Chapter 18
Luna
The front door opens again as I’m adjusting Amelie’s blanket.
I listen as Isaac makes his way to the kitchen with the groceries.
He looks handsome in a burgundy sweater that hugs the contours of his broad chest and worn jeans that cling faithfully to his muscular thighs.
His hair is sprinkled with premature grey and a little longer than he likes to keep it.
His blue eyes keep looking my way as he puts the groceries away.
The eggs are on the top, just like I have nagged him to do after a hundred times of them ending up crushed in the bottom.
He takes something out of a brown paper bag and microwaves it.
The smell of my favourite cinnamon roll drifts my way as he settles next to me with a fresh cup of tea.
I watch the indecision in his eyes before he says, “May I hold her?”
“She is your daughter as well,” I say as I carefully hand her to him.
“Drink your tea,” he urges, but his attention is on our beautiful baby. The last few weeks of regularly handling Amelie has him expertly rocking her as he watches her sleep with a tender look in his eyes.
“I need to go out for a bit. Maybe a couple of hours.” He looks my way, as if asking for permission.
I return the look coolly.
Pre-Amelie, I would have asked something.
Where are you going?
When will you be back?
And then I would tip my face up for a kiss and probably ask him to drive safely.
Instead, I say, “Okay.”
I look back down at Amelie.
I can almost feel him hoping I will say something more. I don’t look up.
“Just … a few things to sort out,” he adds, like bait. I don’t bite.
Asking feels like opening a door I’ve only barely managed to close.
“I—” He stops and starts again. “I’ve been seeing someone.”
This man must have a death wish.
“Seeing someone?”
His eyes go wide as he realises what he just said. “Oh. No. Not like that. A therapist.”
Oh. I don’t know how to respond to that.
A therapist. I vaguely remember Lily mentioning something.
“I’ve only had two sessions,” he adds. “It’s just … early days, I guess. But I thought I should—no, I need to get myself sorted.”
I hold his gaze for a second. Instinct tells me he wants to say more. Isaac holds back because he can see that I am not ready, and it loosens a big knot in my chest.
“Okay,” is all I say in the end, not sure where this is all going.
“Well,” he says, voice quieter now, “I guess I’ll see you in a couple of hours. I will have my phone with me at all times.”
I incline my head.
With nothing left to say, he lets himself out.
***
Isaac
The waiting room is still a surprise, even though this is my third visit. With my private insurance covering the sessions, everything was arranged very quickly.
There are no sterile chairs, no harsh lighting to hurt the eyes, and no ticking clock to watch as the minute hand inches closer.
Instead, a deep olive-green wall stretches behind a low, L-shaped sofa layered with cushions in cream, green, and gold. There’s exposed brick along one side, catching the light that filters through a tall, arched window.
There are plants everywhere. Trailing from the wall, clustered in pots on a wooden coffee table, tall, leafy ones in the corners. The air smells faintly of earth and something subtly herbal. A water dispenser stands in the corner.
A woven rug is spread over the wooden floor, not laminate or vinyl wood. A lamp in the corner casts a cozy, amber glow even in daylight.
I should feel calm, but the pressure has been on the rise since I got into the car to drive.
I sit here, elbows on my knees, staring at nothing in particular, and all I can think about is how long it took me to get here. And what she is going to ask me today.
Two sessions already. Two sessions of … more talking than I’ve done in years.
About things I don’t think about anymore.
Sophie, my sister, who died at ten. I was only five back then. She is like a fading photograph. I don’t quite remember her face anymore. I remember being sad that she would no longer play football with me in the backyard.
Over the years, I understood enough to know something had been ripped out of our lives, and no one knew how to fill the gap. Now, I look at Amelie and wonder how Mum and Dad survived it.
Mum changed after that. It was like she needed to be in the driver’s seat all the time.
And Chloe from next door seemed to fill the void Sophie left in Mum.
I have this memory of watching Mum go teary as she fed her icecream in the kitchen. She smiled in a way she hadn’t in months.
I didn’t question it. I followed Dad’s lead.
He gave her space to grieve the way she needed to, let her make the decisions, and didn’t interfere or challenge.
And I followed his lead because it made her smile again.
When I told Dr Ward all this during the last session, she asked if I felt that Chloe stopped being just a neighbour and became something else after Sophie’s accident. And now I realise she did without us noticing.
I rub a hand over my face as the door opens. A young man walks out and waves over his shoulder before he leaves.
“Isaac?”
I look up.
She is in her mid-fifties, around Mum’s age.
“Hi, Isaac,” she says, offering a small smile.
“Morning, Dr Ward,” I reply.
“Oh, just call me Helen. Have a seat.”
I nod and sit in the armchair I like. She takes the seat facing me.
Everything about the room says relax, but I can’t. This still feels like I am facing a firing squad.
She doesn’t start with questions, appearing to simply look through her notes. It’s irritating.
Somehow, she knows I have something to say.
“So,” I say, leaning forward, hands clasped. “I messed up.”
She tilts her head slightly. “That’s a starting point. Tell me what happened.”
“I tried to talk to Luna … I think it was too soon. But I just couldn’t hold it in. It did not go well.” I exhale through my nose. “I didn’t cheat,” I say quickly. “I haven’t touched Chloe. Never wanted to.”
She doesn’t react to the defensiveness, just nodding once.
“Luna said something about … an emotional affair.” I sigh, running harried fingers through my hair. “But I never—It wasn’t like that. What does that mean? An emotional affair?”
“I get the feeling you Googled this,” she says. “What did you find?”
I shift in my seat.
“I … was communicating with Chloe,” I say. “Giving her time that should have belonged to my wife. Sharing things I shouldn’t have.”
“Things you weren’t sharing with your wife?”
“Yes. I didn’t share much, but enough. My last message to her was that I still dreamt about her. I don’t even know why I sent that message. And I am afraid that’s what triggered Luna’s … you know.”
There it is, said out loud.
“What made those conversations with Chloe feel easier?” she asks.
I frown. “They weren’t easier.”
“Then why go there?”
I open my mouth, only to close it again, because I don’t have a clean answer. The real answer is messy and uncomfortable and tied up in things I’ve spent years not looking at.
“She was … familiar,” I say finally. “We were mates long ago, for years. I guess I thought there would be no expectations. Just a listening ear. Chloe admitted when we divorced that we did not suit as a couple … I don’t know why I … I don’t know.”
“Did you expect there would be no consequences just because you never touched Chloe?”
I huff a quiet breath. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” she asks gently.
The silence stretches as I chew on that. She’s not wrong.
“I wasn’t trying to replace my wife,” I say. “I love Luna.”
“I believe you,” she replies. “Those two things can exist at the same time. YOU allowed a woman Luna didn’t trust into her space at a vulnerable time.
The day your baby was born. Your mum might have been the one who brought her, but you allowed it.
Luna must have perceived it as a massive betrayal.
Chloe is your ex. You need to start from there and think about what you should have done differently. ”
There it is, the truth I have skirted.
I lean back.
Run a hand over my face.
“I guess I tried to brush it aside, thought Luna would forget, but she didn’t. And then I made it worse because I could see she was struggling and wouldn’t trust me anymore. And in my heart, I deserved that for what I had done,” I say after a moment. “I didn’t know how to fix it.”
“And so, you turned to Chloe?”
“Not really. More like she was there all the time … And I didn’t push that comfort away when I should have been working harder to win Luna’s trust back. And Chloe didn’t seem to want anything from me. She felt like my old mate.”
That’s the lie I’ve been telling myself.
Dr Ward nods slowly. “So, you moved towards a role where you didn’t feel inadequate.”
I cannot answer because that’s exactly what I did.
Standing in my own house, watching Luna get further away from me, and not knowing how to help … it felt like failing.
“And your wife?” she asks. “What does she feel now?”
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat.
“She doesn’t look at me,” I admit. “She doesn’t want me there. But she hasn’t kicked me out. I am at rock bottom. The only way to go is up.”
“That’s her grief,” she says, “and trauma speaking.”
She holds my gaze.
“Emotional betrayal often feels just as destabilising as physical infidelity,” she says calmly. “The secrecy. Intimacy directed somewhere else.”
I sit back. I am stuck on the word betrayal.
Then she leans forward slightly.
“Let’s start with something simple. What have you done so far?” she asks. “Have you ended contact with Chloe?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I have blocked her everywhere. Phone. Social media. I have told her that she is not to contact me or my family.”
“Good,” she says. “That will be non-negotiable from Luna’s side if you want to salvage your relationship.”
I nod.
“That’s step one,” she adds. “I hope she knows this? Because it means safety.”
“Yes, for Luna,” I say.
“For both of you,” she corrects.
I frown.
“For you,” she explains, “it removes the escape route.”
She watches me for a moment.
“Between now and our next session,” she says, “I want you to do one thing.”
I wait.
“No defensiveness,” she says. “If your wife expresses anger, hurt, or confusion, you don’t correct it. You don’t justify. You listen. And you speak when she lets you.”
I stare at her.
“That’s it?”
“That’s the hardest part,” she says with an ironic smile. “Admitting you are wrong. I find men, more so than women, have a harder time admitting fault and saying sorry.”
She is right.
But what she doesn’t understand is that I will go to any lengths to get my Luna back. Failure is not an option.