Jessica Hart - Promoted - to Wife and Mother

Perdita winced at the incredulity in Ed’s voice. ‘That’s the reality of being involved with a single father,’ she said, feeling defensive as she always did when she talked about Nick. ‘I told myself that I had to accept it. I mean, it was right that he should put his children first. I wouldn’t want to be involved with a man who didn’t put his children first and take his responsibilities as a father seriously.

‘The trouble was that those responsibilities took up so much of his attention that there was none left over to deal with his responsibilities as half of a relationship,’ she went on after a pause. ‘There never seemed to be a time when it could just be about the two of us, and I began to resent the fact that I was the only one he didn’t think he had to make an effort for.’

‘He was taking you for granted, in fact?’

‘Yes,’ she said bleakly. It had taken her so long to get over Nick that it was depressing to even remember those days. ‘It sounds pathetic when I talk about it now, but you need to understand how much I loved Nick. I couldn’t imagine life without him, and so I bent over backwards to be accommodating. I tried to be understanding, and I completely accepted that his children came as part of the package, as it were, so I did my best to help make life easier for him.’

Perdita flushed, still faintly humiliated by the memory of how abject she had been. ‘I used to cook and clean and make cakes and do all that sort of stuff in the hope that Nick would start to think of me as a real part of his life but, instead of appreciating me, I think he just took it for granted that I’d always be there doing what was needed. He didn’t have to do anything to keep me there. I think he thought that letting me love him was all he needed to do-and I let him get away with that for too long.’

Ed was puzzled. Perdita seemed such a strong personality, and her face was full of character; it was hard to imagine her diminished by her love for this Nick, who sounded deeply selfish and complacent to Ed.

‘You’ve never struck me as a doormat type,’ he commented and she flushed.

‘I wasn’t myself. I was trying to be somebody else, somebody I thought Nick would want, but all I did was make a fool of myself. I was always waiting for things to improve, for Nick to be less stressed, for his job to settle down, for his wife to be less vindictive, but, after two years, I realised none of that was ever going to happen.’

‘So what was the point when you realised you’d had enough?’

‘My father died very suddenly a couple of years ago,’ she told him. ‘It was a terrible shock. He was always so…Well, anyway,’ she said briskly before she let the memories get the better of her. ‘My mother’s always had a very strong personality too, but she was distraught and it took my brothers a couple of days to get there.’

‘So you were holding it all together?’ Ed knew exactly how it felt to be the one who couldn’t let go, the one everyone else relied on to get them through the grief and the pain.

‘Well…yes…I suppose so,’ Perdita remembered. ‘I had to be strong for my mother, but I really wanted Nick to be there for me .’ Pain filled the expressive brown eyes before she looked away. ‘I asked him to come for the funeral. I told him I needed him but…’

‘He let you do it on your own,’ said Ed in a dangerously flat voice as she trailed off, and she nodded miserably.

‘His ex-wife wanted to go out and had asked him to have the kids that day and he didn’t feel that he could say no.’

Ed looked at Perdita’s averted face and swallowed the angry words that he really wanted to say. She didn’t need him to tell her what she already knew. How could Nick not have been there for her when she’d needed him so badly?

‘That must have hurt a lot,’ he said quietly instead.

‘Yes,’ she agreed on a long sigh, still unable to meet his eyes. The worst thing about remembering that time was how humiliated she had felt. People had kept asking where Nick was, and she had had to make excuses for him, when all she had wanted to do was to shout and to scream.

Drawing a breath, she forced a smile. Not a very good one, but still, a smile. ‘It made me realise that he might say that he loved me, but he didn’t really. Or at least he didn’t love me enough . Certainly not enough to show me that he did, or to think about what I needed for once, rather than about what he wanted and needed.’

‘Why did you put up with him for so long?’ Ed couldn’t help asking, brows drawn together in a ferocious scowl.

‘Because I loved him,’ Perdita said simply, turning her dark eyes to look at him directly at last. ‘When I was with him, it all made sense. It was only when I was on my own that I realised that I was making myself a fool for not standing up for what I needed, but I was always terrified of losing him. If I thought about life without him, I’d panic. I couldn’t even bear to imagine it. So every time I’d persuade myself that he loved me really and if I just hung on everything would be OK.

‘After Dad died, I knew I couldn’t go on like that. I made myself give Nick an ultimatum. If he wasn’t prepared to take me into account, I would leave him.’

Ed tried to imagine how he would feel if Perdita told him that. If he had been used to living with her, loving her, and she told him it was over. It had been hard enough when she had refused to see him again after that one kiss.

‘What did Nick say?’

‘He said it wasn’t fair of me to put pressure on him, and that he was too stressed to cope with my problems on top of everything else.’ Perdita’s voice was empty of all expression and Ed gave a snort of disgust.

‘In other words, it was all your fault?’

‘Quite,’ she said. ‘I told him that if he thought of me as a stress, then he’d be better off without me, and I walked away. But it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,’ she confessed, remembering the anguish she had endured. ‘The year after that was the bleakest of my life.

‘I know it sounds dramatic, but I really did think my heart was literally broken, I had such a terrible pain inside me here.’ She pressed her hand against her chest as if she could still feel that raw grief. ‘I couldn’t even stand upright properly, the pain was so bad. I don’t know what I’d have done if it hadn’t been for Millie. She’s the one who got me through it.’

‘Is that why you moved back to Ellsborough?’

‘Partly,’ she admitted. ‘I was concerned about how Mum would cope, but I hoped that a change of scene would make it easier to get over Nick too.’

‘And did it?’

‘I think it was probably easier than it would have been if I’d still been in London. I met Nick through work originally, so there was always a risk that I would bump into him again if I’d stayed, but moving made the break harder in some ways too. I had no memories of him in Ellsborough, no hope, nothing to hang on to at all. I just had to start all over again.’

There was a silence. Ed drank his wine, thinking about what Perdita had told him. ‘Is that why you won’t consider a relationship with me?’ he asked at last. ‘Because you think I’m like Nick?’

Perdita shook her head. ‘No, Ed. You’re nothing like Nick. But you do have children, and you do have to put them first. It was a long time before I could think clearly after I left Nick but, when I did, I decided that I was never going to put myself in that position again.’ She paused, wondering how to make him understand. ‘I want someone who’ll put me first for a change,’ she said. ‘I would never ask you to put me before your kids, Ed. It wouldn’t be fair of me and you wouldn’t be able to do it.’