Fionnuala Kearney - You, Me and Other People

I start to interrupt but she stops me.

‘This was before people talked about their feelings. There was no such thing as counselling. Grief counselling was what he needed but, to be honest, even if it had been around, he wouldn’t have gone. Instead he drank bourbon to help face the pain.’

I wait until she draws breath. ‘I’m not judging, Mum. I just don’t understand why you’d put up with that.’

‘You were young. And then, suddenly, you weren’t. Why change something that worked in so many ways for us? Besides …’ She smiles and cocks her head at me. ‘We were happy.’

I bite my lip. And my tongue. She’s right. I have never had to deal with the heartache of losing a child. And who am I to judge her when I forgave Adam once before too? I convinced myself we could get past his failings.

‘Can you forgive him, maybe forget about this, and put it behind you?’ she asks. It’s as if she can hear my thoughts, see into my very soul.

‘No.’ My tone is emphatic. ‘I hope someday I won’t care, so maybe I can forgive him, but I’ll never forget how he’s hurt me.’ I do not say the word ‘again’ out loud. My mother doesn’t need to know about the last time.

She nods, doesn’t push the point.

I hear my last words echo in my head and feel a huge weight lift from my locked shoulders. After many weeks of therapy, it’s taken my mum talking to make me say it out loud. I will not be taking Adam back. My marriage is over.

I can almost hear the tiny monkey-nut-size baby Babushka cry. I may finally be back in touch with my core, but it hurts – as if my heart is being squeezed in a vice. The coffee ring on the table blurs as my eyes fill and my mouth begins to tremble. My mother drops my fuchsia hand and pulls me into her arms.

I can’t sleep. Today’s emotions have just been too much. I feel spent, exhausted, but somehow I’m not sleepy. I’m sitting up in bed, my back against the silver-button-punched, fabric headboard, having a conversation online with Sally from Manchester. We’ve kept in touch since we found each other on an Internet forum months ago. For someone whose husband has made mine look like the archangel Gabriel, I’m astounded at her capacity for forgiveness. She has taken him back. She makes no apologies for the fact that she loves him; he’s still her husband and the father of her child. Part of me admires her and part of me feels for her.

‘He’ll do it again!’ I want to shout at the screen, type the words, but I don’t. I wish her well, but secretly believe that ‘her Colin’, as she calls him, will soon be back in the arms of the skinny, solvent woman he was shagging, or someone else just as accommodating.

I stare into space. Maybe my mother is right. Maybe I judge far too quickly, and just maybe I shouldn’t. Then again, I focus on the image of Adam actually shagging his bitch whore girlfriend. I grit my teeth and almost visualize penetration.

Nope. No forgiveness here anytime soon.

I have, since meeting with Matt in Starbucks, wallowed in my own filth for almost a week. All he did then was tell me nicely what a wanker I’ve been and suggest I try and be less of a wanker. Now, we’re back in the same American coffee house, but I have showered, shaved and am dressed in dry-cleaned jeans and a crisp white shirt. I still haven’t figured out how to use the washing machine without getting creased clothes that can’t possibly be ironed.

‘I’m taking a few more days off.’ I’m aware I’m telling Matt rather than discussing it as we would normally do. I blow the steam from my second latte and end up with frothy milk on my spotless jeans.

He nods, staring at me over his steepled hands. For the last half-hour, we’ve redone the whole Granger thing and I’ve been suitably placed on the naughty step.

‘Just the rest of the week,’ I add. ‘I’ll be back on Monday.’

‘Are you all right?’ he asks.

‘Peachy,’ I say, ‘just have to get my head around the fact that my marriage is falling apart, my brother comes back in four weeks and I’ll have nowhere to live. And, oh, you’ve tossed me off an account I brought to the firm.’

Matt inhales deeply. I can tell he’s trying to decide on the right reply. I know there is none, that this isn’t his fault, but I need someone to blame for the Grangers’ betrayal. I’m knee-deep in my own.

‘They’ll calm down after a while, Adam. Let it settle for a bit. Why don’t you take some time away in the sun?’

I don’t reply, but imagine me away sunning myself – on my own. I have never holidayed alone and I don’t intend to start now.

‘Maybe Emma would like to go?’ He seems to read my mind.

She probably would, but the thought of Emma and I playing happily on a sandy beach, her frolicking in a white bikini, does not fill me with the lusty urge I expected it to.

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