They even went on holiday together and the bastard pretended everything was fine the whole time. Oh, he was the doting father, tossing the girls around the pool and making them shriek with joy, chatting to the other parents around the pool, all the other wives cooing over him like they always did. Normally it made her feel proud, that he was hers, but now she just felt defeated. In the evenings he’d go to the bar and order her favourite drink, presenting it to her with a flourish. She waited for him to say something, or for her to say something, but neither of them did. It was like they were both actors in their ridiculous travesty of a life. One night there was a live singer at the hotel bar, crooning out some horribly cheesy tunes and some of the other couples got up to dance.
‘Go on Mummy and Daddy, have a dance,’ Lily pleaded. She looked at Pete and he looked at her, and then he scooped Lily up and carried her to the dance floor. ‘I want to dance with my little princess,’ he said, and she wrapped her little legs around him. So Kate had grabbed Maggie and taken her on to the dance floor. To any onlookers, they would have seemed like a perfectly happy family. Inside she was in bits. On the plane home, while the girls slept, she had sobbed quietly.
‘What’s wrong?’ Pete had asked, looking at her in concern.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she replied. ‘I always get sad after a holiday.’
He nodded, then grinned. ‘Remember when we went to Thailand before the kids came along and you cried all the way home? I kept trying to console you but you weren’t having any of it. You just kept saying, “It was just so lovely, Pete”. Then we got home, you put the washing on, unpacked, poured a glass of wine and said, “It’s so lovely to be home”.’
The memory of the couple they used to be, the person she used to be, had made her sob even harder. He had put his arm around her, the first time he had held her all holiday, and said: ‘It’ll be fine, Kate. You’ll be fine when we get home.’ In that moment she had loved him and hated him in equal measures.
They got home and life carried on as usual. Hours turned to days and before she knew it the day that had been marked in her mind from the minute she saw that message from ‘C’ – three weeks tomorrow – arrived and she still hadn’t said anything. She had lain awake in bed for most of the night, watching him sleep and contemplating waking him up to confront him. She almost did it several times, reaching out a hand to prod him awake, before withdrawing it again. The previous night he’d packed a bag and toiletries – he thought he’d been subtle but once she was alert for the signs of deception they were so obvious that she couldn’t believe she’d missed them before. She hadn’t breathed a word of what she’d found out to anyone, not even Erin. She was too embarrassed and too frightened to admit that it was really true. What the hell was she going to do on her own? The thought terrified her more than the thought of actually losing Pete.
But still she didn’t say a word. Not even when he woke up, looked across at her to check if she was awake (she was but she was pretending not to be). Not when the girls bounded in a few minutes later and climbed into bed. And not when he enveloped both girls into a big bear hug. Not long after that, Rachel arrived to pick up the girls. It had been a strange coincidence that they had a breakfast fundraiser at the school the day that she knew he was due to go to Paris. Surely it was a sign that she should finally confront him? Lily and Maggie had asked her to go to the school event too but she knew that it was the very last chance she would have to talk to Pete. Somehow, she had always known that it would come down to the final moment.
When he walked into the kitchen she breathed in the familiar lemon scent of him for what, she realised, might be the last time in a long time. She wanted to throw herself at him, to beg him not to go, to stay and fight for their marriage but she didn’t. Instead, she made breakfast. While they ate, she made small talk with him, watching him closely for any signs that he was going to break and tell her everything. But he seemed so normal, as if nothing was wrong. She couldn’t understand it at all. She waited, and waited, willing herself to say something and finally, as he got up to leave, the strength that she had been lacking for so long finally surged up inside her.
‘Were you ever going to tell me about her?’
She saw his whole body go rigid. She could practically see the cogs in his mind whirring as he tried to work out what to say and what to do. She had a fleeting moment of satisfaction about the fact that she had outwitted him, this man who thought he was so clever, before remembering that it was really her who had lost.
After that, it was all a bit of a blur. The furious exchange, the angry words spoken to each other. In that moment she had been desperate for him not to go with this other woman even though she knew that their marriage had fallen apart long ago. She
