Chapter Thirty-Five
Thirty-five
I practice for the moment Jack gets home until I’m completely satisfied.
I position myself on the stairs, trying out several different poses.
I settle for one hand draped over the banister, neck long and erect—as though he has just caught me descending for the evening, dressed in Alice’s exquisite clothes and looking forward to nothing more than spending an evening with him.
When I inquire about his day, I will do so as though his response is the most important part of mine.
I’m so excited to help steer Jack back to the man he was at the beginning that I even allow myself the indulgence of reflection.
This feels like a seminal moment of transition for us—a moment when Jack and I can take stock of everything that has brought us together and move forward in the knowledge that we are entirely committed to each other.
It only seems right, now, to look back on everything that has led me to this moment.
The learning curves, the setbacks, the deaths.
I go into the room Jack allocated to me on my first night here and run my hand over the bracelet and the items I kept from Freddie’s house.
I press his pajama bottoms to my nose again, but the smell is so faint now I can barely make it out.
The truth is, Freddie and I were not perfect.
No relationship is perfect. All we can do is try to be the best version of ourselves, even if that means going the extra mile and extinguishing the parts that are less desirable.
I think, perhaps, that’s where I slipped up.
In fairness, he didn’t make it easy for me. Not by the end.
I’d thought Freddie opening up to me in the pub would mark one of these moments of transition.
Just as Jack and I have worked through our first disagreement, I’d thought his confession was a sign of his trust in me: a sign that I was more important to him than whoever this other woman was.
I was wrong. If anything, in the days that followed, he seemed almost embarrassed by what he’d told me, like he regretted saying anything at all.
When I tried to ask him about it, he brushed me off, mumbling something about having it under control.
I tried to be there for him, but he threw my efforts back in my face at every turn.
And still, he periodically disappeared at the end of the workday, leaving me to wonder where we stood.
And I just knew that he was going to see her.
For some reason, I wasn’t enough for him.
It drove me a bit mad. I can admit it now. I did some things then that I am not proud of.
With Jack, it’s different. If I can show him how much I care—how far I am willing to go—then we will have something very special indeed.
I fold the pajamas and put them back in the drawer. As I am turning to leave, I catch sight of the daffodils he bought me on my first night here. Brown, crispy, and drooping sadly, they are obviously dead. I’m hopeful he’ll buy me some new ones soon.
Jack arrives home right on time, and when I hear his key in the door I am ready for him.
My phone buzzes again as the door swings open—the same unknown number—and I fumble for it, switch it off.
I will not allow anything to ruin this. I take up my position on the stairs, lengthen my spine, and adjust the jumper so that it falls in the most flattering way.
Beneath, the lacy bra I found in a drawer itches.
Alice’s breasts were clearly bigger than mine, and the material rubs uncomfortably.
Jack doesn’t see me immediately, which is a disappointment.
I have to clear my throat awkwardly to catch his attention.
But, oh, it’s worth it when he does. Because, when he sees me, Jack looks at me in a way he never has before.
I see the change—that slight widening of the eyes, the O shape to his mouth—and I know I’ve finally got it right.
No photograph needed. The answer has been sitting in the wardrobe all along.
He drops his bag on the floor, comes toward me quickly. And when he kisses me, it is with a hunger that I haven’t experienced from him before. Like he is entirely consumed by me. “God I’ve missed you,” he breathes into my neck—a neck I daubed with bath oil just before he arrived.
It’s different this time. This time, he is not tentative when he takes me up to bed.
There is very little tenderness. It’s rougher, laced with an urgency and dominance that I didn’t expect.
I go along with it, obviously, but there is something jarring about it, and it’s not just that he doesn’t seem to care about my own pleasure.
This feels like it is for him and him alone.
Still, I maintain the performance. I make all the right noises, but when it’s finished—when he has rolled away panting—I feel like I need to shower.
I don’t speak as I pad through to the bathroom and scrub at my skin. Afterward, I pull on the same clothes and go downstairs to find Jack. I’d like him to hug me. To pull me to him and press a kiss to my forehead.
But he doesn’t even look up as I enter the sitting room. He is setting a glass down on the table as I approach. A glass filled with amber liquid.
“I thought you’d given that up,” I say stupidly, too shocked to think about the reception these words might receive.
He whips round, eyes unfocused. “Get off my fucking back, OK? You’re always whining about something.”
And—for the first time in my life—I don’t even consider arguing.
Simply back out of the room and up the stairs.
I take off Alice’s clothes, slip into my pajamas.
Then I take one look at Jack’s bed—still rumpled from the activity—and go into the other room.
The room with the dead daffodils. I lie there for a very long time before I fall asleep.
—
Jack has already left by the time I wake the next morning.
But when I poke my head into his bedroom, I see that he has laid an outfit on the bed.
It’s not one I’ve seen before, and it’s far too smart to be worn around the house.
When I lift it to my nose, her smell—that tuberose tang—still lingers around the collar.