There was a bang as Millie threw the cup back onto the floor but Kate didn’t turn round.
‘What are you talking about Alex? Where are you going?’
‘I’m sorry Kate, I’m so sorry. I have tried to tell you, to explain. I’m sorry…’ he shrugged, trailing into silence.
Kate frowned, fairly certain she would have remembered a conversation that involved her husband telling her he was leaving. She waited but it seemed Alex had run out of words. With a loud sigh he shrugged his shoulders again, a helpless look crossing his face. Refusing to meet her eyes he turned, grabbed the handles of the cases and with a few steps he was across the hallway and out of the front door.
Kate stood perfectly still, staring at the empty space he had filled seconds before. Millie grunted indignantly as no one retrieved her cup, gave Kate a moment then yelled a little louder to get her mother’s attention.
‘Sorry Millie darling.’
Blindly Kate reached out and stroked her daughter’s silken head.
‘Daddy’s being silly sweetie. He said he’s leaving!’
She looked down into Millie’s big blue eyes staring back, listening to her mother’s words, waiting for her cup.
‘He wouldn’t leave us Millie,’ Kate laughed. ‘He would never leave you. That’s just silly isn’t it?’
She picked up the cup, kissed Millie’s head and stood staring at the sink. She wasn’t sure how it managed to get so full each morning. She washed, dried and put everything away every night so she could start with a clean kitchen the next day. But by the time Alex left for work it invariably looked as though they’d had a party with the detritus spread across every surface.
Why on earth would Alex say such a thing? It wasn’t at all funny.
Kate was ever so slightly smug in the knowledge that they had a perfect marriage. They had fallen head over heels in love eight years before and nothing had changed since. They had been taken somewhat by surprise the previous year to find that a new member of the family was expected but Alex adored his daughter, even if he did complain that for a tiny being she took a huge amount of time, space and attention. But he wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave Kate because they still loved each other.
So why Alex would come out with such a strange statement on a normal Monday morning was beyond Kate and shaking her head she rolled up her sleeves and set to work on the mountain of things in the sink. He must have been teasing decided Kate, although she found it very unamusing and it was an elaborate tease to actually bring two suitcases downstairs.
And why did he say he’d tried to explain things? What things? Alex wasn’t unhappy. Neither of them were. They were both tired, most definitely tired. Life was always hard with the arrival of a new baby but they were still very much in love and eventually things would get easier, they both knew that. When Kate had left work to have Millie they’d both decided that she would not return until Millie was at school. They wanted Millie to have a stay at home parent and Kate wanted to be that person. It had resulted in a strain on their budget that took some juggling, leaving Alex working harder than ever. There were days when in a fog of exhaustion and mind numbing baby orientated activity, Kate wondered if perhaps they would all be better off if Millie spent a couple of days a week at nursery and Kate found a part time job somewhere. Anywhere really – as long as she was with adults who didn’t have an overwhelming need to turn everything into a song. But they had decided it was best if Kate stayed at home so they stuck with the plan.
Alex had occasionally complained about spending every evening in the house, listening to the sound of Millie’s soft breaths through the baby monitor. Why couldn’t they have the occasional night out he had mumbled? But Kate had thought about the effort of washing her hair, finding clothes that weren’t covered in dried porridge or sticky fingerprints, the effort of finding a baby sitter and decided that a night cuddling in front of the TV was just as acceptable.
But they were still happy. Very happy.
Millie was grizzling. She had abandoned the cup and was rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists as she whimpered. Scooping her out of the highchair, Kate headed upstairs where she ran a bath full of sweet smelling baby bubbles, washed Millie until she gleamed, fluffed up the blonde baby curls and dressed her in a clean, fresh vest, pink woolly tights and soft pink dress
She breathed in the delicious aroma of clean baby.
‘Why would he say such a hurtful thing Millie? Why on earth would he say he was leaving?’
Millie shook her head fractiously and Kate held her close, feeling the warm little body relax and go loose. She laid her down in her cot, watching for a moment as Millie struggled to keep her eyes open briefly before giving in to the demands of sleep, her eyelashes resting like smudges on her cheeks.
Wandering back into her bedroom, Kate stood in the doorway staring at the wardrobes against the far wall. She really couldn’t understand why Alex would say such a thing. Perhaps he was actually going somewhere with work this week and he was angry because she hadn’t remembered. She did try to listen but when he came home tired, a little grumpy and wanting to tell her the minutiae of his day, she did sometimes find it hard to be enthusiastic. What Kate really wanted was for Alex to come bursting into the kitchen with a huge smile at the sight of his wife and child and a kiss on the lips for Kate. Then he would take over the making of the evening meal and leave Kate to get Millie bathed and in bed using both hands and her full attention. Or perhaps he would scoop Millie into his arms and insist on carrying out her nightly ritual so Kate could pour a glass of wine and relish the idea of cooking a meal without having a tired baby stuck to her hip. What actually happened was that Alex would throw his briefcase into the corner of the room and follow Kate round the kitchen telling her about his day and watch her prepare their meal while Millie grizzled in her arms. Then he would sit and catch up with the news while Kate bathed Millie and by the time their daughter was in bed and Kate and Alex sat at the table to eat, she was often too exhausted to bother with any further conversation. Alex had suggested that Kate should put Millie to bed a little earlier but Kate had been outraged at the idea he was happy not to see his daughter each evening. Most fathers, she told him firmly, would welcome the chance to spend an hour at the end of the day with their new child. So Kate continued to keep Millie up until Alex came home, acknowledging that exhaustion was an inevitable side effect of a baby in the home and she tried to smile and listen to Alex’s tales of office life and murmur the right things in the right places to show that she supported him.
Kate thought hard about the last few days. Could Alex have said that the meeting had been moved and she hadn’t paid attention? Or maybe he was just trying to catch her out. Alex did that sometimes if he didn’t think Kate was listening, properly listening. He would throw some outrageous comment into the conversation and see if she picked up on it, sending an accusing ‘I knew you weren’t listening’ in her direction. Like the day he told her that Athens had frozen over and everyone had been evacuated and Kate had replied ‘I see’.
Maybe she’d not been listening and he was teaching her a lesson. Of course he hadn’t actually left, that was a ridiculous thought.
But she carried on staring at the wardrobes. One door was slightly ajar, Alex’s door. Kate nibbled at her nails and walked over to stand a little closer. She couldn’t really see much, just a dark space and taking another step forward she stretched out a hand, pausing slightly before letting her fingers curl around the handle and then slowly, carefully, pulling open the door.
It was empty. Kate felt her breath catch. She felt the air leave her body in a sudden whooshing movement that left her dizzy and breathless. She stared in the empty wardrobe and felt her heart hammering inside her chest so loudly that it hurt her ribs.
She stepped back, still staring at the wide open doors and the empty space. She tried to breathe but oxygen didn’t seem to be reaching her lungs and she gulped for air. Shaking her head, she looked around. The book
Alex was reading was no longer on his bedside cabinet. The bits and pieces that he always left on the dressing table were gone. She walked into the bathroom. His toothbrush was missing, his shaving foam and the old fashioned shaving brush she had bought him for his birthday – gone. She threw open the bathroom cabinet. The second shelf down was empty. His indigestion tablets, his migraine tablets, his aftershave, the nose hair trimmer she had slipped in his stocking the previous year and he had laughed at but secretly used – gone.
She walked into the spare room on unsteady legs and checked the wardrobe where he kept his older clothes, some of his suits, his jackets. Gone.
There was nowhere else to look. All traces of Alex had disappeared and Kate was left with only one conclusion. That when her husband had announced that morning he was leaving her, maybe he was telling the truth.
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Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? Page 25