Chapter 11 #2
Maybe I could ask Emma about renting a two-bedroom for the pair of us to share?
Or was that asking too much of a friend who was also my employee?
It was looking increasingly as if I was going to be moving back in with Mum and Dad.
I’d have to ring them sooner rather than later.
God, the thought of explaining everything to them made me feel so tired.
It wasn’t that I thought they wouldn’t understand, but they’d be so…
hurt by what Richard had done. To me and to them.
Because they’d had a lot of hopes pinned on him, on ‘Richard and Tabitha’, the unit.
Hopes of weddings and grandchildren. Hopes I was about to crush.
Mum especially wasn’t going to take it well.
I could already feel the ‘but I don’t understand, you were so happy together’ coming.
Somehow this was all going to be my fault, I knew it.
If I was permanently in Weightwatchers, or making a roast every Sunday, or making sure Richard never saw me without lippy on, he never would have strayed.
‘Um… Tabby?’
I looked up and found Emma standing in front of the counter, holding her phone. She looked nervous, her mouth downturned. Whatever she was looking at, it wasn’t good news.
‘What is it?’
‘I set up an alert on my eBay profile yesterday, just in case that guy tried to flip your stuff? Not that I could stop him doing that, but I thought it might be a bit of a boost if it did end up selling for a lot?’
My stomach dropped. ‘He’s listed stuff, hasn’t he?’
Why was I surprised? More than that, hurt.
I’d barely met the man. He was just a stranger, like I’d said.
Even if he did hand hot mugs over the right way.
I didn’t even know his last name. Come to think of it, for all I’d opened up to him about Richard, he hadn’t so much as told me why he was on the boat or what he did for a living.
For all I knew, he was some sort of fly-by-night crochet dealer, already pootling off to another small town. It was unlikely, but still.
‘Do you want to know or…?’ Emma asked, biting her lip uncertainly.
But I was already typing and, within seconds, I had eBay up on the laptop and was searching for the most recently listed items under ‘handmade crochet’.
The screen filled with pictures of the usual hexagon cardigans, water-bottle holders and tote bags.
Nice, bright, pretty designs. None of them were mine, though.
I scrolled and a familiar pair of mules – dupes I’d made of a Prada pair – popped up.
‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said, but she sounded far away. ‘I know it’s awful but… this doesn’t mean you can’t trust anyone new, okay? Or maybe he meant he was keeping most of the stuff but he didn’t have a use for those, or—’
‘I didn’t make those for Richard,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘They weren’t in the donation bags.’
‘Oh,’ Emma brightened, but then seemed to think for a second. Her shoulders slumped. ‘Oh.’
‘I made them for Richard’s sister last Christmas. He told me he took them with him on their family get-together and she loved them.’ I let out a long breath. ‘He never gave them to her, did he?’
I was thinking of all the things I’d made for his family, for Christmases I was never invited to – because the rule was wives only.
No girlfriends. The shawl I made his mother, the golf-club covers for his dad, amigurumi toys for his nieces and nephews (whole play sets of fruits and baked goods).
I scrolled through eBay and saw it all posted there, some of it already with bids on.
Items going for thirty, forty, even sixty pounds, with days left on the auctions. So much stuff.
It looked like Richard was going to get some start-up money out of me after all. That was why he’d been so upset about the jumpers. He hadn’t suddenly realised how much he valued me and the symbols of my love for him. He’d been seeing pound signs.
‘Are you all right?’ Emma asked, breaking my staring contest with the eBay results page.
‘Yeah… it’s fine,’ I said faintly, feeling like there was a fist in my throat wearing some very spiky rings. ‘We’re broken up now anyway… good riddance, right?’
‘Right,’ Emma agreed, though she didn’t sound that certain.
Fair enough, neither was I. This hurt almost as much as the cheating.
He’d lied to me for several years now. Not just about Christmas but every time I’d asked him what his family might like for birthdays and christenings.
Every time I’d asked if they liked their gifts.
He’d lied right to my face about it. Why?
Was he embarrassed by my homemade presents?
He could have just said they wanted something specific from a shop.
I wasn’t unreasonable – I didn’t want to push my crochet on everyone.
I would have understood. God, what if he didn’t realise that?
Did I really seem like some kind of crazy crafting person who couldn’t take a hint?
No matter how angry and upset I was at Richard, I couldn’t help but feel a prickle of guilt inside. That maybe, somehow, everything that had gone wrong between us was partly my fault too.
Maybe if you’d spent less time on your crochet and your silly little hobby shop, this would never have happened.
Maybe he had a point.