Chapter Seventeen #3
She was aware that this knowledge came with its own set of consequences that could be either a burden or a gift.
‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I do. I love Trish. That’s the strange thing.
And probably the most surprising thing to me.
I might have assumed that to feel the way I do would mean falling out of love and that can quickly lead to dislike, irritation, all those things that slowly erode a shared life.
But no, I still love her. Very much. But tragically, I love her like I love my brother, my great friend, my kids.
I don’t love her with a burning desire or, or a need to be with her, I’m not in love with her. ’
His words at once filled her with elation and desolation, to be talking so freely and intimately about the woman she had met only briefly.
It was both disloyal and riveting. He didn’t sound like a man who was cruel or frivolous, quite the opposite.
His words were considered and smart. It helped her understand the uncharacteristic attraction she felt for him.
He loved his daughter; she remembered how the first time she’d met him he’d been waiting to see her safely boarded, listening to her playlist, wanting to understand her, and recognising that his child’s lyrics of choice, no more than her favoured poetry set to music, was a way to do that.
It was beautiful. And he loved his wife.
Ironically, just the kind of characteristics she would look for in a potential lover.
If it weren’t so bloody complicated and impossible it would have made her laugh, not want to cry.
‘I suspect that you might be describing the majority of marriages after so long. Isn’t it just standard practice that the sparkle wears off?
As it’s meant to. I can’t imagine that level of passion or burning desire being sustainable, and isn’t what replaces it more precious? That deep connection, the constancy?’
He gave a wry chuckle. ‘Of course, but what if it’s replaced with something less substantial than a deep connection?
What if you’re left with something that feels thin, diluted, as if you are both settling rather than finding the courage to live your best lives? And why should we settle? Why do we?’
‘Convenience. Habit. Kindness...’ The first three that sprang to mind.
‘Life is short, Enya.’
‘That much I do know.’ She stared at the empty seat that Jonathan had vacated.
‘Yes, of course. But why can’t I feel this way? Why can’t I grab this joy that is filling me up!’
Joy! She filled him with joy! This in turn filled her with something similar.
She had quite forgotten what it felt like, the beginning, the excitement, the endless possibilities of a relationship that might just be the greatest love story ever told, or something that could crash and burn very quickly, and therein lay the thrill of it.
‘Because,’ she spoke plainly, ‘it would cause the greatest upset to our children and would very likely come to nothing. It’s a lovely, lovely distraction, but it would be a lot for our kids to pick through, would cause disruption, sadness, conflict, and I for one go out of my way to never do that to my son. He’s been through quite enough.’
She made no mention of all he was about to go through.
‘What if it was worth it?’
‘It would never be worth that! I don’t know what else to say.’ This the truth, floored again, as she was by his frank and flattering admissions that she knew she would replay in the early hours, when her bed felt too big.
‘Well, I do know what to say. I want to say that I’m entirely sick of not moving forward or making progress, of feeling stuck, and like Trish and I are simmering with nothing to light the dark winter mornings. I’m sick of it, and I think I deserve better, I think we both do.’
‘That’s... that’s your right, your decision, but I don’t really know you, Dominic, and so to be telling me this—’
‘When you popped up in the car park,’ he carried on, as if she hadn’t spoken, and she held her breath, listening to his every word, ‘it was like...’ he laughed, as if he too remembered the way it had felt, ‘it was like shaving decades from my jaded self. The way I felt, the way I feel , a little jittery, excited, it was like being seventeen again! I was excited! Properly excited, and not just in the way I am when my seedlings sprout or the boat gets a spring clean, but in the way that...’ He appeared to have run out of words, words that mirrored her own feelings and which to hear aloud filled her right up.
She felt light, excited, as her muscles contracted and her heart danced with joy.
‘In the way that it felt when you borrowed your dad’s Land Rover and went a-wooing?’
‘Yes, Enya.’ There was no hint of frivolity in his tone. ‘Exactly like that. And what with having signed the lease on the flat, it felt possible! Everything felt possible!’
She wanted to remind him that signing a lease on a flat and being divorced or officially separated were very different things.
There was no guarantee he would ever live in the place, or worse, what if he only intended to use it to conduct an illicit affair?
It was a thought that horrified. Simultaneously, she wondered if Trish felt the same level of enthusiasm, and just picturing the pretty woman who had stood in her kitchen was enough to shape her words.
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to call me.
Not a good idea at all. Not that I don’t, or not that I haven’t.
..’ What did she want to say? Was she brave enough to voice the words that would end this lovely feeling of happiness, of connection to another human when she craved it most?
Words that would shatter the frail and beautiful cage of happiness that she could feel forming all around her, around them.
‘It’s not fair on any of us.’ She closed her eyes.
It was true, the thought of dumping this on Aiden when he was facing so much was unthinkable.
Plus, if Iris didn’t bolt at the news of Holly’s pregnancy, then surely hearing her future mother-in-law had feelings for her father.
.. Enya screwed her eyes shut at the mere thought.
And then there was the sharp stick of betrayal that jabbed her awake in the early hours.
She and Jonathan had created a wonderful life, and she had done her best to carry it on without him, but to change course, swap teams, fall into the arms of another man, do differently, then it meant he had really gone.
It meant everything would change. It would feel like erasing all that they had built.
She was the sole custodian of their old life, their old love, and to start over would be akin to abandoning it, abandoning Jonathan.
‘Life, life is complicated enough right now,’ she stuttered. ‘For me to take a leap and go all in, I just can’t. It needs to be easy, and this is far, far from easy.’
There was a silence that crackled down the line and her heart raced with lament, understanding it was a silence that would replace these calls.
Jonathan, Jenny, Aiden to a certain degree, and now Dominic, the list of people who had slipped or were slipping out of reach was growing, a thought that was as depressing as it was true.
She felt the clock of solitude beat loudly in her chest.
‘Of course. I’m sorry. I just thought, I don’t know what I thought. I guess I’m finding it a little harder to let go than I would like to admit.’
And just like that he was gone.
Gripping the phone like a preoccupied teen, she wondered whether to text, to try and explain that if things were different...
But the simple truth was that things were not different.
And that was that.