Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
It was as if he’d punched her in the stomach. ‘Divorce?’
Andrew held out his hands in supplication. ‘What did you expect me to do? How long did you expect me to wait, Erica? I’m here on my own all the time. Mollie is a thirteen-year-old girl. She doesn’t want to hang out with her dad. I’m just supposed to stay home and wait until you decide to come back?’
How had they seen this so differently? ‘You make it sound as if I left you for another man. I’m living there, in that tiny little apartment, because I’m looking after our son. We agreed that I would rent somewhere closer to his school. It was for Ben.’
Andrew’s sigh went down to his boots. ‘Yes, we agreed to it but it wasn’t supposed to be permanent, was it? The idea was that you would stay there for three months at the most, gradually get him settled into the school and then we’d work out a way to combine some residential care with the day school. But aside from today, you’ve never tried him overnight. I doubt he’s even visited the residential wing. It feels as if you’re never going to do it. It feels as if you don’t want to come home.’
Was he right? If she was really honest with herself, the move to the apartment hadn’t only been a good decision for Ben. Living somewhere else, not having to see familiar faces around town, she’d also been able to keep anxious thoughts about the investigation at a manageable distance. And life had been calmer, easier, with only Ben to worry about.
But when she’d told Andrew it would be temporary, she hadn’t been lying. She really had hoped that over time – once she’d got to know the teachers at his new school and he was happy there – the fear of what might happen if he was out of her sight would recede. But it hadn’t. She couldn’t keep the tears spilling from her eyes. ‘I know that I agreed to some residential care. I know, Andrew. But he wasn’t ready for that. I couldn’t force him. What did you want me to do?’
‘I wanted you to accept that we needed time together without Ben’s needs twisting our family out of shape.’
‘You expected me to find it easy to just send my son away?’
‘Our son. And no, I never said it would be easy. I just wanted Mollie to have some time, too. And yes, maybe I’m selfish, but I wanted to have my wife back. Is that so wrong?’
They were going round and around again. The same arguments with no solutions. ‘You have no idea how hard it is, Andrew. This feeling that you have to pull yourself in so many different directions that you’re failing in all of them.’
‘I do understand, but I also know that we all deserve a life here. Not just Ben. I’ve waited a long time, Erica – more than just these three months that you’ve been living elsewhere – and, at some point, I realised that I need to just accept that you’re not coming back. Literally and metaphorically. Our marriage is over.’
She was surprised by the break in his voice. She’d never considered it this way, that he felt abandoned. Then the picture of Celeste with Mollie that she’d seen in her bedroom flashed up in her mind. ‘Have you met someone else? Is that what it is?’
At least he had the decency to look uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly.’
Her hand was so tight on her glass of wine that she wouldn’t have been surprised if it had shattered under the pressure. ‘What does not exactly mean?’
‘I’ve been out a couple of times. Just for a drink. Nothing happened between us. It was nice to be with someone who enjoyed my company, who wanted to be with me, who actually gave me their full attention. I wasn’t asking a lot, Erica. We’ve got two children. I’m not a baby. I was just asking for something. A little tiny piece of you.’
Erica wanted to throw herself on the rug and beat at the floor with her fists like a child. She didn’t have a tiny piece left to give Andrew when every gram of her felt used up by the end of every day. It was impossible not to raise her voice along with her anger. ‘You expect me to believe that all you’ve done is have a couple of drinks with someone when you’ve taken off your wedding ring and called a divorce lawyer?’
Andrew’s right hand moved instinctively to cover the fingers of his left. Had he thought she hadn’t noticed? ‘Calm down, Erica.’
Has anyone, in the whole history of the world, felt calmer after someone says that to them? ‘I am perfectly calm. Can you answer my question?’
‘I just thought that, if you suspected that I was seeing someone, you might try and take Mollie to live with you. The lawyer I was speaking to is someone we know at the station. She’s not a divorce lawyer, she’s a family lawyer. I was asking her about custody of the kids. She wanted to know if I had any evidence that Mollie would be better off staying with me and…’
He didn’t need to finish that sentence. She felt sick. Five years on from that terrible day and he’d use it to keep her daughter away from her? ‘I can’t believe it.’
He looked so ashamed. ‘I jumped the gun. I’m sorry. It’s just, I was talking about our situation at work and…things were said and I thought I should be prepared.’
She could just imagine what things were said. Almost none of his colleagues had marriages that’d lasted. The strains of the job. And that was without a child with special needs in the mix. ‘Did you really think I would take the children away from you?’
He shrugged. ‘You’re already an hour away. What if you decide to go back to the States? What if you find a school there for Benjamin and Mollie wants to come with you? Where does that leave me?’
How could he give up on their marriage so easily? ‘I think you’ll find that you were the one who found this school for Benjamin, not me.’
‘Because I thought it’d be good for him, good for our family. I didn’t expect you to just divide the household.’
She pressed her lips together tightly. Not trusting herself to start speaking because a terrible tsunami of words was threatening to flow from her the minute she began to tell him what she thought.
Andrew slid his glass onto the table. ‘I can’t do this again. I’m going to bed. We need to focus on Mollie and school. All of this can wait.’
As soon as he’d gone, Erica let her head fall into her hands. Everything was such a mess. The last few months had been so difficult. Through everything, though, she’d thought that they would work it out someday. Maybe once Ben didn’t need her as much. Or when Andrew wasn’t working so hard. Or Mollie…
But none of that was real life. Ben did still need her. Would always need her.
And Mollie needed her, too. Much more than she’d realised.
And Andrew? His anger had taken her breath away. Maybe there was no coming back from this. She hadn’t had the courage to ask him outright if he was seeing Celeste, unsure whether she’d actually survive him telling her that she was losing both her husband and her best friend at the same time.
Celeste was the one she needed to speak to about Mollie and school. She’d call her tomorrow. And maybe she would feel brave enough to ask her about Andrew and why there was a picture of her with her daughter on a visit to the house that she knew nothing about.