Chapter 22
SHEENA
Sheena put her mug of tea and bowl of cereal on her bedside table, then climbed back under the duvet, enjoying the indulgent feeling of a blissful morning in bed.
She lifted her laptop over from her bedside table to the pillow that she’d strategically placed to her right on the bed, and the screen burst into life as she opened it.
The first thing that popped up was a notification that she had twenty-nine new emails.
They could all wait until Monday. The wind was blowing a gale outside, the rain was slamming against the window, and she wanted to savour every moment of solitude on this Sunday morning on her own.
She was about to summon up an old nineties romcom, when another email notification popped up on the screen. One new message from Cassandra Sinclair. Intrigued, Sheena couldn’t resist opening it.
Dear Sheena,
I just wanted to thank you for everything and to say that, sadly, I won’t be requiring your services anymore.
Jeremy has finally agreed to a divorce and our lawyers are working on a settlement agreeable to us both – helped, of course, by your suggestion that financial equality would be necessary for both parties to agree to keep the reasons for the divorce private.
I’m not sure whether Jeremy is more embarrassed that he got caught in an affair, or that I have moved on with someone twenty years younger.
Either way, he’s looking rather altered at the moment and our joint account appears to have a transaction for a hospital in Turkey that specialises in hair transplants, liposuction and dental veneers.
If I knew how to insert the ‘wink’ emoji here, I certainly would.
Anyway, as per my stipulated request, he has left the children and me in our home, and when the children are with him, Fabio and I continue to explore our romance.
I learned so much from you about healthy relationships, and I’m enjoying implementing those techniques with a man who is deserving of them.
Take care and wishing you much happiness in the future,
Cassandra
Sheena felt a little glow of satisfaction.
Score one for the good guys. As far as her skills as a relationship counsellor went, this hadn’t been a win, as she hadn’t managed to keep them together and happy, but that didn’t matter right now.
What mattered was that Cassandra deserved every single moment of love and passion that she’d found in Fabio.
It would have been so easy for her to settle.
To accept something less than her best life.
Sheena was proud of Cassandra for taking the leap.
And she was suddenly a bit less proud of herself.
She hadn’t told him yet, but she was leaning towards going back to Gregor. Would she be settling for less than her best life? Or was she simply making a choice that would be right for them given the change in their circumstances?
The notion for a romcom was off her now, so she got up again and took her mug of tea through to the bathroom, turned on the bath taps and sat on the edge of the old Victorian tub as it began to fill, lost in her thoughts.
She ran her mind back to Thursday night, to their fourth antenatal class.
Or was it the fifth? The hormonal brain fog was definitely real.
Gregor had come to the class with her as he always did, and they’d taken the same spots as always, up at the back of the class, next to Orla and Maddie.
The two young women seemed to have struck up a lovely friendship over the weeks, and they’d invited Sheena along for coffee a couple of times, but she’d yet to take them up on it.
‘Right, we want to know why you’re being antisocial,’ Martha had demanded at dinner last week, when she’d admitted that she’d rebuffed all of Maddie and Orla’s invitations so far.
She’d put it down to work commitments, which was true, as they seemed to meet mostly during the day, to suit Orla’s shifts.
However, the full reason was more complicated than that.
‘I don’t know. I think I just feel a bit… out of place. A bit ridiculous. There they are in all their yoga pants glowing glory and six months ago I was positive that I was in the grips of the menopause.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. They’d enjoy your company. You’re a good time.’
Chanel sucked in a breath through her flawless veneers. ‘Erm, not so much since she gave up the wine.’
Martha responded with a solemn nod. ‘You’re right. I think it’s the elasticated waists and the comfortable shoes too. And she does talk about her pelvic floor a lot these days. Not to mention that she took down the Tinder profile I made for her.’
‘I’m not rising to either of you.’ Sheena had rolled her eyes, even though the corners of her mouth were twitching. ‘Okay, okay, the next time they ask me, I’ll say yes.’
‘Nope, not good enough. You have to make the first move. You’ve already knocked them back more than once, so the antisocial ball is in your court.’
Sheena had taken that on board, so when she’d seen them at the class on Thursday, she’d decided to get over herself. ‘Listen, I know I’ve not managed to meet up with you before now. It’s just… och, work, pregnant, all the things.’
‘Don’t worry, we completely understand,’ Orla had said.
There was something about her that Sheena just found so captivating, but she recognised that it was probably the same kinship she felt every time she met another redhead that was prone to wild curls and a touch of frizz.
Although, for the last few weeks, Orla’s hair had been glossy and styled in long, flowing waves.
She’d made a mental note to ask her what products she was using.
‘Thank you,’ Sheena had responded. ‘But I really would like to meet up. It would be nice to share this with others in the same situation. All my friends are… well, they’re at a different stage in life.’
She didn’t want to say that Martha was about to celebrate her oldest son’s twenty-first, because it just reminded her that she had no business doing this.
Later that night, Gregor had come in for a coffee when he was dropping her off.
They’d got into the habit of spending more time together.
Sunday brunch. Thursday night antenatal class.
Baby shopping on a Saturday. They’d even gone to the cinema on Friday night, but she’d missed the beginning of the movie because she’d had to pee every five minutes and missed the end because she fell asleep.
But still, it was good to be on friendly terms again.
It was comfortable. Easy. If she were being honest, she might even stretch to an admission that she was enjoying his company.
She’d just handed him a cappuccino, made with the Tassimo machine that she’d brought from their house, because he’d been on a caffeine ban for a year before she left. Clearly he’d given up on that now. Maybe he’d made some changes after all.
‘Okay, I have a proposition to put to you,’ he’d said, as they’d settled at the kitchen table.
‘I’m listening.’ She had braced herself, figuring that this was probably going to be the ‘we need to sell the house’ conversation. It wasn’t the worst idea. That way, they could both buy somewhere instead of continuing to pay extortionate rent on this place.
‘When couples were in your therapy sessions, you used to say that sometimes they needed to take a break from each other so that they could get space to regulate their feelings.’
‘You were paying attention. Well done,’ she’d teased him.
‘And you would tell them that a month was a good amount of time to spend apart.’
‘Yes. It gave them time to process their feelings and get a fairly good representation of what life would be like without the other person.’
‘Well, what about if we do the opposite? Why don’t we try living together for a month again? Just a month. See where it leads us.’
He’d suggested getting back together a few times over the months, but she’d always gently let him down, telling him that big decisions were unwise right now.
However, maybe a month trial could work.
Could it? She’d been unable to come up with a good enough reason to refuse right there and then, and if she were being honest, there was a part of her that was open to it.
More and more, she’d been thinking that life would be so easy, so uncomplicated, if they were a family again, and all she had to think about was bringing this baby into the world, and doing it with the support of a loving partner by her side.
‘Okay, let me think about it,’ she’d blurted, before she changed her mind.
‘Really?’ He’d looked as shocked as she was.
Her warm mug of steaming decaf coffee had stopped her from hugging him there and then, and it was probably just as well, because that’s when he’d said, ‘In the spirit of us starting over, and having a clean slate, I do need to tell you something. It’s a bit of an uncomfortable admission, so I’m just going to blurt it out.
While we were separated, I slept with someone else. ’
‘You what?’
‘I slept with someone else. A couple of people, actually.’
Sheena had wondered if the baby was pressing on her lungs, or if she really had lost the ability to breathe.
‘You slept with more than one person.’ She’d been aware that she was basically repeating what he’d said, but she’d hoped that would make her brain absorb it, because right then, all she’d been experiencing was a blank mind, a rush of blood to the head and the failure of her cardiovascular system.
She’d fought to regain the power of speech. ‘Who? Who did you sleep with?’
‘There was a woman at the gym that I’ve known for quite a while. And then there was someone I met on Bumble. Actually, she was before the woman from the gym.’
‘Fucking Bumble? You? You were on Bumble?’
Sheena had felt as if she were being vacuum-packed, as all the air left her body. It had taken her a moment to rally, and even then, her words were slow and stumbling.
‘So let me get this straight. The man who’d had the energy and inclination to have sex with me approximately once in the six months before we separated left his marriage and suddenly he’s Leonardo Fricking DiCaprio?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say that…’ He’d turned more than a little bit pink in the face.
‘Then what would you say? Because I hate to point it out in front of our child…’ Her hands had automatically gone to each side of her bump, and she’d really hoped that they were in the right position to cover the little one’s ears.
‘…But the lack of sex and passion in our marriage was something I asked you to change many times and was one of the straws that broke the horned-up camel’s bloody back! ’
She’d been aware that she may just have referred to herself as a desert animal with a hump, but her mind had been firing in several different directions, and she’d had limited control over what was coming out of her mouth.
‘So wait a minute – when was the last time you had sex with someone?’
She’d watched his face flush even pinker and she’d known.
‘Oh God, it was the night before I told you I was pregnant, wasn’t it? You bounced into that café like you were on a fricking pogo stick. Unless of course you’ve still been shagging since then?’
‘No, no!’ He’d put his hands up. ‘That was the last time. But can I just say here – Sheena, you left me. You called it quits. We had an agreement that we could see other people. I did nothing wrong.’
His forcefulness had made her back up and examine what she was feeling, until she’d circled back to the crux of the issue.
‘I don’t know what this says about me, or us, but if I’m being honest, Gregor, and I’m not proud of this, it’s not the fact that you slept with someone else.
It’s just that you wanted to. And yet, for a long time, you didn’t want me.
’ There. That was it. He’d made her long for affection, passion, physical touch, excitement, and delivered none of that.
Yet he’d made the effort for someone else.
She’d run an emotion check. Did she feel jealous that he’d slept with another woman? No. She truly didn’t. She was just mad that he’d apparently rediscovered his libido now, yet he hadn’t bothered to do that when they were married.
‘I’m the first to admit that I took you for granted and switched off from our marriage,’ he’d attempted a defence of his actions.
‘I think we needed to be without each other to appreciate what we had. The important thing is that I realise I made a mistake and I want you now. Come home, Sheena. Let’s just move on and be a family again. ’
Sheena had been unsure where to go with that. Hadn’t they both made mistakes? They’d manage to forgive each other for the one that they had made almost thirty years ago and that was so much worse.
Surely, for the sake of their baby, she should try again? Okay, so he’d gone through a period in his life where their marriage and his feelings for her had gone stale, and yes, he’d refused to fix it. But didn’t the fact that he felt differently now mean that they’d come full circle?
Or did it? Gregor might now want her again, but the last few years of distance and rejection had closed down the feelings that she had for him.
Now, as she lowered herself into the warm bath, she thought back to the time in her life when she’d been in love with him.
The problem was, whether she went back for a week, a month, or forever, she still wasn’t sure whether she could ever feel that way again.