“We’d have to get lawyers. Expensive lawyers.”
She’s not sure that’s true. It’s not like they have any assets.
They slump silently on the couch, looking blankly at their phones.
Suddenly Eve puts down her phone. “So what if we do divorce, I marry someone else and he ends up killing me when I’m twenty-five? Did you think about that?”
It’s a very mean thing to say because he obviously has not thought about it. His face first goes white and then red.
Dom is a very strong boy, but she’s stronger.
Chapter 103
A divorce is like a death but without the comfort of a funeral or sympathy cards. No one brings you flowers, but even if your divorce is right because your marriage was wrong, it can feel like you are being slowly, painstakingly ripped in half.
Most studies of stress put divorce right up at the top, along with the death of a spouse, moving house, and a jail term. I’d find a jail term more stressful than moving house, but everyone is different.
David didn’t try to deny it when I asked him about Stella. He vaguely implied it was my fault because I wasn’t there when the couple fell off the balcony, which was traumatic (and also kind of my fault because I predicted it, although he didn’t say that out loud, of course). What else could they do but go to bed together?
He probably felt guilty and I definitely felt righteous. We were upset about the baby girl and embarrassed by our distress, so we never properly articulated our feelings of loss. It was only a photo, after all. We could still adopt a baby.
Of course you probably think the cheating was just a symptom of the rot at the heart of our marriage and perhaps you are right. Once, I said, “You don’t even like me, David,” and he looked horrified, as if I’d caught him out in something far worse than cheating. He said, “Well, do you like me, Cherry?” I’d never really thought about it. I know that conversation sounds so odd. Relationships can be very odd. How did we end up together? It’s a mystery.
Not really a mystery. It was sex. No need to overcomplicate things.
My in-laws tried to help, sharing stories of difficult times during their marriage. Auntie Pat suggested we go on a “Marriage Encounter” weekend, which is a popular program for married couples begun in Spain in the sixties by a Catholic priest. It would involve us going away with other couples and talking about feelings. We could think of nothing more horrific.
I shall not rehash the dying throes of our marriage: paperwork, admin, the canceling of our adoption, a division of assets, shouting, a vicious argument about the “good” saucepan. We kept having sex right until the end. We kept saying, “Last time.” It took quite a while for the last time to be the last time. In fact, he was living with Stella at the time. (I don’t feel guilty. She did it to me first.) (I do feel a little bit guilty.)
He’s still living with Stella. He’s a very successful, happily married cardiologist with children they presumably adopted or conceived through sperm donation, I can’t tell you for sure, and grandchildren. I’m just a little footnote in their life.
I called him when his mother died. She and I tried so hard to stay friends, but it was impossible because Michelle’s loyalty had to be to her son. She loved me but she loved her son more. Of course she did.
I forgave Stella for sleeping with my husband, but I never forgave her for stealing my in-laws.
—
In the middle of all that, my mother died: far too young. As you know. An unnecessary death. But I’ve been over this. Grudges aren’t healthy.
It was a late afternoon in May, and Mum floated on a sea of morphine administered by Auntie Pat, who was haggard with exhaustion, barely able to stand upright, because she’d refused to let anyone else nurse her sister. An older, less self-absorbed version of me would have insisted I give her more respite. It’s on my list of lifetime regrets.
I sat in the high-backed chair that had once belonged to Dad and from which Madame Mae had done all her readings. The light was softening, and Auntie Pat had said to me earlier in the kitchen, “Not long now, Cherry.” She sat on the other side of the bed in the chair where Mum’s customers had sat, hugging the gold pillow to her stomach.
There were long periods where nobody spoke. We could hear magpies singing, the far-off sound of a lawn mower, the steady drip of the IV, and an occasional huge yawn and corresponding jaw click from poor Auntie Pat.
Auntie Pat had warned me about the death rattle. It’s when saliva or mucus collects in the back of the throat and the person can’t swallow or cough. It sounds very unpleasant, like a loud gurgling or choking sound, but it doesn’t mean the dying person is distressed. (Or so they believe.)
Mum never made that awful sound. Not everyone does. She always said she simply refused to snore.
Her breathing got erratic and then labored. I kept thinking she was gone and I’d hold my breath, but then her chest would rise again and I’d breathe again. At one point she waved two fingers like a conductor, her eyes still shut, and said, “Dancing the Swiss fondue! Wasn’t that funny, Pat?”
“It was so funny, Mae,” said my aunt, and she smiled at me.
I think maybe Mum could already see Dad and she was telling him about it, because she said, “Oh, darling, isn’t she the funniest little thing?”
Those were her last words. They were excellent last words, Mum. Well done.
An hour later, she took a breath.
We waited.
There were no more breaths.
I like to imagine Dad waiting for her on the dance floor at The Cab, one hand behind his straight back, the other hand outstretched, ready to take hers, to swing her away.
—
The other night I dreamed I saw my parents dancing and they turned and saw me, and held out their arms. I ran to them, fast as the wind, like a child.
Chapter 104
Allegra, wearing a blue hospital gown—“underpants on, bra off”—lies face down in a small tunnel. She does not suffer from claustrophobia, but she now understands why people do, because this is not fun. She is wearing giant headphones. Michael Bublé is crooning love songs to her through the headphones. Her mother is a Michael Bublé fan, Allegra not so much. She holds a buzzer she can press if she needs to talk. A clip on her finger is attached to a long tube monitoring her heart rate and breathing. She rarely goes to the doctor, has never been admitted to the hospital. Everyone is friendly and kind, but she doesn’t like the way they are in charge of her, the way she is in charge of her passengers. She recognizes something of herself in the authoritative boredom of their tones. Everything they say they’ve said a thousand times before. Every question Allegra asks has been asked and answered before.
Her back pain is far worse this time around. Nothing seems to help. She may require surgery. They just have to work out what’s going on. She has never had surgery.
Her mother remains in a state about the prediction, in spite of the blessings, mantras, and the famous astrologer in India who could see nothing untoward in Allegra’s birth chart.
She overheard her brother saying, “Mum, no doctor is going to prescribe Allegra antidepressants as a preventative measure based on some nutjob’s prediction.”
