had desired another was something he had then acted upon. He had drawn a new boundary line for himself and maintained a new position. She had never felt as though she owned Jake but she had never worried about him leaving her. Had she been complacent? It would seem so. By nature she wasn’t an arrogant person. Should everyone build into their lives the fact that nothing is forever? Marriages fail because they taunt the rule of death. Nothing is forever. By nature she would need to become more selfish and this seems perverse to the philosophy behind the creation of life.
Jake walked wearily away, defeated. He mumbled something about packing and that he would leave and that she didn’t need to. There was something he had seen in her face that had told him it was futile to think there was any way back in their relationship. In Kate’s mind she considered that Jake hadn’t put up much of a fight for her. She busied herself making fresh coffee, which she intended to lace with brandy and then there was the clear sound of a shovel scraping against the drive’s rough surface. Jake was clearing his path away from her. This went on for a while and gave her time to watch him through the curtain. He seemed arduous in his task, purposeful, a man with somewhere to go. The car was halfway up the drive and he had left the engine running as he created tracks for himself ahead of it. He threw grit into the snow like a man possessed. His face was ruddy and angry. It seemed strange this situation they were in. He was going away from her forever into a new life beyond their comfortable old farmhouse and she was observing him as though from high above in the clear blue sky. They were like Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods, the grit serving as a path to highlight a way forward and not a way to return. She wasn’t beside him in this journey and there would be no coming back. The witch had played a cunning game enticing Jake towards her. She pushed her thoughts of terror aside, the kind she couldn’t allow herself to think about. To survive she would have to keep them in the dark cellars of her mind.
He tried to inch the car forward, his stupid low slung sports car. It slipped all over the place getting nowhere, the snow was too deep and ice had formed beneath it. He revved the car up high in his angry state and then tore himself from it leaving the door open and the engine running, heading indoors. A neighbour suddenly appeared, walking past on his way into the village. She heard the pleasantries they exchanged as he turned the charm on, slipping into the façade of being Mister ‘I’m on Top of Things’. She felt alarmed at how easily he had composed himself and then wondered why, because he had become so practiced in his lying recently. She no longer knew what was true about her life. Her body felt weak and her movement slow. She had been looking forward to their second-honeymoon now the kids had flown the nest. In the time they had together they could be more free. God knows they had craved private space for themselves to try express themselves sexually. Yet he had jumped the gun, gone ahead without her into a new exciting life with someone else. Now she would have to find a new partner. Which she would. There would be no pathetic love-lorn ending for her. No way! There was someone she had in mind right now, perhaps. May be not. She couldn’t imagine herself with anyone other than Jake.
Here she was now giving him up to a woman younger than herself. She was handing him over to her without a fight, because of what, the fact that she couldn’t possibly win over youth and beauty? She chided herself thinking that she was a beautiful person too. Therapy had taught her to think that about herself. And she was, because Jake made her feel that way. Through his love she had grown, and so too had he flourished through hers. She didn’t have to give him up so easily to another person – this stranger. To allow her to take him so easily from her own loving arms would be stupid. This woman! This so-called ‘Bea’, hadn’t put any amount of dedication and loyalty into her own marriage let alone the momentous amount she had put into hers with Jake. She had a toddler son for God’s sake. Jake might choose to give himself away to the woman - she had no control over that. However, it would never diminish all that she and Jake had been through together up to this point of their lives. Their marriage, their children and grandchildren could never be negated by anyone!
A younger version of herself might have had more spirit to fight, but this battle weary self didn’t. She sensed that Jake was standing close to her, behind her. When she turned he was dripping and his trousers were wet through to the waist as though he had fallen into the snow and laid in it. Perhaps if she had concentrated more on what was in his trousers than the state of them life would have worked out differently for her. It was where she had gone wrong! She had planned to, they both had. She’d intended to make more effort in their love making lately because of her new lack of desire, to make more of a fuss with him, but she’d felt so tired lately. Besides, for her life had to be more about life itself than sex alone. Dear God, were people cursed into making an eternal quest for the orgasmic state? Had he spent seven days building Planet Erotica? No, of course not! Who would build wells for water? How trite of Jake to succumb to the old adage of thinking that the world rests on the axel of making money and having sex, which seems to be true. Why should any of us bother philosophising about life? In Kate’s eyes it had become an utter waste of time. She suddenly became aware of Jake again standing so forlornly.
“Kate, please …. I don’t want to go. I love you. It was a crazy thing, madness and now I’ve destroyed us. I want to die. I can’t live without you”
He seemed sincere. He was being sincere. She knew Jake enough to know he was telling the truth. It didn’t alleviate any of the pain she was feeling but his words were real. It was crazy all of this. His voice was desperate and he was at breaking point.
“You found another playmate.” She said.
At the bottom of things something was entirely relevant. She loved Jake and always would. Getting past this was similar to having to get over the sudden death of a loved one. It didn’t happen. In this situation there was a second chance of life at least. She had been forced to take on the position of becoming a second best person in Jakes eyes, something she had never wanted to become. Did she feel rejected? Yes. Jake wasn’t rejecting her now. He wanted her for all the reasons she had just been thinking about. Because they were a couple, they were married and had three children together and because they loved each other. To live with the fact that he had the ability to feel sexual excitement for another woman and perhaps even love her was hard. To know he had the capability to be unfaithful to her was something she had to measure against whether or not to sever herself from him, which would by like cleaving her heart in two. It was a big decision and it didn’t have to be so. It seemed as though she had to consider whether they could move forward in life together with this affair between them. Could they? Who knew? His arms were outstretched.
“Kate, I need you so much.”
“You had me,” was all she could reply. He dropped his hands to his sides. They were in a no win situation.
“Look Kate, I will go. The home is yours”
“It’s too big for me and I don’t want it anyway.” She quipped.
She didn’t want to go and live in that pokey flat she had picked out for herself. She’d planned her big exit and now he was offering to leave. Who stayed or who left mattered less than the fact that their marriage was over. Here she was arguing with someone she loved about something they both didn’t want. At least he appeared not to want her to leave. They were both exhausted.
“Why Jake?” She found herself asking. We have always been okay haven’t we. The good bits made up for the boring bits surely. I genuinely don’t understand.”
“There isn’t an answer I can give that’s worth you having Kate. Please don’t leave me, I’m begging you. This might be the wrong thing to say, but I won’t be going to her, I’m not asking you not to go as if it is a choice between you or her. That was never the case. I separated her from you in my mind. I blocked you out and packed you into a parcel, which I didn’t care to
look at while I went through it. I didn’t and wouldn’t let the two worlds meet.”
“She was a world then?”
“Please don’t play on words.”
Her heart was broken. She despised her own weakness. If she stayed with him, in everyone’s eyes she would be pathetic and her status would be lost. What she had to consider now was whether status mattered more to her than her love for him, which it didn’t. It kept coming back to something quite simple. She loved him. She had remained faithful to him throughout their marriage. If ‘Mrs Bea Pants’ wanted him then she would have to come and drag him out of her arms.
She didn’t allow him to hug her. She made a gruff accenting nod, which was an indication on her part that he could stay. She felt ugly making this gesture, despising herself. She was too tired to start a new life, at least in the fast lane that he had been driving in lately. She went over to the sink and threw away her coffee. He was behind her in an instant wrapping his arms around her waist and