Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sadie
I feel Ethan erupt in the condom seconds after I’ve shattered and fallen limp on his shoulder, both of us with sweat-damp skin.
We shouldn’t have done this. But the reality is, it was inescapable. I have zero regrets.
The buzzing, fizzing feeling I’ve had in my veins since I first realised what I was looking at buried in the sand has finally eased. Replaced by warmth and peace. But it’s not just that. I’ve realised I can trust Ethan. He had my back with my father. He’s not going to hurt me the way my father hurt my mother. Perhaps more importantly, I finally believe I can trust myself. Not to lose my direction—my whole self—the way my mother did. I don’t know how we might make this work, but I trust us both enough that we can find a way.
Ethan’s big hands are firm on my back, holding me against him. Heart to heart. His chest rumbles with a contented sigh and he stands, taking me with him, and lays us both on the narrow bed. He’s right. It squeaks. We lie still, careful not to move but enjoying the feel of our bodies pressed together.
“I’m sorry for the things I said to you on the drive back from Bangalay,” Ethan whispers, his fingers trailing gently up and down my arm.
“That’s okay. I understand you’re still grieving.”
“Grieving? Yes. I am. I suspect I always will be. But it’s more than that. It was more than grief talking. It was guilt.” He pulls the blanket out from under us and drapes it across our steadily cooling skin.
“Guilt?”
“I loved my wife. I did my best to be the husband she needed. Wanted. But I so often fell short. I let her down. And that eats at me.”
With my head resting on his shoulder, I can feel the tension in his neck and jaw.
“How do you think you let her down?”
“We’d been together since we were teenagers. She wanted to get married years earlier, but I always had an excuse. I need to finish my master’s. I’m going on a dig. I’ve just started my PhD …”
“Those are all legitimate reasons.” Ethan is an ambitious man, and all that sounds reasonable to me. Heartbreaking, as it turned out, but reasonable.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry her.” His eyes lose focus, as though he’s no longer here; he’s back there. Making those choices he now regrets. “But I knew for her, marriage meant having children. All she wanted was to be a mum. And I wasn’t ready to be a dad.”
“And you didn’t feel you could tell her?”
“I’m not sure I even understood it myself at the time. It’s only hindsight, and I guess watching my brothers have babies, that has clarified it for me.”
“So you put off marriage, and then she”—I pause, searching for the right words—“passed away before you could have children.”
“Yes. And I feel like I stole something from her. Stole her dream of being a mum. I loved her, but I let her put her dreams on hold for mine.” Regret is rich in his voice. This is why I can trust him. Because he can acknowledge his mistakes. Learn from them.
“Oh, Ethan. There was no way you could’ve known what was going to happen. You were both still young. You had every reason to expect you had years ahead of you for parenting.”
“And yet we didn’t. I know all that in my head; it’s my heart that’s taking a while to catch up. To forgive itself.”
“You know, you fulfilling your dreams is no less valid than your wife fulfilling hers.”
“It hasn’t felt like that. But you’re right.” He pauses. “The other day at Saqqara, when you said you weren’t sure about ever having children. Did you mean it?”
“Yes. I did. I could blame my shitty childhood, but if I’m honest, there’s too much I want to do to even think about kids. Because I know what being a neglected kid feels like, and I never want to be that parent. So if I have them, it won’t be till I’ve done all the things I want to do.”
Ethan is silent for a long time.
“I know I said I was okay with us not telling Jennifer. I understand why you don’t—didn’t?—want to. But that was before. I don’t think keeping this to ourselves is going to work, Sadie. Please think about giving us a chance to see where this could go. About talking to Jennifer when we get back from the dig. Seeing if there’s some way we can work it out.” Ethan’s muscles tense as though he’s waiting for a blow.
It’s my turn to be silent for a long time. He’s right. Denying our attraction—our feelings—is not going to work. And I no longer want to. Admitting it, even to myself, brings a lightness to my chest, and I laugh.
“You’re right. We need to tell her.” The muscles under my hand, my cheek, relax. “I want to see where this can go, too.” I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more. Except my career.
“Good. In the meantime, would you mind dialling your dazzle down to, I don’t know, an eight, maybe? So I’ve got a chance of keeping my hands to myself for the rest of the dig?”
“My dazzle? Why? What has it been?”
“I’d been thinking eleven. Then today, you ratcheted it right up to fifteen.”
I’m happy to hear a smile in his voice now. I feel as though, with this conversation, we’ve turned a corner. I know I have. I’m still nervous, but for the first time, I feel like there’s someone I can trust. Someone who will be honest with me. Have my back. Put me first. That’s not something I should walk away from.
“You could do with some dialling down yourself, you know.”
“How about this? We wind it up to fifteen one more time, then hands off for the rest of the dig. Deal?”
“Deal.”
And I don’t know what Ethan thinks, but the next half hour seems more like a twenty than a fifteen to me.
Before anyone stirs, I get dressed, creep out of Ethan’s room and back up onto the middle deck, where I lay down on the deck cushions and pull a rug over me. I’m so exhausted from the excitement of the find, and my time with Ethan, that I fall into a deep sleep. Anyone who finds me will no doubt assume I’ve slept there all night. I hope.
Anyone but Riley.
“Where did you spend the night?” she asks, eyes narrowed.
I sit up. Groggy because I can’t have had more than an hour of sleep.
“Oh, I must’ve fallen asleep here. I was too wired to go to bed. So I stayed up watching the moonlight on the river.”
“Hmm. Or so you’d like us all to think.”
She can’t possibly know anything. There was nobody around. She’d been in bed for hours by the time we snuck into Ethan’s cabin. And we were very quiet. But a cold weight settles in my belly. Ethan is right. We can’t keep this a secret much longer. And I don’t want to. But we have to stay the course till the end of the dig at least.
I try and arrange my face into disinterest.
“I really don’t care what you think, Riley.”
I’m saved from further discussion by the sounds of stirring from the back deck. One by one, the Cambridge boys stagger down the short staircase to the middle deck. I can’t tell whether they’re still pale from Egyptian belly or the partying. Either way, they all look pretty rough.
“Anyway, I might go and have a shower. Wash off the dust from yesterday’s dig.” And the smell of sex and Ethan’s aftershave. Because if anyone gets too close, they’ll know exactly what I’ve been up to.
By the time I come back on deck, the argument about going to Asyut has been had and we are already motoring towards the town. I’m disappointed. I wanted to spend all weekend gazing at my find. But it will still be there when we get back on Sunday. It’s probably also a good thing to have a distraction from Ethan for the next couple of days.
Asyut is a slightly larger town than El Minya, and there's plenty to keep us occupied. Ethan wisely splits us into two groups, and I go with Ashraf and two of the Cambridge boys to check out the hill tombs about an hour out of town. Riley says she needs to email her family so wants to find an internet café, because the wi-fi on the boat is pretty dodgy. Then Ethan is going to take them to the Coptic sites in the city.
We arrive back at the boat much later than we expect. Since everyone is still feeling a little fragile from the Egyptian belly and the partying of last night, we pull together and make our own dinner from what we find in the fridge rather than go out. Much to Riley’s disappointment. It’s amazing how she suddenly feels well now that we’re away from the dig site.
On Saturday, Ashraf has arranged for us to visit some local craftsmen, including a potter and a rug factory. Ethan stays on the boat to catch up on his dig notes, and as much as I miss his company, it’s nice not to have him there, hijacking my thoughts at every opportunity.
We arrive back at the boat, relaxed and laughing, to a tense, white-faced Ethan. My stomach does a double roll because everyone looks confused, with the exception of Riley. Who looks smug.
Without a word Ethan takes Ashraf back down the gangplank, and they disappear down the road.
“Wonder what that’s about?” Simon helps himself to the tea and one of the steaming hand cloths Marwa has left on the table on deck.
“Hmm, yes. I wonder .” Riley’s tone is so arch everyone looks at her. While she looks expectantly at me. A wash of cold runs down my spine.
A cold that turns to ice when Ethan returns.