Chapter 21
I had a lot to think about on the short drive home. Thankfully, the rain had petered out and I was left with the soft hushing of tyres on wet tarmac, accompanying my reeling thoughts.
Dad had cheated on Mum and she’d forgiven him.
It was hard not to feel a bit weird about my dad being with someone other than Mum.
Point of fact, it was weird to think of Dad at a party which she hadn’t organised.
But I was relieved that, when I probed my feelings over it, I didn’t feel any resentment or anger towards him.
I wasn’t appalled at him on her behalf, because Mum had seemed so accepting of it as just a part of their story.
This other woman, whoever she was in her nameless, faceless existence, was just a complication in my parents’ rom-com.
The halfway point before they got together and lived happily ever after with me and a flock of inflatable flamingos.
No, the real headline of the afternoon was that Mum had told me about it.
I could count on one hand the number of times in my life that we’d had open, honest talks about stuff that actually mattered.
Hell, I could count it on three fingers – Dad’s cheating, when she gave me ‘the talk’ when I was eleven and when she told me where meat came from.
That was it. This was actually the first time Mum had ever shared something really personal with me.
I was kind of stunned. Maybe things were changing and we’d had a kind of breakthrough over the whole Richard situation.
Maybe this was the start of us understanding each other and being close.
I smiled at that. God, it would be great to finally be the kind of daughter who ran to her mum with things, instead of avoiding her.
As I manoeuvred through the drenched roads of Leaford, I found myself imagining a future where I forgave Richard.
We’d talk it out and he’d promise to never betray me again.
Sure, things would be cold and awkward for a while but we’d get past it and back to normal eventually.
Parties at Mum and Dad’s, weekly shops together, curling up in bed at the end of the day – our lives would be as they were.
Then Richard would propose, with red roses and dinner, a classic move.
We’d announce it and my family would be thrilled, his too.
I’d go dress shopping with his mother and my mum, sample cakes and pick floral arrangements.
Mum would tell me all about what married life was really like over wine.
She’d tell me all the little secrets and tips to make it work and cry on my wedding day.
We’d marry and honeymoon and soon I’d find out I was pregnant and we would focus on creating a perfect home for our first child.
Mum would be there at the birth, coaching me through it.
One day in the future I might sit that child or those children down and explain to him, her or them that once, a long time ago, their father made a stupid mistake.
But that all this – the house full of family pictures and shared memories, every picnic and beach day and even their very existence, had come about because I forgave him.
That together we had worked through it and that what we had now was worth the temporary awkwardness.
I pulled up outside the block of flats and imagined a second scenario.
Me, alone, in a house share in my forties.
My business having failed and the library having not taken me back on.
I’d be working somewhere boring and soul-destroying and coming home to no one but the twenty-somethings who avoided me like the plague.
Going over to my parents’ house at the weekend while they tiptoed around the subject of dating and children.
That fledgling closeness with Mum having died a death as I spurned her advice and ignored the fact that she’d opened her inner life to me.
Getting dressed up and going on a few dates before I lost interest or the will to make conversation.
Or before the man I’d met revealed some secret or snapped at me and I walked away.
But at least I’d know that I was the better person. The better, lonely, sad little person.
I got out of the car with a sigh and went inside, taking the lift up to the flat.
Maybe Mum was right – I couldn’t be sure Richard wouldn’t make another mistake but, at least if he did, I’d have tried to make things work instead of giving up and wondering what might have been.
I’d have a child, a marriage, instead of nothing.
‘Tabitha?’
I looked up in shock at the sound his voice. The last I’d expected to hear.
‘Richard?’
He was standing by the front door, his pea coat black with rain.
He looked small and apologetic, like a wet puppy.
For a moment I wondered if he was drunk and looking for a place to sleep it off again but, as I moved closer, I could tell he was sober.
There wasn’t a whiff of alcohol about him and he looked miserably present.
‘I came to… well, I need to get my things, but more than that…’ he sighed helplessly. ‘I wanted to say I’m sorry. I really am and… I’m even sorrier for not respecting that you needed space. So… I’m going to leave you alone, once I’ve grabbed the last of my stuff.’
My first instinct was still to deliver a sarcastic retort. To make him feel even worse, but with Mum’s words still swimming around my brain, I resisted.
‘Thanks… come in.’ I let him into the flat and watched him start looking through the kitchen cabinets and depositing protein-shake tubs and sports bottles into a bag for life.
‘Do you want a tea?’ I asked.
‘Mmm? Oh, sure,’ he smiled at me shyly. ‘Got a bit caught in the rain when I popped to the shop for some bags.’
I held out a hand. ‘Let me put your coat on the heated airer.’
He looked pleasantly surprised by the offer and handed it over to me. Once I’d plugged the airer in and draped the coat over it, I made two mugs of tea and slid one across the counter to him. By that time, Richard was packing his car-cleaning stuff from under the sink.
‘I uh… went to see Mum today,’ I said, breaking the silence. ‘Had a bit of a weird day all round, to be honest.’
‘Is it the shop?’ Richard frowned.
‘No… not really. But I went over there just to have a chat, you know what it’s like when you just need to go home for a bit.’
‘Yeah.’ Richard took a seat on one of the breakfast-bar stools and gave me a slight smile. ‘I’ve been going to see Dad more than usual since… mostly he just tells me I’m an idiot and that you deserved better – which is true.’
I huffed a laugh. Richard’s dad had always liked me.
He thought I was a ‘good match’ for his son, probably because I was different from Richard’s exes, most of whom would have been at home competing on The Apprentice.
His mother had never really treated me badly but she’d been a bit cool to me ever since I’d brought homemade tiramisu to her New Year’s Eve party.
This was apparently interpreted as me ‘showboating’ my baking skills.
Which was laughable, because I couldn’t bake, the sum total of my skills with dessert could be described as ‘assembling’.
No matter how many times I complimented her pre-packaged petits fours, the insult had already been dealt.
Still, we got along fine outside of that.
‘Well, mine told me I should give you another chance,’ I said. It just sort of came out. I was still too busy processing to engage my filter.
Richard looked at me, hope evident in his dark eyes. He looked so soft and hesitant that for a moment he wasn’t my ex who cheated on me; he was the man I’d fallen for when we’d met by chance at the library.
Thinking of the library brought Cooper to mind and I felt a stab of shame and annoyance at myself. I’d really misjudged things with him and made an idiot out of myself. What else had I been wrong about – the shop? Leaving Richard?
I took a deep breath. ‘It turns out Mum knows a little bit about second chances and forgiveness and if she didn’t, then I wouldn’t be here, so… there’s that.’
Richard swallowed hard. ‘So… does that mean you’re… that you want to give us a second chance?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Give me a second chance?’
There it was, the pivotal moment in all my imagined futures.
Forgive or walk away. I looked at Richard, really looked at him.
The man I’d been with for three years, through birthdays and summer holidays, broken appliances and heatwaves, lazy Sunday mornings and getting stuck on the M25.
We had a life together and a history. Ballast, to keep us grounded.
He wasn’t some mysterious stranger with a pack of secrets and no first name in a house that could literally float away.
He was a good bet, a solid guy. For the future.
‘… I think so,’ I said quietly. ‘If you can promise it won’t happen again, then…’
‘It won’t.’ He reached out and took my hand, earnest and intense.
‘Tabs, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. She meant nothing to me. Less than nothing. And I know that doesn’t make it better – shit, it makes it worse – but I would give anything to go back and never make such a stupid mistake again.
I know now that… you’re everything. You mean everything to me. ’
My eyes welled up, an ache in my chest making me sniffle.
Richard set his mug down and rounded the counter.
He put his arms around me and held me to his chest. It felt so familiar and safe.
He smelled the way he always did, like Paco Rabanne 1 Million and flat whites.
He pressed his cheek against the top of my head.
‘I’m so, so sorry, Tabs,’ he said softly. ‘Not just for what you walked in on but… I shouldn’t have sold the stuff you made for my family. I shouldn’t have blown up about it but I think I was just angry because the only other option was feeling guilty and I couldn’t take it.’
I sniffled into his chest, half laughing, half crying.
It was so Richard – the way he’d said it.
But he meant it. Hearing him finally admit to what he’d done, instead of brushing it off, had brought me to the edge of tears.
The anger drained out of me. He knew he was in the wrong.
He knew and he was admitting it to me. For the first time ever, really, in our relationship.
Just like things with Mum, this felt like a watershed. We were growing, together.
‘Why didn’t you give them their presents when I made them?’ I asked, sniffling. ‘Why lie to me about it?’
Richard was silent for a long moment and then he sighed. ‘You remember the tiramisu fiasco – they would have seen it as showing off or something. But you liked making the stuff so much and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth… so I just bought gift sets and said they were from you.’
I pulled away a little bit and looked him in the eye. Despite the quaver in his tone, his eyes were dry, but he looked deeply apologetic. ‘You have to promise that we’re going to be honest with each other from now on.’
‘I will,’ he said immediately. ‘Completely and totally honest… Tabs… were you seeing someone else? The guy from the boat that’s been hanging around town? I don’t care if you were, but I just want to know.’
I shook my head. ‘No. It was just… I don’t know what I thought was going to happen but it was just a few chance meetings. Nothing happened.’ My heart felt heavy, sore as if it was bruised. Nothing had happened. So why did I feel so sad, so lost?
Richard seemed to relax a little.
‘And… her,’ I said, hating myself. ‘The woman you were with… is she…?’
‘She’s gone,’ Richard said quickly. ‘I haven’t spoken to her since that day, just told her it was all a mistake and it was never going to happen again. I meant it, Tabs. I only want you.’ He cupped my face. ‘I want a future with you.’
I sniffed, offering him a watery smile. ‘I want that too.’
We hugged tightly and he kissed my cheek.
It all felt so familiar and so safe. Looking at him, I saw all the little parts of him that I’d come to know and love – the tiny mole on his cheek, the one hair that grew against the grain in his left eyebrow.
The way the tip of his nose brushed my cheek when he kissed it.
He was the Richard I’d known for years now – my Richard.
Of Richard and Tabitha. No more secrets, no more uncertainty.
We went to bed that night in our room, the first time I’d slept in there since we’d broken up. When I woke up in the morning beside him, it felt like a return to normalcy, to routine. Like the first morning in your own bed after the long journey home from a stressful trip.
It was over. The whole messy episode. Richard had apologised and we’d recommitted to each other. I looked at his sleeping face, his nose adorably scrunched as he dreamed. This was the man I wanted to marry and have kids with. And just as it had with my parents, it would all work out eventually.
After so many days and weeks of uncertainty and worry, everything was back to normal.
And yet, as I got up and checked my phone, finding a text from Emma, I felt slightly ashamed.
What was she going to say about me getting back with Richard after she’d spent so long supporting and reassuring me? What if she was disappointed in me?
I brushed my teeth, searching my own face in the mirror. Did it matter if Emma disapproved or didn’t understand? What mattered was that I was happy. And I was.
At least I would be.
Eventually.