other than disdain?’
Elliott says nothing.
‘Elliott?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Look at me!’ Claire proudly steps back from their hug, showing off her growing bump. ‘I’m in my first maternity trousers! Can you believe the size of me? I swear this is because I’m so old.’
‘You look amazing,’ Gabby says, wishing she could tell Claire that she too is pregnant, and feeling odd, and awkward, that she has to withhold such huge news. This pregnancy is so different from her previous pregnancies, when she was filled with excitement and joy.
All she feels with this one, from the moment she wakes up until the moment she manages to gain some respite with a few hours’ sleep, is dread. This isn’t even a child she wants; in some sick way she harbours a small hope that something will happen to end this pregnancy, to enable her to put this all behind her so that she can carry on with her life, with Elliott, finally removing all evidence of her transgression.
But her scan, carried out this morning, was fine. She went to the doctor’s office alone, wiping a tear from her eye as she remembered going to another doctor for a scan that produced the first picture of Olivia. Elliott had been with her, perched on a stool at her head as the sonographer moved the slick gel around her belly, and they had both gasped at the sight of what was already so clearly a baby, her thumb at her mouth. He had been there for Alanna’s sonogram too, but there was no question of him being there for this one.
She lay there silently, alone, while the sonographer moved that familiar wand. And as she thought about how much she had wanted one more baby she heard the words of her mother echo through her head: ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
She could never have imagined that this is how her wish would be fulfilled.
Looking at the screen she didn’t react as she saw the baby growing in her stomach. She watched passively as the sonographer measured the nuchal fold, the limbs, and checked to see everything was growing normally.
Gabby wasn’t overwhelmed in the way she had been when Olivia and Alanna had been scanned. She felt … detached. In much the same way she feels with Elliott. Detached. As if this is all happening to someone else. That it is someone else’s baby on that screen. The marriage break-up is happening to someone else. Not me. It couldn’t possibly be happening to me.
Her need to share the news of her pregnancy with Claire is not to share each other’s joy, even supposing Gabby will ever feel any, but to prove to herself that the bond of their friendship is as strong as she needs it to be. But Gabby is scared. What will Claire do when she finds out? How will she react? Claire will know immediately that Elliott cannot be the father because she knows about his vasectomy. Why didn’t Gabby withhold that information? So now, even if she and Elliott can work through this and stay intact, Claire will know the secret truth, the truth that Gabby had an affair. Will she stand by Gabby?
She will have to. Surely. That’s what best friends do.
‘How do you feel?’ She focuses her attention back on Claire, aware that Elliott and Tim are busy talking, which means that there may be a semblance of normality tonight if only because Elliott and Tim are always perfectly happy to talk, just the two of them, for hours.
‘I feel exhausted. Terrible. I could sleep all day and all night. Honestly? I have no idea what I’m doing having a baby at my age. Tim was saying just the other night that we should be planning a retirement home, never mind saving for yet another one’s college. I swear to God, we just cancelled our vacation.’
Tim breaks off his conversation with Elliott to correct her. ‘We didn’t cancel. We just … rearranged.’
‘Yup. We were all going to Cancun, and now we’re driving up to Grafton to stay at a friend’s house for a couple of days. Big difference.’
‘At least you’re going away,’ says Gabby. ‘We haven’t had a vacation for years. Remember when we went away by ourselves?’ She looks at Elliott, reminding him of the good times, the happier times. ‘To Antigua?’ She turns back to Claire and Tim. ‘We went to Galley Bay in Antigua and it was amazing. A second honeymoon. Apart from when we got stuck on the yacht. Remember that?’ She’s smiling as she looks at Elliott, who shrugs.
‘Vaguely,’ he says, before turning to Tim. ‘Are you going to coach softball again this year? I was thinking about doing it but I figured I’d check with you first.’
Gabby looks up to find Claire frowning at her.
‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ Claire says. ‘Gabby, come with me.’
In the bathroom she turns to Gabby as soon as the door is closed. ‘What the hell’s going on with you two? Have you had a fight?’
And Gabby bursts into tears.
She cannot stop for a long time. Her body is heaving with sobs as a shocked Claire tries to comfort her. Eventually Gabby manages to calm down, the odd shudder running through her body every few seconds.
‘Gabby, what is it?’ Claire asks softly, awkwardly crouching next to her. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I think Elliott is leaving me,’ Gabby says, staring at the floor.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Claire says. ‘Elliott would never leave you. You two are the strongest couple we know. Why would you say such a thing?’
Gabby looks up then, into Claire’s eyes, and it is with an expression of such pleading despair that Claire feels a cold clutch of fear.
‘It was the guy, wasn’t it?’
Gabby nods.
‘You had an affair and Elliott found out.’
‘It wasn’t an affair. It was one night. Not even. One incident. And Elliott can’t forgive me. He won’t ever be able to forgive me.’
Claire sighs. ‘Look, it’s terrible. We all know it’s terrible, but you’re human, Gabby. I don’t condone it, but I understand that we all make mistakes, and no one understands that better than Elliott. He’s the most compassionate man I know. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but I truly believe that you’ll be able to work through this together. Have you talked about seeing a couple counsellor? Couple therapy can completely transform a relationship, and you already know I have someone amazing. Gabby, this doesn’t have to be the end of the marriage.’ Claire takes her hand. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
‘It’s not,’ Gabby says, looking up at Claire again as she takes a deep breath. ‘I’m pregnant. And you know as well as I do that the baby can’t be Elliott’s.’
Claire’s mouth drops open. There is confusion in her eyes, then horror as the words sink in and she remembers Gabby telling her about the vasectomy. She actually reaches out for the sink to steady herself, her face a whiter shade of pale.
‘Gabby, you …’ She is shocked to the core, and as her eyes flick to Gabby’s stomach, registering the weight gain, the small bump,
her voice is no more than a whisper. ‘Gabby, you can’t have it. You need to end this pregnancy.’
Gabby, feeling an unexpected surge of anger at her friend, shakes her head. Who does Claire, pregnant herself, think she is telling Gabby to have an abortion?
‘I know,’ says Gabby coldly. ‘But I don’t think I can.’
‘I … Oh God. I don’t know what to say.’
‘I’m not sure there is anything to say.’ Gabby’s hands reflexively go to her stomach, protecting the baby she wanted so badly, but not like this. ‘It’s the one thing I wanted so desperately. And it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Claire regains enough composure to reach out to Gabby and put her arms round her, but neither of them is comforted; neither of them is able to fool the other.
They leave the room a couple of minutes later, Gabby imploring Claire to act normally, to make it seem as though she doesn’t know, but Claire, always a terrible liar, is still in shock, and truly doesn’t know how to pretend everything’s normal.
‘You know,’ she says, after the waiter has brought them their drinks, ‘I know this is terrible, and I was so looking forward to this evening, but I’m feeling really nauseous. I think I may have to go home.’
‘It’s fine,’ Elliott is quick to say. ‘Of course.’
Claire hugs Gabby, whispering in her ear, ‘I’m sorry. I love you. Let’s speak tomorrow.’
And then they are gone, leaving Elliott to pick up the bill for drinks.
As they walk out of the restaurant, Gabby is embarrassed, but also grateful because she is sure it would have been impossible for Claire to keep up an act all evening once she knew the truth.
‘You told her,’ Elliott says as they get in the car.