Tempting Fate

by Jane Green

  Gabby is silent.

  ‘Gabby –’ Her name sounds strange coming from his lips and since her betrayal he is reluctant to say it, even to taste the shape of her name. ‘I can’t do this any more.’

  Gabby’s heart leaps into her mouth. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I can’t be with you. I wanted to try, but I can’t. Every time I look at you, every time I hear your name, I just think of you with another man, and his child growing inside you, and I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Elliott,’ Gabby forces her voice to be calm, ‘I know how hard this is right now, but I think we should go and see a couple therapist. I know of someone who’s meant to be fan–’

  ‘No.’ He stops her. ‘I’m not going to see a couple therapist. It won’t help. It won’t change what you did, nor how I feel about it. Gabby, I love you. I don’t want to feel this way, but I do, and no amount of talking about it will make a difference to that. I’m sorry. I’m moving out.’

  ‘Elliott?’ Gabby’s voice is shaking. ‘If I ended this pregnancy would you still leave me?’

  Elliott stares at her. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, I would. I would still leave.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Elliott stands in Claire’s kitchen, a kitchen that is starting to feel like home, as Olivia rails at him. The baby Gabby is carrying has nothing to do with Elliott, so he decided not to mention it to the girls, but, evidently, Gabby has now shared at least part of her news, and Olivia has not taken it well.

  ‘How can you leave?’ she hisses, having just been dropped off here by her mother. ‘What kind of a father are you that you can leave Mom when she’s having a baby? I’m just … disgusted. I can’t believe you’re doing this. I can’t believe you’re leaving her now.’

  ‘Olivia,’ he says calmly, ‘there are things you know nothing about. You may think you know the whole story but you don’t. I’m sorry, I truly am, that this has happened, and if there was any other way, if there was any way for me to make this work, don’t you think that’s what I would be doing? Do you think I want to leave my family? Do you really think I want to be staying in Tim and Claire’s house? Much as I love them, this isn’t my home, and I would never, ever leave you and Alanna. I wouldn’t.’

  ‘So why did you?’ Olivia spits, welling up with tears. ‘You have a choice. This is all bullshit. You didn’t have to leave. You don’t have to leave. I will never be able to forgive you for this, Dad.’

  Elliott is pained. ‘You don’t understand,’ he says wearily.

  ‘No. You’re right. I don’t understand. So explain it to me. Help me.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he says, after a pause. ‘It’s not something that’s for me to tell.’

  ‘Great.’ The sarcasm drips from her voice. ‘You’re trying to blame Mom for this, but she didn’t leave. Whatever fight you’ve had, the fact that you left, when she’s pregnant with your child, is unforgivable.’

  ‘It’s not,’ he says quietly, unable to help himself.

  ‘It’s not what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No. It’s not nothing.’ Olivia’s voice starts to rise. ‘It’s not what? What do you mean? Tell me, Dad! Tell me!’ She is shouting now.

  ‘It’s not my child.’

  Olivia stares at him in shock, before running out of the door. Elliott goes after her, calling her name, but she is faster than he is and she doesn’t stop, and soon she is out of view entirely.

  He shouldn’t have said it. He knows he shouldn’t have said it. But he cannot stand being blamed by his daughters when he is not the one at fault. He has tried to protect his wife, tried not to talk about it, but he will not allow his daughters to portray him as the bad guy.

  He will not allow Gabby to take away what little he has left.

  Olivia bursts through the door of the barn, frantically looking for her mother. She finds her on a chair in the corner, sitting staring into the space.

  ‘Is it true?’ Olivia demands, standing in front of her mother with crossed arms.

  ‘Is what true?’

  ‘The baby isn’t Dad’s.’

  Gabby just gapes at her daughter, stunned. She wasn’t going to tell her daughters. Certainly not yet, not while they were still struggling with the fact their father has moved out. She hasn’t discussed this with Elliott, but she assumed she had a few months. She wanted time for them to get adjusted, time for them to get used to this new life before she dropped another clanger on them.

  ‘Well?’ Olivia pushes. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘What did your father tell you? Oh God. I can’t believe he told you. What did he say?’

  Olivia stares at her mother, incredulity and sadness in her eyes, and Gabby is filled with regret for doing this to her, doing this to all of them.

  ‘You’re pregnant with somebody else’s baby? No wonder he left. How could you? How could you sleep with another man when you’re married to Dad and he’s so … he’s so great? What are you thinking? What were you thinking?’ Olivia is shaking her head in disbelief, trying to comprehend. ‘How could you do this to him? To us? I have no idea who you are because my mother wouldn’t do that. My mother would never do something so hurtful and wrong. You even promised me you weren’t having an affair – remember?’

  Gabby is not sure she has ever been in so much pain. She wants to explain to Olivia how it happened, why, and that it didn’t mean anything, but Olivia is only seventeen, not old enough to understand the feelings ignited in a middle-aged woman when a young and attractive man finds her alluring.

  ‘Who is it? Who is he? Who’s the baby’s father?’ Olivia says, realizing her mother isn’t going to say anything, can barely look her in the eye.

  ‘No one. No one you know. It doesn’t matter,’ Gabby says quietly through her tears.

  ‘Even better, Mom. You threw away your life for nothing? For no one? You ruined all of our lives for, what? For nothing.’ Her voice drops then. ‘How could you?’ she says quietly, turning to hide the tears that are starting to fall. She doesn’t see Gabby sink to the floor, distraught, because she goes up to her room to pack, to be with her father, to stay anywhere but under her mother’s roof.

  Gabby doesn’t move, other than to curl up. Her body heaves with sobs, for she knows Olivia is absolutely right. She has thrown away her life for no one, for nothing. And no one could be more disgusted with her than she is herself.

  She has lost her husband. Now, she has lost her daughter. And she is fairly certain she has lost her best friend, because although she has assumed true best friends don’t have to choose sides during a marriage split, given that Claire and Tim have opened their lives to Elliott, given that Claire has not been in touch for days, she is in little doubt about what is happening.

  What the hell was she thinking? What came over her? She doesn’t think about Matt at all. They have had only one exchange of emails since the day they slept together. It had been so awkward afterwards, her guilt, and remorse, and shame were immediate and overwhelming, and they both recognized, without having to say anything, that that was the end.

  She will never tell him about the baby. Even thinking of him makes her feel physically sick. No matter what the outcome of her life, she will do this without his help, without having anything more, ever, to do with the man who she now thinks of as ruining her life.

  But it wasn’t just him. If he hadn’t come along perhaps there would have been someone else. Gabby still thinks of those weeks – the frantic emailing, being up all night thinking about him, messages flying back and forth, their flirtation growing stronger and stronger – as something akin to an out-of-body experience. He came along at a time when she felt invisible, when she felt that she was growing old and dull, that life would never again be exciting or glamorous.

  She became obsessed with the thrill of it all, the roller coaster of highs when he emailed, the lows when he didn’t. Looking back, which she tries not to do, she can think of it only as an addiction: short-lived, intense, unmanageabl
e. It possessed her, leaving no room for reason or rationality. She couldn’t have stopped it even if she wanted to. And she did want to; she never wanted it to go as far as it did. She just wanted to feel beautiful for a bit longer; to feel alive; to feel wanted.

  Now she is left with nothing, nothing but a future of swimming in the morass of remorse and shame she created all by herself.

  She doesn’t hear the door of the barn open. She is too busy crying. But she feels the hand on her leg, the heat of a small body curled up next to her.

  ‘Don’t cry, Mommy.’ Alanna takes her hand and strokes it. ‘It’s going to be okay.’ This only makes Gabby cry harder, but eventually she is able to smile at Alanna through her tears, noticing that Alanna’s blue eyes are glistening.

  ‘Have you seen your sister?’ Gabby strokes Alanna’s hair back behind her ears, tracing her fingers along her daughter’s cheekbones, noticing the tiny glittering flower ear rings she is wearing, the ones Elliott bought for her the last time they went to Main Street.

  Alanna nods. ‘She left. She told me.’

  Gabby doesn’t say anything. What is left for her to say?

  ‘I still love you,’ Alanna says. ‘And it’s still my baby brother or sister. I’ll be here to look after it even if Olivia isn’t.’

  ‘You’re the best,’ Gabby whispers. ‘Do you have any idea how much I love you?’

  Alanna nods, and the two of them sit, together, for a very long time.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gabby has texted Claire a few times, receiving responses that are barely responses, their abruptness and detachment supposedly mitigated by an emoticon of a smiley face or a frown.

  Cant. Frantic :(

  Maybe tomorrow

  Am good. Talk later! :)

  But they don’t talk later. They don’t talk at all. Gabby has left voicemail messages on Claire’s mobile phone, thinking this would be a sure way to get hold of her, but they have not been returned.

  There are other women Gabby could talk to, but none she trusts in the way she trusts Claire.

  Never has she felt more alone than now, abandoned by her husband, daughter and best friend.

  She examines her sideways reflection. She might have got away with saying she’s just put on weight, but anyone who knows would see she is pregnant. It isn’t just the weight, it’s the shape. Her breasts are full and heavy, her stomach extended in a way that can only suggest a baby. Mid-life weight gain is often around the belly, she knows, but it is soft and fleshy, not low and firm as hers is.

  Do people know? Gabby has no idea whether people are gossiping or not but she assumes they are, and at times like this she is aware of living in a very small town. All it takes is one person to tell another. Even though she trusts Claire not to speak, even now, she knows Olivia will not be able to hold it in. Olivia will have told a friend, who will have told her mother, who will have spread it around town.

  Her phone has rung more of late. Not her mobile – anyone who really wants to get hold of her knows to call only her mobile phone for she never picks up the one at home – but the home phone has been ringing frequently, especially since school has begun again. She always lets it go to the machine and doesn’t bother listening, but occasionally she scrolls through the display to see the numbers that have called, noting that various women she knows only vaguely are phoning her. These are women who never ring her, but they are doubtless phoning under some pretext – would she like to help with the bake sale; does she have a piece of furniture she’d like to donate to the upcoming auction – because they are, in fact, just itching to find out what’s going on, to be able to go to school tomorrow and whisper excitedly that they know something no one else knows.

  Gabby has to go to school today. It is the seventh-grade Poetry Café, and even though she would do almost anything to avoid being there she knows she must make the effort.

  When they were tiny, in kindergarten and first grade, she made a decision, based largely on the fact she had a mother entirely uninterested in her school life, that she would go to everything.

  While not very keen to be a room mother, or volunteer extensively, for years she has shown up for every reading, performance, concert.

  In the early days Gabby needed to go, not just to see the girls perform, but to try to make herself part of the community. She has tried so hard to make herself fit in, and yet she still feels as though she has never quite managed it. She has copied the uniform of bootleg jeans and clogs, puffy vests, cute scarves. She has entered into conversations about babysitters and sports teams, dance classes and softball coaches – conversations she so often finds mindless – with an enthusiasm she doesn’t feel. She has grown accustomed to showing up to Saturday morning games with her collapsible chair and coffee in a portable mug, setting up the chair in a huddle of other mothers. She has become used to the gossipy chat being interrupted time and time again as, one by one, each mother puts the conversation on hold and screams words of encouragement when it is her daughter’s turn, paying attention to the group again only when the daughter goes back to the dugout, at which point the game is ignored again until another of the daughters is up.

  Gabby has had to learn all the rules, the rules of the games as well as the social rules. From the outside, she looks and behaves like the other mothers; if you ignore her accent, still so very English, she speaks like the others, uses the same language, the same cadences, but inside she knows she doesn’t belong.

  Inside she knows she can dress, speak, pretend as much as she wants to, but you cannot take a girl from north-west London, drop her in suburban Connecticut and expect her to fit in.

  None of which bothers her now. She is used to her life, loves her life, and only ever misses the sophistication and glamour of London when she – very occasionally – goes back there, but today she isn’t sure she is up to the pretence. Today she isn’t sure she can stand there and make small talk about softball, or gossip about coaches, or ask questions about how the house renovation is coming along.

  Today she’d much rather stay at home and hide. If it wasn’t for Alanna, forgiving, loving, lovely Alanna, that is exactly what she would do. She is wearing yoga pants that are stretched to a shine over her burgeoning bump, with a long tunic-style T-shirt and a voluminous scarf that drapes round her neck and falls in generous folds, covering her torso in swathes of linen.

  If they don’t know she’s pregnant they might not necessarily guess today. Gabby takes a deep breath. She doesn’t have to do anything other than smile and be polite. And if Claire is there, which she undoubtedly will be, maybe they can grab a coffee afterwards. Perhaps when Claire sees Gabby at the Poetry Café she will be able to forgive her; perhaps she will be able to be a true friend still.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As usual, Gabby is late. She pops into the school office to sign in, then walks quickly down the hallway to the library. The homeroom teacher is talking, introducing the Language Arts project, as Gabby waves at the couple of women who look up to see who has come in.

  In the front row is Claire. She does not turn round but Gabby can see her profile and would recognize her anywhere.

  Next to her is Elliott.

  Gabby is shaken. She takes a seat in the back row, her mind whirring. Why is Elliott here? He never comes to school events; he is always too busy with work to make it to anything. How did he even organize his schedule to be here, and why? This is her domain; it has always been her domain. She looks around the room at the handful of other fathers that are always there, fathers who work from home, who run their own hedge funds in town, who are on ‘gardening leave’, the ironic but oh-so-handy euphemism for being unemployed.

  Elliott is not one of those fathers. Had this happened before she would have been delighted; nothing would have made her happier than Elliott turning up unexpectedly at an event at school. But now this feels like a betrayal. She cannot take her eyes off the back of his head. He is her husband, the man she loves. He shouldn’t be sitti
ng over there, so far away. If he is here, he should be by her side.

  But the chasm between them is growing wider and wider, and she still struggles to understand how something so good can fall apart so quickly and so easily. It doesn’t make sense to her that everything they have built up over twenty years can be ruined by one moment of madness.

  Claire turns and looks straight at Gabby, who smiles awkwardly and raises her hand in an almost-wave. Claire smiles in return, then turns back. Gabby watches to see if she will tell Elliott, and sure enough, a couple of minutes later, Claire tilts her head to Elliott’s and clearly tells him. Gabby knows this because his shoulders tense immediately, while hers sag in dismay.

  Elliott has been avoiding her, and Olivia refuses to see her. Gabby drives Alanna back and forth to Claire’s house to stay with Elliott, never getting out of the car, texting Alanna from her position of safety if she needs to let her know she is outside. She asks Alanna if Dad is coming out, but Alanna always says no, and Gabby doesn’t want to put her in the middle, doesn’t want to ask Alanna to tell Elliott to come outside.

  Nor can she walk up the garden path and into the house in the way she has done a million times before. This house is now surrounded by an invisible barrier that keeps Gabby out. Gabby isn’t the type to trample on boundaries, to walk into homes where she knows she is unwanted. She has already pictured the look of shock and dismay on the faces of all of them should she have the temerity to walk into the kitchen.

  No. That isn’t something Gabby will be doing.

  Alanna steps up to the front of the class, a piece of white paper held firmly in her hands. Poised and confident, she reads a poem she has written about fall. Gabby’s heart threatens to burst with pride. Cheering and clapping, she has to physically restrain herself from jumping up and throwing her arms round her little girl.