Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
After both children were in bed – if not yet asleep – Erica watched Andrew load the dishwasher while she sipped the second half of a glass of wine she’d had with dinner.
‘It’s nice to be back here again tonight.’
The forks clattered as he dropped them into the cutlery holder. ‘It’s nice to have you here.’
Eating dinner together this evening – Andrew recounting his hilarious early attempts to persuade Ben that he could actually sit on the saddle of the trike, Mollie explaining all the skills Savita had shown her that afternoon, Ben surreptitiously helping himself to a fourth, fifth, sixth baked potato while no one was telling him to stop – she’d felt the togetherness of their family like tucking a cold arm back under the blankets in the middle of the night.
‘It feels like ages since we were all around the dinner table like that.’
Andrew glanced up at her as he slotted their dinner plates into place in the rack of the dishwasher. ‘It has been.’
He wasn’t giving an inch, but his hug this afternoon gave Erica the courage to be bold. ‘I always thought we’d get back together, you know. I know we’ve been living separately, but I never thought that was the end.’
For a moment, he paused, then continued to arrange the crockery on the lower shelf. ‘I don’t think I ever expected you to actually leave.’
Her stomach squeezed. What did that mean? He was making it sound like she’d made that decision. But they’d agreed to try it, hadn’t they? ‘You wanted him to try the school. And this was the only way. It was far too far for us to commute. We agreed.’
Though there were no more dirty dishes or pans, Andrew remained in front of the dishwasher, one hand gripping the worktop, not meeting her eyes. ‘I did. Something had to change, didn’t it? We kept going around and around with the same arguments. We weren’t living the life we wanted, either of us. My dad died six weeks after he retired, Erica. He had a whole other lifetime planned that he never got to live. We need to live in the now. I need to live in the now.’
The wine that had tasted so good at the table turned acrid in her mouth. Did this mean he really did want a divorce?
She tipped the rest of the wine down the sink and placed the glass on the top shelf of the dishwasher. ‘I see.’
The contents of the dishwasher rattled as he slammed it shut. ‘Let’s sit down and talk about this properly.’
When the children were small, they’d had a large wicker box in the corner of the living room that they could scoop all their toys into at the end of the evening, in order to relax – just for half an hour – without the chaos. As they’d got older, and bedtime became more of a struggle with Ben, this had happened less and less. It would often only be Andrew in this room while she was upstairs, fighting to resist the clutches of sleep on Ben’s bedroom floor. Yet, this room had many comforting memories of evenings spent in each other’s company. The deep-blue velvet sofa, the low oak coffee table, the fireplace unusual in a modern built house. They’d known as soon as they moved in, only a matter of months after the fire at the last house, that they would never have a real fire here. In the grate, in place of coals or wood, they’d kept a vase, full of fresh flowers. Though the vase was still there, it was empty and looked lost in that space.
Erica was on the sofa, staring at that vase rather than look at Andrew in the armchair to her right. Something about his expression, coupled with the mention of divorce last week, made her realise that this might be their last shot. If she wanted this marriage to have a chance, they were both going to have to be completely honest with one another.
‘It changed me. It changed us. Having Benjamin, learning to navigate his needs. I’m not the same person any longer, Andrew. I have so much fear in me. I worry all the time. It takes so much out of me.’
Though she didn’t turn to face him, Erica could feel Andrew moving forward in his seat. ‘I know that and I understand that. But if we’re going to make this work, you have to let me try. In the past, it was too easy for me to take a step back. And then it felt like you were taking steps forward and I was being left behind.’
She wanted this to work between them, but she was no martyr. ‘I was taking steps forward, I was trying to wear a path for Ben, so that he could follow.’
Sometimes it’d felt as if she was an Arctic explorer, cutting through ice to find undiscovered territory, weighed down by a pack of fear and trepidation.
‘That’s what I mean. You dictated the path. You decided where he would go. The rest of us just had to follow.’ He held up a hand. ‘I know that makes me sound weak and I was weak. I see that now. I should have been stronger. I should have been his dad.’
His voice broke at those last words and her heart broke with it. If he had stood up to her, what would she have done? She certainly wouldn’t have rolled over as her own mother had. How much had her own determination not to relive the dynamic of her parents’ marriage almost destroyed her own? ‘I was trying to be strong. For Ben.’
He reached out then. Took her hand. ‘I understand that. And you have been strong. Always. It was one of the things I most admired about you when I met you. How many people uproot their lives and move to another country, start all over again? You’ve always had a strength that I’m in awe of.’
Her throat tightened. Right now, she felt weaker that she ever had. ‘I don’t think anyone is born strong. But sometimes life makes you that way. I had to be strong for Ben.’
‘We would’ve been stronger together. I think we both lost sight of that. You took control and I let you. We both made mistakes.’
He was right. They had both made mistakes. Was it too late to recover from them? ‘Is it possible to go back to the beginning and start again?’
Her heart plummeted when he shook his head. ‘No. We can’t start again. But we can start from where we are. We’ve made mistakes. Both of us. But we can learn from them. We can be like Ben. Lifelong learners.’
She could barely breathe. He was right, they had to keep learning. Would they do it together? ‘I like the idea of that.’
A smile curled at the edges of his mouth. ‘Seeing Ben learn to ride that trike…he was amazing. It was really difficult, but he kept going.’ His eyes clouded. ‘We should have kept going. Living apart was the wrong thing to do.’
Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded. He was right again. ‘It seemed the only solution. After that holiday…it was impossible. Like you said, we couldn’t carry on the way we were. It seemed like the right thing to do. Living apart for a while.’
He nodded. ‘But we’ve learned that it wasn’t good for us.’
His smile was infectious. ‘Lifelong learners.’
He pulled her towards him. ‘Lifelong learners.’
As his lips pressed onto hers, she closed her eyes and let herself imagine another holiday, the four of them, together.