One Day in December

by Josie Silver

  “Do you think we were always destined to know each other?” I say.

  In my head I’m cresting the Ferris wheel with Jack beside me, our heads tipped back to look at the stars. Perhaps it’s the wine, but my stomach flips slowly as he laughs quietly against my ear.

  “I don’t know if I believe in all that destiny stuff, Lu, but I’ll always be glad you’re in my life.”

  He looks down into my eyes and his mouth is so close I can feel his breath on my lips. I ache.

  “Me too,” I whisper. “Even though being with you is hard on my heart sometimes.”

  It’s difficult to read the look in his eyes. Regret, maybe?

  “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t say any more.” He brushes my hair behind my ear, probably so I can hear him more clearly, but what it actually does is bring his lips heart-stoppingly close to my skin. “We’ve both got too much to lose.”

  “I know,” I say, and I do. God knows I do. I’m lonely so much of the time, but Oscar’s continued absences are no justification for crossing lines that should never be crossed with a wedding ring on your hand.

  “We’re not kids anymore,” Jack says, his thumb circling slowly on the base of my back. “You’re Oscar’s wife. I watched you marry him, Laurie.”

  I try to recapture the feeling of my wedding day, but all my treacherous heart can conjure up is Jack’s speech.

  “Do you ever think what if…” I stop, because his lips brush briefly against the skin beneath my ear as he bends his head to shush me. I’m shamed by the sharp twist of lust that stabs through me, all the way from my ear to the pit of my stomach. It takes my breath; I want him with a force that frightens me.

  “Of course I’ve wondered what if,” he says, so low and intimate that his words slide straight into my veins. “But we know what if, Lu. We tried it once before, remember? We kissed and it made everything worse for both of us.”

  “Of course I remember,” I breathe. I’ll remember to the day I die.

  He adjusts our hands, his fingers warm around mine.

  And then he looks down at me, and his eyes say all the things he cannot. His gaze holds mine as we dance slowly, and I silently tell him that I’ll always carry him in my heart, and he silently tells me that in another place, another time, we’d have been pretty damn close to perfect.

  “For what it’s worth”—his hand slips into my hair and he strokes his thumb along my jaw—“and because we’re finally being honest with each other, you’re just about my favorite person in the world, and it was the single most spectacular kiss of my whole life.”

  I’m lost. Lost in his words, and his arms, and in what might have been.

  “We could…” I start, but I don’t say more, because we both know we can’t.

  “Don’t,” he says. “We’re all where we should be.”

  I start to cry; too much wine, too much emotion, too much of my life walking out the door tonight. He gathers me close and presses his lips to my ear.

  “Don’t cry,” he says. “I love you, Laurie James.”

  I look up, unsure how to read his words, and he looks away.

  “Jack?”

  I turn at the sound of Amanda’s voice as she weaves toward us through the dancers.

  “Okay?” She looks from Jack to me, eyebrows raised in inquiry, and I dash my hands across my wet cheeks.

  “Sorry. Emotional wreck,” I gulp, shaky. “Ignore me, it’s the wine. I’m just upset about Sarah leaving.” I glance quickly at Jack, not quite meeting his eyes. “Sorry about your damp shirt. Send me the dry-cleaning bill.”

  * * *

  Wearily, I let myself into the flat and strip off for bed. Considering the amount of wine I’ve had, I’m suddenly as sober as a judge. I’ve been over and over the things we said tonight, and I’m shamed by how easily the bedrock of my marriage crumbled under pressure. The truth is that I’ve walked around the edge of being in love with Jack for too many years. It’s made me realize something inevitable, something that’s been a long time coming: he and I would be better off without each other.

  I need to unwind the roots of Jack O’Mara from my life. He’s too much a part of who I am, and me a part of him. The problem with uprooting things is that sometimes it kills them altogether, but that’s a risk I have to take. For the sake of my marriage; for the sake of all of us.

  SEPTEMBER 12

  Laurie

  “You’re sure there’s not some specific reason for this get-together?” I ask Oscar as the cab turns into Lucille’s road.

  Oscar frowns and shakes his head without answering. I’m not surprised; I’ve asked him the same question several times already since we were summoned a week ago for “casual summer drinks” at his mother’s. Lucille never has casual summer drinks. I’m glad Oscar’s been able to clear his diary for his mother, even if he finds it difficult to do the same thing for me.

  “Perhaps she’s going to make a surprise announcement,” I suggest. “Retiring to Spain?”

  He rolls his eyes. It’s selfish of me really; I of all people should be able to appreciate the fact that having your parents around is important. And, truth be told, she’s not quite so overbearing these days. She’s softened toward me a lot since Dad died. She’ll never think I’m quite good enough for her precious youngest boy, but I don’t think anyone could be.

  “So who’s going to be here?” I accept his hand as he helps me down onto the pavement and pays the driver.

  “No clue.” He links his arm through mine as we walk toward Lucille’s shiny black front door in the balmy evening sunshine. “Family. A few friends. I think Mum’s been feeling quite isolated since the op.”

  Lucille had a knee operation in July, and although it was routine, she’s had Oscar doing her bidding more than ever. It’s uncharitable of me to think she’s hamming it up to keep him concerned, but I think she’s hamming it up to keep him concerned. I can say it inside my head, at least.

  “You’ll have to ring the bell,” I say, looking down at the expensive bunch of flowers I have in one hand and the fancy bottle of red in the other.

  He obliges, and moments later Gerry swings the door open to let us in. I’m pleased to see him; he’s the closest thing I’ve got to an ally among Oscar’s family.

  “People! Enter,” he booms, kissing me as I pass. “Everyone’s in the garden.”

  Lucille has a gorgeous orangery on the back of her house, and we find it already full with neighbors, distant relations, and her fellow ladies who lunch.

  “Darlings, you’re here!” Lucille appears, sailing across the room when she spots us. Oscar hugs her, and I hand the gifts over as she turns to me. It’s a practiced move, one I’ve perfected to get past the “hello” moment; give someone flowers, no need for awkward air kisses. But Lucille only looks at them and smiles politely, then shoves them back toward me.

  “Be a darling and go and pop them in some water in the kitchen, would you, dear?”

  Darling? Dear? She may still be treating me like the kitchen maid, but these are new and encouraging words in her vocabulary as far as I’m concerned. We might actually be getting somewhere. Lucille makes a beeline for the garden with Oscar on her arm, leaving me to do as I’ve been asked.

  * * *

  I’m arranging the flowers in a vase I found under the sink when Cressida slinks in. Fabulous. Thank you, Lucille. I’ve somehow managed to never exchange more than a word or two with her; even at our wedding I got away with just thanking her for coming. Until now, I thought she was as keen to avoid contact as I was.

  “Hello, Laurie, how nice to see you here.”

  “It’s lovely to see you again, Cressida,” I lie. “How are you finding Brussels?”

  Her dentist poster smile falters; I can only imagine that she wanted to drop her presence over t
here into conversation herself. “Fantastic!” she gushes. “I mean, we’re busy, but we work hard, play hard, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I murmur. Why is it I always find myself imitating posh people? “I can imagine.”

  “Have you ever been to Brussels?”

  I shake my head. You’d think I’d have been out there by now, but Oscar always says he prefers to come home. I turn to look around the kitchen for a likely spot to deposit the flowers. As I move to place them in the center of the table, Cressida lunges.

  “Not there. Lucille doesn’t like flowers on the kitchen table.”

  I smile and try to take the vase back, but she clings to it and the water slops all over her floaty coral shirt. We both look down as the sodden material clings to her lean frame, and the look in her eye when she releases the vase and raises her face is unmistakable. The woman detests me.

  “You did that on purpose.”

  “What? No…” I almost laugh, shocked at her audacity.

  “Everything okay?” Oscar appears in the doorway as if on cue, his eyes darting nervously between us.

  “Just marvelous,” Cressida says. “Your wife spilt water over me.” She gestures down at her drenched clothes. “Accidentally, I’m sure.” She shoots me a magnanimous smile and looks at him under her lashes, theater that suggests she’s covering for my mean streak.

  “What?” He looks at her wet shirt and then at the vase in my hands, perplexed. “Why would you do that, Laurie?”

  The fact that he didn’t stop to wonder whether she was lying is a red flag; I file it away to think about later.

  “I didn’t,” I say, and she huffs imperceptibly and folds her arms lightly across her chest.

  I’m trying to read between the lines to see what is really happening here. Something is clearly eating Cressida up from the inside out.

  “I’m going to the bathroom to try and sort this out.” She turns on her heel and huffs off down the hallway, leaving us to stare at each other across the table.

  I attempt to put the flowers down on it again, but he reaches out and takes them from me.

  “Mum has a thing about flowers on the kitchen table. I’ll find somewhere for them in the hall.”

  * * *

  We’re finally home. All the way back in the cab we were furiously silent, and now we lie in bed, inches apart, both staring at the darkened ceiling.

  “I’m sorry I believed Cress so easily,” Oscar says quietly, finally breaking through the wall of silence. “I should have taken your side.”

  Under the safety of darkness I roll my eyes at his shortening of her name.

  “It surprised me,” I say. “You know me well enough to know I don’t go around throwing water over people.”

  He pauses for a moment. “She was soaked through. It sounded plausible for a second, that was all.”

  It’s my turn to pause. Why would he think it plausible for me to hurl water at Cressida? There’s something here I’m missing. “Is it?”

  “Is it what?”

  “Plausible. You said it sounded plausible that I might have thrown water over Cressida. Now, either you think I have the maturity of a sixteen-year-old and can’t stand the idea of you being friends with your ex, which is categorically untrue by the way, or there’s some other reason why you think I might have tossed water at her. So which is it?”

  It might be dark, but I hear his sigh all the same.

  “Three days a week is a long time, Laurie.”

  I swallow. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that.

  “What do you mean?” Since Sarah left for Australia, I’ve put all my energy into being the best wife ever. I could win awards. And now he’s telling me what? That he’s been shagging his ex all along?

  “That I miss you when I’m there,” he says. “And Cress is making it increasingly bloody obvious that she’d be happy for us to have an arrangement.”

  “An arrangement? How frightfully fucking Parisian,” I say, almost laughing at the absurdity, aware that I’m on the edge of yelling. “And do you want that arrangement?”

  “I haven’t done anything,” he says, heated. “I swear I haven’t, Laurie.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “No,” he says. “Not really.”

  “Not really? What does that mean?” I’m nearly yelling again.

  He doesn’t answer me, which is telling in itself. After a minute or two’s silence, I speak again. I don’t want to go to sleep on an argument, but I need to say this.

  “Maybe it’s time to ask about transferring back to London full-time. Brussels was only meant to be temporary.”

  My suggestion sits between us in the dark. I know for a fact that he doesn’t want to transfer back, that he’s relishing the work out there. Is it unfair of me to even ask it of him? Or is it unfair of him to ask me to tolerate him working with someone who is blatantly making a play for him? And not just anyone, but his ex?

  “Or maybe you’d rather me just lie here every time you’re away from now on and wonder if this is the night Cressida’s going to catch you at a weak moment?”

  “That’s never going to happen,” he says as if I’m being ludicrous.

  “You said ‘not really,’ ” I spit. “I asked you if you wanted to, and you said ‘not really.’ It’s not the same as ‘no,’ Oscar.”

  “And it’s a bloody long way from saying I’d ever do anything, either,” he says, riled. He so rarely shouts, it sounds harsher than it should in the quiet room.

  We’re both hurt now. “We said that we wouldn’t let our marriage suffer for this job,” I say, more softly.

  He rolls on his side toward me, conciliatory. “I don’t want Cress, or anyone else but you, Laurie.”

  I don’t move. My jaw’s so stiff it feels as if it’s locked in place. “We can’t do this forever, Oscar.”

  “There might be opportunities in a few months to come back to the London office,” he says. “I’ll put the feelers out, okay? Trust me, Laurie, there’s nothing I’d like more than not to have to kiss you goodbye on Sunday evening every week.”

  I roll toward him, accepting his olive branch even though I’m not sure I absolutely believe him. Not just because of Cressida; he just seems more wedded to his job than to me sometimes. It’s as if he’s living two lives. One here with me as my husband and another that’s separate from me: vibrant meetings and city bars, sharp dressers, clandestine deals, and celebratory dinners. He shares pieces of it with me of course, snippets and the occasional photo message, but by and large I can’t shake the feeling that he’s content with this “have his cake and eat it” lifestyle. He’s a long way removed from my laid-back Thai lover; the painting on our bedroom wall seems more fantasy than memory. I sometimes think he married me as a way to try to hang on to the person he was back there in Koh Lipe; the more entrenched he becomes in his life in Brussels, the more he seems to realize that Thailand was only ever a temporary escape. His real life was always here, waiting in the wings for him to return and play his role. I’m just not sure I was ever cast in the same production.

  “Look. We’re married, Oscar, but that doesn’t mean we can just flick a switch and reroute all of our romantic thoughts and feelings along one single track. Sometimes we get tested. Let’s not be naive.”

  We lie facing each other in the dark room.

  “Have you been tested?”

  I close my eyes for a second, then decide not to answer that. “The important thing is the choices we make when we are tested. Being married isn’t just a legally binding contract, it’s a choice. It’s saying I choose you. Every single day, I wake up and I choose you. I choose you, Oscar.”

  “I choose you too,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around me. I hold him, and I feel as if we’re wrapping our arms aroun
d our marriage; cradling this precious, fragile thing between our bodies.

  But it feels like a tenuous pact, and I lie awake for a long time after he falls asleep, troubled.

  NOVEMBER 21

  Laurie

  “Laurie.”

  Oscar spoons around me in bed, waking me from strange mixed-up dreams that cling on even as I surface. The glowing red numbers on the bedside clock tell me it’s half past five in the morning.

  “Laurie.” He kisses my shoulder and slides his arms around me under the covers. “Are you awake?”

  “A little bit,” I whisper, still in that fuzzy space between sleep and wakefulness. “It’s early.”

  “I know,” he says, his hand flat and warm over my stomach. “Let’s have a baby.”

  I open my eyes wide at the unexpectedness of his words. “Oscar…” I twist around until we’re face-to-face, and he groans and kisses away anything I might have been about to say, hooking his leg over my thigh. Our sex is sudden and urgent, both of us still emotional from the tumultuous night before. We rowed again; or rather, we had words over dinner, as Oscar would probably phrase it. My fault—I asked him if he’d inquired any further about moving back to London full-time. It’s been two months since he first floated it and it’s fast becoming a taboo subject.

  Afterward, we sprawl in the tangled sheets, reconnected, choosing each other again for another new day. I don’t know if he really meant it or not about the baby, but at least for now I know it’s me he’s thinking of.

  2016

  NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

  1) A baby! Yes, Oscar and I have decided that this is the year we’re going to try. We’ve talked about it on and off for the last couple of months, and as of January 1 we’ve agreed I’m no longer going to take the pill. It feels like a huge leap into the unknown.