The Last Wife

by Karen Hamilton

  Un-fucking-fair more like! On and on the excuses, justifications and apologies stream from his mouth: a mess; he didn’t mean to be weak and cruel; he should’ve addressed the issues between us earlier, blah blah blah.

  None of this helps me because I can’t fight something as catastrophic as this. Truth is a painful bastard. Lying to yourself is a much better option—it’s the purest form of deception, the best protection there is.

  “How long?”

  “I told you. She’s only just found out.”

  “How scary for you, potentially two pregnant women at the same time! You know very well that what I mean is how long have you been sleeping with her?”

  “A couple of months.”

  Horrible realization hits hard, deep in my gut, that it means the problem must lie with me if Ben is capable of conceiving with someone else with such ease. I throw my coffee cup against the wall.

  Ben flinches, but doesn’t move. For a few seconds we both stare at the brown stain trickling down the white wall.

  “Who is she?”

  My mind scans all the possibilities I know. No one springs to mind.

  “I told you. No one you know. A colleague. She moved here from France and—”

  “How cozy. Get out!” I scream. “Get out!”

  Which is exactly what he wants to do, but of course not what I genuinely mean.

  I want him to stay, to put his arms around me and tell me that none of what he said is true.

  Ben is the only man I’ve ever lived with. I dislike the thought of living alone. When my elder brother left the family home, it was the little, unexpected things that highlighted his absence: his trainers missing by the back door, his blue bike leaning unused against the garden fence, his not being around to take the piss out of me. The things that drove me mad about him were the things I missed the most after he had left with his backpack for “Asia, Africa, Europe—wherever I feel drawn to.” He has yet to return to the real world, and I envy him. Sam chose freedom, leaving me with conformity.

  Ben puts on his cycle helmet, clips the strap beneath his chin and walks out the front door. He must be going to see her.

  It’s a struggle to catch my breath. I have to push away the horrible, intrusive thoughts insisting that I deserve this karmic payback because of past bad decisions.

  Ben is—was—my partner. I was drawn to him partly because he wasn’t a natural risk-taker. He loves being a firefighter, but outside of work he is happy with weekends close to home, a pizza in front of the TV on a Saturday night, plus the odd trip to the cinema. We tend to go for long country walks in the forest, followed by a Sunday pub roast when he’s not working. I wrongly assumed that he was a safe option.

  Ben said he felt low down on my list of priorities. I hope I haven’t thrown away my chance of becoming a mother. I tried everything possible to conceive. I was prepared to give anything a go because initial tests showed that there was nothing medically wrong. According to one of the fertility experts I consulted, I just needed to relax. Which was easy for her to say. I tried everything: herbs, hypnosis, yoga, reflexology, acupuncture, a healthy diet. The lack of control and disappointment chipped away at hope, month after month. I feel alone in my desperation.

  From now on, I’m going to do things differently.

  I dial Stuart’s number.

  He has the potential to offer something Ben has now denied me. Every sensible person has a backup plan.

  Five

  I’ve been blind. While focusing on my desires and disappointments, I’ve ignored the fact that the children need all the love and attention I can give them. One of the most heart-wrenching questions Felix asked me recently was if he was ever going to get a new mummy and if so, would she be nice to him? Good can come out of my heartache because I’ll have more free time. We are in a horrible pizza place, the lights are too bright, the service is slow, the food uninspiring, yet I feel immense maternal pride as the waiter refers to my son and daughter. I belong.

  It doesn’t yet fill the hole left by Ben’s betrayal—I feel sick at the thought of him with someone else—yet I can’t deny that maybe...maybe...a part of me allowed it to happen. His actions mean that my hand has been forced and perhaps it’s not such the terrible thing it initially appears.

  Now that I can be more honest with myself, I can admit that I didn’t ever feel totally secure in our relationship. Ben never truly forgave me for the pregnancy scare not long after we met on an online dating site. He said he did, but he was lying to himself. We’d already arranged to set up home together when I discovered that I wasn’t expecting after all, and it resulted in a rushed overfamiliarity with our bad habits, rather than a more natural or romantic beginning. Even though I had good intentions (Ben is the overly indecisive type), I was aware that Nina and others would have negatively judged my methods, so I didn’t share the whole story. But now, he’s fulfilled a dream that was initially mine, not his.

  “Fancy the park?” Stuart says the moment Felix and Em finish their ice creams.

  I smile, pleased at our complicit desire to talk alone.

  Stuart and I sit on a bench as the children pull themselves up a climbing frame.

  “Careful,” I shout out to Emily.

  Nina came to the conclusion that it was best not to overprotect the children as they got older, to let them make mistakes, fall, hurt themselves. I disagree. I sense that Stuart feels the same; he is watching Em as she climbs higher and I can tell that he’s ready to run if need be.

  “Phew,” I say as she descends before running off to the slide.

  “I’ve thought about what you asked...” Stuart says.

  I hold my breath.

  “Perhaps it could work, but my parents’ flights from Brisbane are booked. The guesthouse was deliberately kept free for them over the Christmas period. They could stay in the main house with me, but I’m not sure how my dad, in particular, will cope with the children’s noise. How about you move into the guesthouse in January, depending on how it all works with future bookings?”

  “There are none. I checked.”

  “Oh. Nina used to be quite on it when it came to marketing the place,” he says.

  “Nina passed on plenty of top tips. Bookings will pick up once I get more fully involved. Come spring and summer, we’ll be turning people away.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that it was your fault.”

  “I know.” I touch his arm reassuringly.

  “Daddy, come over here! Spin the roundabout fast!” yells Emily, waving frantically from the middle of the park.

  Stuart obediently ambles off in her direction.

  I email Deborah, hinting that Stuart needs more help organizing Christmas, and offer suggestions, things that I don’t want to get involved in, like ordering a turkey, providing up-to-date relatives’ addresses for Christmas cards and choosing which charities she thinks Nina would’ve liked to support this year. It’s a gentle nudge away from my chosen projects.

  Another random parent has taken up spinning duties, so Stuart and I return to our bench. The cold seeps through my jeans. I couldn’t think of practicalities, like gloves, when I left the house this morning so I blow into my cupped hands to warm them.

  “A longer time frame gives you and Ben time to sort out practicalities, split your assets surely?”

  “Our place is rented,” I say, concentrating on my cold fingers. “We have separate bank accounts.”

  “Oh.”

  Stuart lives in a world where everyone owns a home.

  “Ben and I... Well, it’s bad. I didn’t tell you everything. His new girlfriend, she’s pregnant.”

  “What the...? That’s shocking. Ben seemed like a straightforward guy. I’m really sorry, Marie. That’s...harsh.”

  “It is pretty crap.”

  We sit in silence.

  “He e
ven had the audacity to ask if he could keep our cats!” I start to laugh and find I can’t stop. Stuart does, too, until we are both laughing so hard that I clutch my stomach. It’s such a wonderful release.

  “He doesn’t love her,” I continue, when I manage to catch my breath. “I know because he wants to continue to rent our place on his own while he considers all the best options. He’s in shock.”

  “How about...?”

  “Yes?” I jump in, praying that Stuart is going to suggest what I think he is.

  “How about if you move into a spare room temporarily? It would help us both out, and when my parents leave, we have another chat?”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “It seems like an obvious solution.”

  “What will people think?” I ask.

  Stuart mulls it over.

  It is a real concern because it’s obvious what people, especially Deborah, will think. I need to play this carefully, Stuart is still protected by numbness, assumes that sympathy to his plight will remain. It won’t. If he breaks “the rules,” he will open himself up to local public dissection. Being under the spotlight is only welcome if it’s positive attention.

  As a teenager, I learned this the hard way. Thankfully it was during the years before social media. I don’t think I could have coped with having a silly, tiny, white fib of mine publicly dissected. It was bad enough outside the humanities block at break time surrounded by nosy classmates. As they laughed and probed, I had a choice: to confess or brazen it out. I chose the latter. I stuck to the story and insisted that I had gone to a vague friend of a friend’s party the previous weekend, even though I hadn’t. Afterward Nina said to me privately that there was no point in lying. She was wrong. There’s always a reason for lying.

  “Well...there’s nothing to think. We don’t have anything to hide,” Stuart says.

  “That’s true.”

  As I stand up, long-forgotten hope resurfaces. This is not exactly how I intended things to happen, but I’m going to make it work for everyone’s sake.

  “I think we should tell Deborah together,” I suggest. “Reassure her that the arrangement is practical and workable, and that nothing will change.”

  “Good idea.”

  As I sip hot chocolate and watch Em pick the marshmallows out from hers with a teaspoon, I see an elderly couple glance over. They both smile at me. I smile back. Finally, I know what acceptance feels like. I’ve craved it for so long. Stuart and I are going to make a great team—I’ll make sure of it. Before long, he’ll struggle to cope without me.

  I take out my camera and capture the moment. If it wasn’t insensitive to do so, I would caption it in the memory album of Nina’s life which I’m creating for Felix and Em with something along the lines of Fresh Beginnings.

  Stuart and I smile at each other. Nina trusted that my loyalty to her was unshakeable, that I’d do whatever it took to fulfill her wishes. Gratitude was never her strongest point, but this has made everything I ever put myself through worthwhile. I briefly close my eyes and send her a silent thank-you.

  Emily is staring at me when I open my eyes. She always was a tricky child. I felt betrayed when Nina had chosen a random woman from her prenatal group to be Em’s godmother, but now, thanks to Ben and Stuart, I’m in a much stronger position to influence her behavior for the better. Nina was too soft on her. Seeing as I’ve just relearned the hard way that change is inevitable, I’ll start as I mean to go on. It won’t take me long to train Emily. She’s old enough to learn decent manners.

  I smile at her, but she doesn’t reciprocate.

  It stings.

  I sip the dregs of my hot chocolate, even though it’s gone cold, to distract myself, to stop my mouth twisting in displeasure.

  I, more than anyone, can appreciate the benefits of playing the long game.

  Six

  Trust someone to pour cold water over my happiness.

  “It doesn’t sound like a good idea to me at all, love,” my dad says. “You wrecked your relationship with Ben over Nina and her family, and now you’re stopping yourself moving on by letting yourself get sucked back in to Nina’s affairs all over again.”

  He takes a sip from his pint of cider. He has one every Saturday lunchtime at his local. I joined him today because, usually, I love spending time with my father.

  “Ben had an affair, Dad. Nina is no longer with us.”

  “I worry about you,” he says. “Even now you put her above yourself. It’s not right.”

  “I wish I hadn’t said anything,” I say, folding my arms, my teenage self resurfacing. “It’s only for a few months, and it’s good for me, Stuart and those poor children. It’s only temporary while we all figure out a new normality.”

  He gives me a look. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I’ll talk to Mum about it instead.”

  “How’s work?”

  His blatant change of subject says a lot, but I don’t mind. I have a new therapist, a man this time, Christian, to share fresh stories with. It feels good, like crisp, blank stationery at the beginning of a September school term.

  “Work is busy,” I reply to Dad’s question. “Lots of festive weddings and anniversaries.”

  I stopped photographing christenings and naming ceremonies over a year ago. Now that my family situation is different, maybe I’ll be able to face capturing hope and innocent happiness again.

  I leave him to his ritual. He likes to read the pub’s free newspaper, picking out stories to get outraged by. I’ll get a different reaction from my mother; his comments have touched a nerve.

  I never used to enjoy talking to my mum much about personal things, but it’s different now. From my eighteenth birthday onward, she impressed upon me the importance of not leaving it too late to have a baby because of her own struggles. Mum conceived me at forty-six, after a late miscarriage the previous year. Nina was nine months older than me. I sometimes imagined her to be the sister I never had.

  Every time I see my mother, I hope (and pray) that this is the time that I can share the news of my pregnancy. I imagine her face lighting up. My failed relationship with Ben feels like a huge letdown on my part.

  “Ben left me,” I say, turning away from her and toward the window so that she can’t see the tears forming.

  I take a deep breath, pull myself together.

  “But I’m fine. I’m moving in with Stuart temporarily to help him out. Dad’s not impressed, just to warn you because he’ll undoubtedly tell you. He actually took an extra-large gulp of his cider before he said I was going to get sucked into Nina’s affairs all over again.”

  I make a face. My mum has always laughed at my expressions. “If the wind changes, your face will get stuck like that,” she said the first time I ever did it.

  “But I know what I’m doing,” I continue quickly before she says anything I don’t want to hear either.

  Mum confided in me several times that aging was a shock to her. “My grandmother warned me that time passed quickly,” she said. “But I never fully appreciated just how fast.” I am reminded of those words every time I see her. I must seize my moment while I can.

  Despite getting everything off my chest, I leave feeling strange. The first day in my new home was disorientating because I wasn’t sure how to feel. Despite my familiarity with the house, I reexplored all the rooms with fresh, critical eyes now that it was my living space. It didn’t take long to unpack. I scattered personal belongings—recipe books on the kitchen shelf, my favorite winter coat on the rack, towels in the linen cupboard—discreet, innocuous things. It’s my home now, too.

  I agreed to take over complete responsibility for Nina’s business plans. Over time, I’ll build on her dreams and expand to include more tailored holidays or short breaks. (My discussion with Stuart didn’t go quite that far; I held back some of my ideas. I’m wary
of coming across as too much. There’s no point in overwhelming him at this early stage.) We’ve synced calendars; nothing that could lead to misunderstanding or resentment has been left open to interpretation. Yet, every time I push my key into the front door lock, I feel like an imposter. I need to be kinder to myself because I more than overcompensate for my presence.

  * * *

  It’s on the school run that I encounter my first dose of reality—a hurdle in the form of Tamsin.

  “So, you and Stuart,” she gives me a not-so-subtle elbow nudge in the ribs.

  I glare. “Me and Stuart what?”

  “I’m only joking.”

  “It’s a purely practical arrangement, it makes sense. We’re putting the children’s welfare first.”

  My voice sounds like a strict headteacher. I spot Emily emerge from her classroom. She is at the front of the line. I remove a fudge bar from my coat pocket and wave it at her. Nina preferred them to have treats on Fridays only so that “sugar after school didn’t become a habit,” but it’s hard to stick to all the old rules. I’ll ensure she cleans her teeth extra well tonight.

  “By the way,” Tamsin says. “I didn’t think you’d mind, there’s a new girl in my eldest son’s class. They’ve moved over from Canada. I’ve invited her mother to join our book group, she seems keen to make friends.”

  I’ve really gone off Tamsin.

  “Without discussing it with the group?” I say, bending down to hug Em before ripping open the plastic chocolate wrapper.

  “It seemed a friendly thing to do. I thought that after what has happened, perhaps it would be a positive thing. I know no one can replace Nina, but there’s an undeniable gap. A slight change could be just the thing we need.”

  “Nina set it up. She left me in charge.”

  I sound about five years old, but honestly! How dare Tamsin assume that she can do what she likes? Yet, I need to tread carefully. There’s no benefit in pissing Tamsin off; I may need her on my side while the non-news about me and Stuart settles. Still, I can’t resist reining her in, regaining some control.