Chapter Forty
It turns out the answer to “where do we go from here” is shockingly simple for Lachlan and me: our favorite café, the one we took Josh to when he was in town.
Our orders haven’t changed since then, but our behavior sure has.
I wonder if Lachlan notices that I don’t lovingly feed him my pickle.
I wonder if he’s fighting the urge to fish the lemon slice out of my Diet Coke.
We’re both stiff, deliberate in our movements, conspicuously not touching each other.
The air is thick with questions, but it’s so unclear to me how this proceeds.
I haven’t had enough time to process a possible reconciliation, to sketch out the various forms it could take.
How do I navigate this—how do I get satisfaction, relief, absolution?
And what does Lachlan get—or, perhaps more terrifyingly, what does he want?
When we’ve covered every Brit’s favorite bit of small talk (the weather), Lachlan clears his throat. “I have some things I’d like to say, if that’s okay. Couldn’t exactly fit it all in the letter.”
I just nod.
He fiddles with the wrapper from his straw, twisting it around his fingers. “I’ve been with Claire pretty much my entire life.”
I blanch at these words. I’ve been with Claire—the present perfect tense, used to express a past event that has present consequences.
In layman’s terms: They’re still together.
My heart is pounding now, and I can think of a present perfect sentence to describe my present imperfect mood: I’ve been a fool.
Lachlan doesn’t notice that all the blood has drained from my face.
“We got married because that’s what footballers do: They have a family so there’s a little unit that goes with them when they move from team to team, country to country, so they’re not starting over every time.
Since everyone around me was doing it, I figured I needed to do it too.
A few weeks beforehand, I almost called it off.
I thought we were getting married for the wrong reasons, or that maybe we shouldn’t even be together at all.
But Matty talked me off the ledge, and what he said made a lot of sense.
So we got married, and it was good, for a while.
We really supported each other. But somewhere along the way, our little unit fractured. ”
Oh. Past tense.
Lachlan sighs. “We started living separate lives a couple years after we got to Spain, because I resented her for pressuring me to leave Mersey and she resented me for never fully committing to our life in Madrid or her ambitions beyond football. On paper we were still married, and there were times when it was like it had always been, but…” He pauses, looks away, and his eyes water.
“But we both changed somewhere along the way. All the things we used to be on the same page about had shifted, because who’s the same person at thirty that they were at thirteen?
And I’m scared that I broke it, and I hate being bad at things.
It’s why I’m a footballer instead of an astronaut or a fireman or whatever the hell I actually wanted to be as a kid, because football was the thing I was best at and I was too scared to try anything else.
So I always had this thought in my head: I vowed to love this woman till death do us part, no matter what. If we split up, I would have failed.”
He finally looks at me, but I can’t interpret what’s going on behind his eyes. Is this an apology? Does he require comfort? Am I supposed to fix it?
“Maybe it would be helpful to reframe it,” I say.
“You had an incredibly happy and successful partnership for many, many years. You helped each other grow into the people you were supposed to be. None of that sounds like failure to me; it sounds like two people who had one kind of love for a very long time and who now are transitioning into a different kind.”
His smile is rueful, its edges tugged down by the gravity of sorrow. “You should work in communications.”
“I’ll consider it.” I take a sip of Diet Coke, giving me time to build up the courage to ask the questions that most need answering. “So what are you guys going to do?”
“We’ve been trying counseling for a few months—well, I guess you know that, since you talked to Claire. Sorry, I can’t imagine how uncomfortable that must have been.”
“It was okay, actually. I think I’d really like her, if I weren’t abjectly terrified of her.”
He lets out a sharp little burst of a laugh.
“Yeah. I think she would really like you too. And the counseling has helped. Or at least, it’s helped us be able to articulate what’s wrong: She backed out of our deal that Spain was temporary and that returning to Liverpool was always the plan.
I never prioritized her career above mine.
She resents me for being the one who gets to make the decisions.
I’m too ashamed to admit that we’ve failed.
On and on and on. It’s hard to hear your faults queued up like that, week after week.
” He sighs. “But then there will be moments when we’re together where it feels like the old us.
When we were thirteen, giggling in the back of my dad’s car.
Or when we were twenty-one, on the edge of something big and scary and exciting, holding hands on the cliff and promising each other it would be okay if we jumped.
Just two people sitting together and trying to figure out how to navigate the world.
Moments when it’s felt like we could make it. ”
A small eternity stretches out beyond his last words, an eternity filled with confusion and possibility and roads not taken.
This whole conversation I’ve been fighting to suppress a shaking in my body, a feverish tremor that chatters my teeth and rumbles my core, and it intensifies with every moment I languish in the pause.
I don’t know what Lachlan and I are to each other, or what we will be to each other going forward, but I know that if he and Claire have decided to stay together, a lot of paths become closed to me.
So much hangs in the balance, and the small eternity lengthens and grows, spiraling out into a hundred different futures, some of which are in my grasp, none of which are in my control.
He cuts his eyes to me, but my features are a mask; I won’t let him see the panic.
Lachlan lets out a long breath, his eyes fixed on his hands, laced together and fidgeting.
“But it’s not real. It’s only a memory of when things were easier, when we were all we had and it was enough.
We’re too different now, with completely different priorities.
And I think no matter what else had happened in our lives, we’d been heading for this outcome for a long time.
Maybe from before the wedding itself. We’re getting a divorce. ”
My shaking hand rattles the ice in my glass at the D-word.
I wonder if he can see what this news is doing to me, how it’s swirling a thousand thoughts around in my head like a whirlpool.
“I’m so sorry, Lachlan. But it sounds like it’s the right decision?
” I put a little inflection there, like I’m giving him the opportunity to back out if he wants to.
His sad smile returns. “Thanks. I think so. And it’s going to be messy and painful, and I’m naive if I think we won’t hate each other at some point during the process, but we’ll just have to try to be as civil as possible and remind ourselves that this is the best thing for both of us in the long run. ”
“What happens next?”
“It’s a whole faff. It’s easier since we don’t have kids, but we’ll still have to figure out how to split everything up.
We have a draft separation agreement, but if either of us isn’t satisfied with that, we’ll have to take it to court.
I’m sure the tabloids will have a fucking field day no matter what we do, so get ready to hide all of the bad stories in the press from my fragile ego. ”
“Can do, boss.” I give him a little salute. “How does Claire feel about it all?”
“I think she’s okay. She’s moving to America, like she’s always wanted.
Los Angeles to start with; she’s got auditions and interviews lined up for a couple of things out there, and some of it sounds really promising.
Not just reality TV shit—whoever the decision makers are have realized that she’s really smart, she has great taste, and she’s willing to hustle. So she’s going to land on her feet.”
It says a lot about the kind of person Lachlan Ramsay is that he’s clearly so proud of her, despite everything.
“And as for the rest, who knows. I think she might be dating one of my teammates from Madrid. Ironically, not Carlinhos, the one all the red tops thought she was with, but a different guy. I think she started to see him these last few months while we’ve been, like, emotionally but not legally separated.
” He rubs his neck. “I didn’t say anything, because I know she knew about us…
I mean, I know you told her that we got really close while we were living together. ”
“Yeah,” I say. I don’t apologize. “I thought it was important to tell her.”
“I’m glad you did. We talked a lot about it, about emotional infidelity, and she kind of hinted that she had also explored something new, but I didn’t want to press in case it felt like I was trying to trap her into confessing.”
A bundle of nervous energy trills up my spine. “Emotional infidelity?” There it is, our alleged crime, spoken aloud for the very first time.