Chapter Nine #2
I give Simon a bashful look, and he winks at me and says, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay.”
“Toast?”
Even though I’d decided I wasn’t hungry, my stomach rumbles, so I nod.
He takes a couple of slices out of the toaster and puts them on a plate as I sit on the other side of the breakfast bar.
He’s already put butter, peanut butter, jam, and Marmite on the counter.
I pull the butter toward me, layer it on thickly, and crunch into it.
“And coffee,” Kim says, giving me a steaming cup. I had a mouthful of the one Archer made me but I didn’t finish it, and I groan with pleasure as I sip the piping-hot drink.
“So…” She brings her own coffee around the counter, sits on the stool beside me, and turns to face me. “What’s going on?”
I suck a crumb off my bottom lip, then study the slice of toast sadly. “Jude and I broke up.” She doesn’t reply, and I look up to see the two of them exchanging glances. “What?”
She looks back at me and says softly, “It was over having children, wasn’t it?”
I don’t reply, and she bites her lip and looks back at her husband.
“It’s not your fault,” he tells her firmly.
My eyebrows rise. “What? Of course it’s not your fault. It’s nothing to do with you.”
Kim puts her cup on the counter. Then she covers her mouth with her hand and bursts into tears.
“Oh no…” I stand and put my arms around her, and she sobs into my T-shirt. While she cries, I look over her shoulder at Simon and mouth, “What’s going on?”
He rests against the counter, arms folded. He looks exhausted, physically and emotionally. “The fertility stuff is taking its toll, that’s all.”
That just makes Kim sob harder. Simon looks at her, and although he frowns, his expression is carefully blank. “I’m going to trim the hedge,” he says, and he leaves through the back door, closing it behind him.
Astonished that he’d just walk out when she’s crying so hard, I rub her back and tell her everything’s going to be okay, even though I’m not sure it is.
Jude foresaw this. He told me Kim and Simon’s marriage was crumbling because getting pregnant was more important to her than his happiness, and it looks as if he was right.
And now she thinks she’s the reason why Jude and I have broken up. No doubt Simon and Jude’s heart-to-hearts have had something to do with that.
“Come on,” I tell her, getting up as her tears begin to slow, “let’s go into the living room and talk properly.”
I grab a roll of kitchen towel, and she tears off a sheet and blows her nose while I carry our cups into the living room. I put them on the coffee table, and we sit together on the sofa, turned a little toward each other.
She looks out the window, and I follow her gaze to see Simon at the far end of the garden with the trimmer, attacking the hedge with gusto. I look back at her, and see a kind of dull resignation on her face.
“No,” I say with alarm. “It’s not over. Don’t you even think that.”
She rests her temple on the back of the sofa. “He told me yesterday that he won’t do another cycle.”
“Oh… Kim…”
“I knew it was coming. He didn’t want to do the fifth, but I blackmailed him into it. Said I’d leave him if he didn’t.” Her bottom lip trembles.
I don’t say anything, because even though her words shock me, I know what she’s been through, and how much she wants a baby. That yearning does something to a woman’s brain. It’s starting to do it to mine. It’s nature, and there’s nothing we can do to quell that broodiness.
“When it failed,” she continues, “I knew. I tried to talk him into it. Said I could feel that it was going to work. But of course it’s all bullshit, and he said as much.”
“It’s horrible,” I say, “absolutely horrific that you’ve had to go through all that and still come out with nothing. But he loves you, and you love him. You’ll get through this.”
“I don’t know. He…” She swallows hard. “He’s had trouble getting an erection when we do have sex. He says it’s because he knows I’m not interested, and that all I want is his baby batter.”
An involuntary short laugh breaks from me at that, and I press my fingers to my mouth. “Sorry.”
Her lips curve up. “It’s okay. It is a stupid term. The thing is… he’s right. And I hate it, but I don’t know how to stop.”
“You’ve been trying for so long. It’s perfectly understandable.”
“Yeah, but if I don’t do something…” She doesn’t finish the sentence.
For a while, the buzz of the hedge trimmer is the only sound in the quiet room.
I have to restrain myself from saying the platitudes that want to roll off my tongue. Don’t be silly. Everything’s going to be okay. He’ll never leave. You were meant to be together. Clearly, they’re in trouble.
“I’m really sorry,” she says eventually, rubbing her nose. “This isn’t what you need right now. It’s just that last night Simon said I’d ruined our relationship and I was going to ruin yours too if I wasn’t careful. And it looks as if he was right.”
“Our breakup was not your fault,” I tell her firmly.
“Things started going wrong between Jude and me a long time ago. Last night was just the final whistle. Our relationship was never strong. If it was, the thought of standing by me during possible fertility problems wouldn’t have been an issue for him.
I might not have a problem conceiving at all—he pointed that out to me.
I mean, Donna was fine, right? I think it was just that the talk of children made him realize I was thinking long-term, and maybe that made him come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to spend forever with me. ”
I stop as a wave of emotion hits me, and tears prick my eyes. Kim is emotionally fragile, and I don’t want to bawl my eyes out again.
She sees it though, and frowns. “Are you sure it’s over? It wasn’t just a clearing-the-air row?”
“He told me that if I want kids, I’m going to have to find someone else to have them with.”
“Well, yeah, that sounds pretty final, but maybe he was just angry, and he’ll change his mind when he cools down.”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t want to have to talk a guy into it, you know? And it wasn’t just that. He’s so moody, and grumpy all the time. I’m tired of tiptoeing around him. I want to be with someone who’s less complicated.”
“Aw…” She frowns. “Don’t make any rash decisions. Sometimes arguments like this are necessary to clear the air.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I know he loves you. And he is a catch, Beth. He’s gorgeous, he has a steady job, he’s hardworking, and he’s not bad in bed, right?” Her brows draw together.
I flush. “No, he’s a good lover, but it takes more than that to make a relationship work.
” For some reason, her words make me bristle.
‘He’s a catch’ somehow implies to me that she thought he was out of my league when we met.
That I was like a fisherman who caught a hundred-pound kingfish with a rod, and I was lucky to land him.
It stings because I know she’s right. I’m a seven on a good day, and he’s easily a ten on a bad day. I think it’s one reason I’ve stayed with him so long, because I’ve liked the way women look at me with envy, wondering how I got him.
But it’s not a good enough reason to stay with someone. Because when you go home, it’s just the two of you, and if the relationship is sour, it doesn’t matter how good looking someone is.
I think about how Archer held me, and how he made me feel loved and wanted, even though we were only together for one night. That’s what I want from a relationship. And that’s why I know that Jude and I will never work.