Minutes later I pulled into the driveway and was shocked to see Joel’s car parked there. Once the shock wore off, the fear took over. Joel’s car was there, but Adele’s wasn’t. She’d called Joel. He had come home. Now I’d have to face him.
I knew it was coming. Of course, I would have to face him at some point. We lived together. We shared a bed together. A life together. Children together. Even if we wanted to end this, we would never be able to just walk away. I’d always be a part of Joel’s life and he’d be a part of mine. As that realization sunk in, I took a deep breath, slung my handbag over my shoulder, and marched to the front door deliberately.
As I pushed open the handle I couldn’t believe what I saw.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GILLIAN
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath as I stepped over the threshold and into my home. Joel saw me come through the door and with a wide, warm smile, he came to greet me. Honestly, I was frightened by what I saw. The table laid before me was immaculate. A perfectly pressed black satin tablecloth with red napkins and silver napkin rings. Two long silver tapering candles stood in the middle of the table, their flames flickering about with wild abandon.
I couldn’t control it. Without thinking of the consequences, I found myself blurting out, “What’s all this about?”
“It’s an apology and a celebration.”
“That’s an odd combination.”
“Well, I guess I should start with an apology for last night. I should never have said the things that I did. And pushing you. You didn’t deserve it. I was out of line,” Joel began, the expression on his face full of sadness and remorse. I knew him well and I could see the pain in his eyes. Joel was hurting and bitchily I was pleased. His apology was sincere and from the heart, not forced from his lips by his mother.
Instinctively I tugged at my sleeve, making sure the bruises were hidden. If Joel was feeling bad, I wasn’t going to dig the knife in any more than it was already lodged. But Joel saw me do it. He reached out and took my hands in his. My hands were trembling and clammy. I wished they weren’t, but it was an uncontrollable reflex. As much as it killed me to admit it, it was the best feeling I had felt in a long time. The tenderness in his touch made an all too familiar heart flutter return. Something I hadn’t felt in years. Joel rolled back my sleeves ever so gently. With one look at my wrists he dropped my hands and stepped back, disgusted.
“Gillian!” Joel exclaimed as he continued backing away from me until he stepped on a Barbie doll and stumbled, swearing under his breath.
Terrified by the look on his face, I didn’t know what to say. Inside I was still furious at what had happened. I know he’d apologized and he was honestly sorry for doing it, but the fact that he could actually do it bewildered and petrified me. Cautiously I stepped towards him. “Joel?”
“Gillian, I am so sorry I hurt you. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Please, join me for dinner,” Joel offered honestly, pulling out my chair before serving the plates and pouring wine.
For a long moment we sat together in silence, sipping wine and nibbling at our dinner. It was a strained silence that hung between us. I was too frightened to say something that I’d regret later. It was a truce. Somehow, we’d agreed to a reprieve without words. I wasn’t sure when or where we’d learnt it, to speak without words, but somewhere in the silence I heard him reassuring me.
Then suddenly, without warning, Joel began coughing and spluttering. Grabbing at his throat, he coughed and hacked and gagged. Without a word I jumped up and was hitting his back, willing him to breathe again. Moments later the drama subsided and Joel slumped back in his chair, breathing deeply.
Sipping at his wine, Joel confessed, “When you first told me that you were pregnant again, I was so blinded by all the dark thoughts in my head. I couldn’t see any good coming from us having another child. We’re already so lucky with our two beautiful daughters I didn’t want anything to ruin it. And you and I, well, we don’t really even know each other anymore. I’ve been so consumed with work we never get to spend any time together. Just us. Doing the things that we like. If we ever do see each other, it’s either in passing or we are meeting out the front of a ballet performance for Charli or at Bianca’s parent-teacher evenings. I don’t even remember the last time you and I just hung out together.”
I couldn’t disagree with him. I couldn’t even remember what we thought was fun. But as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I wondered if Joel and I had ever actually had fun. My memories of us were scattered at best. A couple of crazy nights of passion before responsibility kicked in. Since that moment our lives hadn’t been our own.
“Joel, I want to ask you something. And I need you to be honest with me. At the very least you owe me that much.”
“I owe you that,” he agreed, his eyes betraying his defeat.
I dropped my knife and fork on the plate with a ding. For a long time, I’d wanted to ask, but I had always been too afraid. It was something that had played on my mind for years. The words had danced on the tip of my tongue the day of our wedding. When the celebrant asked if anyone objected, the thought crossed my mind to ask then, but it didn’t seem the right time. And every day since, it still never seemed the right time, but now time had beaten me. If we had any chance of making it, now was the time to ask for the cold hard truth. “Did we ever have fun? Were we ever friends? Or was I just a fling that trapped you?”
In the silence that followed I was almost paralysed. Right there, in that moment, I wanted nothing more than the floor to open up and swallow me. I wished I’d kept my big mouth shut, but now it was out there. I couldn’t take it back.
Joel looked appalled. I couldn’t read him. I don’t know if he was dismayed by the fact that I had asked my question aloud or if he was disgusted. But I was too stubborn tonight. Spending time with my girlfriends had made me realize that I deserved more. I deserved to be loved and treated with respect. Not only for me, but for my kids as well. And on the drive home, I had made a promise to myself that no matter what happened next, no matter what Joel said or did, Bianca and Charli would not grow up in a home filled with hatred and bitterness.
“Is that what you really think?” he asked through pained, tortured eyes.
I felt myself turn bright red. I was ashamed I’d even asked. But then fury and rage set in. Why should I feel humiliated about asking for the truth? I needed it. I was still so angry and so hurt after everything that had happened in the past twenty- four hours that I felt like I’d been forced into asking. Struggling for breath, I swallowed hard. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. Instead I just nodded pathetically.
Joel put down his fork, folded his hands in his lap and looked at me. No, that was a bit of an understatement. He stared at me closely. There was something in his eyes that I’d never seen before. Something new, something scary. “Gillian, I know that I have hurt you in more ways than you can possibly imagine. And I’m sorry for that. More sorry than you will ever know. If I could take it back, I would. But I’m not that naïve. I can’t. So, you’re just going to have to believe. If it takes me days and weeks and months and years to prove that to you, then that’s what I am going to do.”
Joel reached out to hold my hand and I pulled back. I didn’t mean it and I didn’t do it consciously, but I can’t pretend I didn’t cringe. And what made it worse, Joel saw it. Again, I’d hurt him. “Gillian?” he asked slowly as he tried again. This time I focused and made sure I didn’t budge an inch.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled unconvincingly.
“I know I’ve hurt you in every way that a person can hurt another, but you have to believe me; I’d never again do that to you.” I watched as Joel sipped his wine. His words were sincere, but looking down I could see the marks on my wrists and everything became real again.
Sighing heavily, I found the words tumbling from my mouth before I could stop them. “You didn’t answer my question. Did you ever love me or do you think tha
t I just trapped you into a life you never wanted?”
“Yes,” was all he offered, downing the rest of his glass of wine before hastily refilling and draining it again.
I admit I was nervous but it was more than that. I was absolutely petrified. Gulping, I forced the words out. “Yes, you loved me or yes, I trapped you?”
Joel put the empty wine glass back on the table. He looked at me with wide vacant eyes. Something had changed. The moment had passed. Gone was the tenderness in his face and instead there was an insurmountable distance between us. “Yes, you trapped me.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GILLIAN
My heart broke. I would’ve sworn they heard it around the world, the deafening sound of my heart shattering into a million pieces. Silent, salty tears streamed down my face and I didn’t even notice they were there. In my heart I knew Joel and I never had a normal courtship from the start. Well, we did, but it was in hyper-drive. Everything that a normal couple goes through in the first three years of their relationship, somehow Joel and I crammed it into the first three months.
Again, he reached out to take my hand and I pulled away. The difference was this time I knew I’d done it. And this time I had deliberately tried to hurt him. I wanted him to feel the same pain that was killing me. I knew it was childish but I didn’t care. He broke my heart. I wanted nothing more than to destroy his.
“Gillian…please just say something. Anything.” “Trust me, you don’t want to hear what I have to say right now,” I spat back nastily.
“Let me explain.”
“Fuck off! What the hell do you want to explain? Why are you still here when I trapped you all those years ago? Why haven’t you just left if you’re so damn unhappy?” I pushed my plate away. I was too repulsed to eat.
“Calm down,” Joel snapped heatedly.
“Don’t tell me to calm down. You have no right to tell me what to do.”
“Shut up and let me finish, damn it! Yes, at the time I resented the fact that you were pregnant with Charli. I felt suffocated. But let me tell you I wouldn’t change the fact that we, you and I, are the proud parents of a beautiful daughter. And you can’t judge me for that. Yes, you told me you were pregnant and I freaked out. Who wouldn’t? We barely knew each other. But let me remind you, you freaked out as well. We weren’t ready. I wasn’t ready. But I don’t know why you doubt that I ever loved you. Do you remember the first time that I told you that I loved you? Do you?” he asked.
By now I was sobbing. I couldn’t fault anything he’d said. I did freak out about being a mum and everything else that was happening to me. With hormones ravaging my body, I found myself suddenly married and pregnant without a chance to figure out if this was something that I actually wanted. Now I just felt like a hypocrite for questioning him. “No,” I declared, embarrassed.
“We were in the hospital. After twenty-two hours of labour, you were exhausted. Your hair was matted, your face was red and covered in sweat. Your wide eyes were pretty much hanging out of your head. My hand was numb from where you had spent the better part of the day before crushing it, and in your arms, you held the most precious thing in the world. Our beautiful daughter.” Joel’s eyes were full of tears. They were on the verge of spilling over and trickling down his cheeks. “Charli wrapped her tiny little hand around my finger and I realized how perfect she was. She was the spitting image of her mother. And I knew in that moment, I just knew, that I loved you. And not because you’d just been through hell, but because you had given me something that no one else ever could.”
“I don’t understand. You think I trapped you and ruined your perfect life, yet the day that I sealed your fate you decide that you love me? Does that make any sense to you?” I had given up trying to be diplomatic. In my mind I was in that place where I had nothing left to lose. I might as well put all of my cards on the table and hope Joel didn’t call my bluff.
“Charli isn’t a bad thing. She didn’t ruin my life. I’ll admit that she completely transformed it. But it got even more wonderful. And when Bianca joined our family things just got better. I love you, but I had no idea how much our kids would transform our lives. My life. When Charli arrived, I was amazed at how instantly and how much I loved her. Then Bianca joined us and I didn’t love Charli any less, I just found more space in my heart for her,” Joel confessed openly.
I don’t know why I was being such a heartless bitch, but I couldn’t help it. “You didn’t get more capacity to love, Joel. You just stopped loving me and poured everything that you have into your job and your daughters.”
“Is that what you truly believe? Deep down in your heart, past the pain, do you really think that I don’t love you?”
“Give me a reason to believe something else. Anything else,” I challenged.
“Gillian, I love you.”
“Prove it,” I retorted with all the venom I could muster. In that moment I was nothing more than a heartbroken, defeated, furious bitch. We both knew it. The only difference was I didn’t care. Joel had hurt me and, in that moment, I could think of nothing more satisfying than revenge.
“How, Gillian? Tell me what I have to do for you to believe me. What’s it going to take for you to move past this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do or you wouldn’t have brought it up. You know exactly what you want.”
“No, I don’t.”
Joel huffed heavily. He was trying to play the victim now; make it sound like everything was being done to him and nothing was his fault. God forbid he actually step up and be a man and take some responsibility for a change.
“Just tell me what you want. Stop playing these childish, pathetic games and just tell me what you want, Gillian.”
I stared at him. The man sitting beside me was not the man I met in the office that day. The man I met that day had passion, had fire, had confidence and had that strange sex appeal that made my insides squirm. But that man was gone. I hadn’t seen him in years. Our marriage had become the typical joke. As soon as the ring had been placed on my finger and our daughters were tucked up in their beds, the passion fizzled. We no longer bothered to make time for each other. We’d given up trying to impress each other. And I’ll admit I was as much to blame as Joel was. I could go days without shaving my legs and I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had even bothered to get a bikini wax. But we had kids and careers and lives that seemed to get in the way. Unfortunately, our problem was that we accepted it as the way it was rather than fighting for something better. Fighting for what it was we wanted. Fighting to reclaim us.
“You really want to know what it is that I want?” I threatened.
“I’m begging you, Gillian. Tell me. What is it that you want?”
I took a breath, trying to tame the barrage inside me. “I want a life. I want a husband who comes home to his family and is actually happy to be there. I don’t want someone who comes home and looks at me as if I am in the way. I want you to want to be here with us. And more than that. I want to be able to have time off. Time to be me. Time to spend doing the things that make me happy. I don’t always want to be the responsible one. The one who makes sure the kids are fed and bathed. Occasionally I would like someone else to do that. I feel like I am doing all this all alone.” I forced myself to pause. I didn’t want Joel to think I was berating him with my tirade, which in fact was exactly what I was doing.
But as the words flowed freely from my heart, I finally grasped that that was exactly what I wanted. I don’t know if I knew it before that moment and just never said it aloud or if I just realized that that was what I wanted as I said it. I wanted a partner, not just someone who popped in occasionally.
“I can do that. I can be that man for you, Gillian. You just need to let me,” I heard Joel say no louder than a whisper.
It took me a full minute to comprehend what he had said. “Sorry?” I asked nervously. I needed him to repeat it. I didn’t want to pin my hopes on something that I t
hought I heard. I wanted solid commitment.
“I can do that for you. I can be here. I can help you.”
“Don’t do it out of guilt or just to shut me up, Joel. You need you to do this because you want to. You need to want to spend time with your family. And that’s what we are, Joel. And believe me, I know it’s scary. We’re still so young and we have two daughters and another child on the way. But we have made it this far, there’s no point giving up now.” I was hoping I wasn’t pushing him too far, but instead encouraging him to choose what was best for him. Then all I had to do was hope that what was best for him was also best for the rest of us.
I watched as Joel’s head sunk into his hands. I stared at his hands, waiting. With the memory of last night in my mind I was silently terrified of him exploding, but it needed to be said. There was no point ignoring this any longer. If I wanted my life to get better, I had to start somewhere. That’s when I noticed his left hand. His wedding ring was missing. “Where’s your wedding ring?” I questioned incredulously. We could fight and argue, but in my eyes taking off your wedding ring meant something, something real, something hurtful.
“God, Gillian, it’s never just one thing with you, is it?” Joel shook his head. He was angry now. His face was red and his eyes bulging. Grabbing his napkin from his lap, Joel threw it down on the centre of the table with force that I had never seen before. Pushing his chair away from the table, Joel stormed into the kitchen. I didn’t follow him. I was frozen to the spot, too afraid to move or make a sound. And in that moment, all I could think of was Charli and Bianca. Asleep like angels, tucked up in their room, they didn’t need to hear or see this. Suddenly I wished that they had gone to stay with Adele for the night.
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