was an accident. We’ve discussed what to do many times, but this was never part of the plan. I’m sorry, Mary. I didn’t know how to tell you. I couldn’t find the words.’
‘From a professor of English Literature, that’s quite some confession. You had centuries of words to choose from.’
Leo’s words stung, right through my skin and deep into my bones. At some point, in secret, they had discussed me, and how to break the news of their relationship. How could I not have known? Leo wasn’t made for deception; surely the guilt would have stained him somewhere, like nicotine marks on the fingers of a secret smoker? I studied him, but there was no change: the fluffy brown hair, the soft skin, the wise hazel eyes, the tortoiseshell glasses – he was just the same. He still looked like my Leo, and sounded like my Leo.
‘How could you do this? We had a deal. After Dad …’ I stopped. I hadn’t cried since I was eight years old; not since the day I had returned home from school and found that my adored daddy had gone, never to be heard of again. I wouldn’t start now. ‘You know how much loyalty means to me. On the first day we met, when we sat on the wall outside this house, I told you everything and you promised that you would never let me down. You promised again when you proposed.’ I took off my engagement ring and waved it at him, the diamond twinkling joyfully in the lamplight. ‘“I will follow thee to the last gasp with truth and loyalty.” You had it engraved on my ring.’
‘I know. I meant it.’ Leo took my hand. ‘I love you. That hasn’t changed. But with Clark …’ He looked up, and even before he spoke I saw the wonder, the excitement, the jubilation in his eyes, too bright and overwhelming for him to disguise. ‘The day is more luminous when he’s in it. Life is more exhilarating. I crave his company like an addict. We’ve never had that, Mary. If you’d ever felt what I have with Clark, you’d understand why I can’t give it up.’
It was an extraordinary speech for a man to make to his wife. Every word hurt. And they hurt most because I couldn’t deny them. Our marriage was good and strong, solid enough to have lasted to the end if there had been no Clark. But it hadn’t been based on exhilaration and cravings. My chest burned with a surge of jealousy: not that Leo felt this way about Clark rather than me, but that he had those feelings at all.
‘Fuck, Leo, what do we do now?’
He dropped my hand.
‘You don’t swear!’ he said, goggling at me – as if that one word had been the biggest surprise of the night.
‘And you don’t screw men. We’ve both learned something this evening.’
It was a cheap shot, and I regretted it when Leo’s face cracked with grief. This wasn’t an overblown TV drama, or a scandal to be sensationalised in the Daily Mail. It didn’t matter that Leo had fallen in love with a man rather than a woman. I wasn’t going to scream, or beg him to stay, or plot revenge. Real life was more complicated than that. I didn’t hate Leo. I hadn’t instantly stopped loving him. I wasn’t sure I ever would. But there was one thing I was sure of: I couldn’t let Jonas and Ava repeat my childhood. They would not lose Leo – even if that meant we all gained Clark.
After an awkward hesitation at the top of the stairs, we shared our bedroom as usual. I wasn’t ready to shut him out tonight; wasn’t ready to accept this new reality yet.
Leo’s phone buzzed with an incoming text while he was in the bathroom. I was already in bed, too twisted with anxiety to sleep. It buzzed again, and stamping down my conscience, I shuffled across the mattress and picked it up.
‘Just spoken to Mum. I can’t believe you’ve done this to Mary.’
It was from Ethan, Leo’s younger brother. Ethan had been away on a French exchange when the Black family moved in next door. Although he was more my age, by the time he returned, I was already a limpet on Leo’s rock and nothing could have prised us apart. He had lived in New York since the early days of our marriage, and rarely came back. If even he had heard the news from a different continent, how widely would my humiliation have spread at home?
I dropped the phone, slid over to my side of the bed, and longed for the day to be over.
We agreed the remaining lifespan of our marriage over mugs of tea in bed the following morning – a whispered discussion, so we wouldn’t disturb the children. Once we had spent mornings trying to muffle quite different sounds.
I couldn’t fault Leo for his honesty now, however much it hurt to hear it. He was clear from the start: it was a case of when, not if. He would leave, whatever I said or did. He wanted to be with Clark. Come the New Year, he would be sharing cups of tea and God knew what else in bed with Clark. He was sorry, and I believed him, but he was relieved and excited too. How could he not be? A new life and new adventures lay before him, while I was left holding together the tatters of our old life.
We told the children later that morning, and it was an experience too horrendous to dwell on. They weren’t prepared for this. Leo and I never rowed, because it wasn’t in his character and I had taken pains to repress it in mine. Jonas, sixteen years old and usually so laid back in true Black style, was appalled at Leo’s treachery, but I couldn’t let them take sides. I ended up defending Leo so enthusiastically that anyone would have thought I’d fixed him up with Clark myself.
Ava was my main concern, fourteen going on forty, and too much mine: I was terrified that I would have passed on something in my DNA, so that she would blame me just as I had blamed my own mum for the breakdown of my parents’ marriage. But she had also inherited my skill of bottling up her emotions. She listened to us in dry-eyed, stony-faced silence, until eventually she announced, ‘You do know you’ve ruined my life, don’t you?’ and flounced out, thumbs already flying over her phone.
I’d hardly had time to catch my breath when I spotted my mother, Irene, loitering outside the kitchen window.
‘Are you free?’ she asked, poking her head round the back door.
‘Yes, it certainly looks like it. Absolutely free and single. Thanks for reminding me.’
Mum chose to ignore this, and pulling out a chair, installed herself at the table. Clearly this wasn’t a flying visit.
‘What was all that business about last night?’ she asked, cutting straight to the point. ‘It must have set everyone talking when you rushed us out like that.’
‘I think they were probably more interested in Leo being gay than the fact that we left before the dancing.’
‘Leo isn’t gay,’ she said, in the manner of a foreman of the jury, pronouncing a not guilty verdict. ‘Remember when we went to see The Sound of Music at the Palace. He hated it.’
‘Of course! That’s all right then. I’ll tell Jonas and Ava it was a mistake, and Leo can make his apologies to Clark. Thank goodness you sorted that out for us.’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. I’m only trying to help. If that’s how you spoke to Leo, it’s no wonder he had his head turned.’
But I hadn’t spoken to Leo like this. I’d never shouted at him, never nagged, because I’d seen my mother treat my father that way, had lived through the consequences, and had never forgiven her. I thought I’d been a model wife. How was I to know that eventually Leo would want a model husband?
‘Don’t you think you’ve let yourself go?’ Mum continued. ‘You’re never out of those jeans. When did you last have your hair cut? Or shave your legs? I noticed you were wearing thick tights last night.’
‘I don’t think hairy legs can be an issue,’ I said. But here was one of the downsides of our living arrangements. Mum had given her house to me and Leo when we married, and had moved into the garage, converted and extended to suit her. It had been an extraordinarily generous