Page 91 of Thick as Thieves
He’s silent on the phone, then says, “I think you need to tell her. Get her over to look at those buildings before she starts to go backwards and forwards to London.”
“What if it’s a no? I don’t think I can hack it. This limbo is better than a no. At least we see and talk to her like this. She’s around. Still in our world, still conversing with us about the boys. We get invited to dinner with the twins. Marcus is always trying to wrangle other invites.”
“Do you?” He’s scrutinising my face.
“No. If she wants us, she’ll ask. But I text her a lot, and she asks me to go for the mornings sometimes. She knows I like to do that.” I stop talking. My heart rate has picked up as I think about when I see her in a morning. How the light lands on her face as the sun rises through the kitchen windows at Cornhill. How her smile lights up the dark nights on those occasions when I hang around until way after sunset if I’ve helped put the boys to bed.
“Fuck. I want so much more, its fucking killing me. I feel like I’m dying inside.” I’ve dropped my head to my chin. My heart is bleeding out.
“Tell her, Xander. One way or another, it needs sorting.” He wants action. A resolution, he clearly thinks I can’t take much more.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him. I don’t want him steaming in, and spilling mine and his guts.
“I’ve started a sculpture. It’s made out of wire I found in the sheds we’re supposed to be renovating. Problem is, it keeps catching me. I look like a knife wound victim, covered in blood from the nicks.”
“What is it of?”
“A horse. I think I’ll give it to Evie for the stables or outside of the gates.”
“She’ll have to come and see that then, won’t she,” he says, the cunning old fox.
I nod, smiling. “She will.”
But she doesn’t, and August passes into September.
I’m hanging on by a thread. Marcus is hatching a plan, although nothing good ever comes of them. I need to act, and soon. My body is crying out for her touch, my heart dying without it, my mind and soul a jumbled mess.
45
Evie
Devon
I’ve started to work,light duties, but bit by bit I get pulled back into full time. I know the phrase about women having it all, but sometimes it just seems like yes, we do the same things as the men do, but we haven’t actually lost any tasks. We also have all the other bits to still do as well. So having it all actually means doing everything.
Fair enough I have help, but there’s no way I could run my business, my home, my kids, without some sort of help. So I feel a bit like a fraud. If I moan one word, everyone would just look at me and point out the fact I have a nanny. Yes, but I go to work. If I didn’t have a nanny it would be a nursery—same thing.
I know I’m lucky to have the means, but still planning and making all the decisions is a lot on top of running a thriving business. My mind plays tricks on me, telling me I don’t have to be alone. I don’t have to make all the decisions. You can involve others—the dads.
It’s been a hard summer, watching them watch me. Their eyes asking the same questions: Will you forgive us? Can we come home? Do you still want us?
I feel their desperation starting to get the better of them, and certainly Kellen is getting exasperated that I don’t talk to him about it. He just doesn’t understand how betrayed and let down I feel. How deeply they’ve hurt me.
I’ve played nice all summer. The twins have been backwards and forwards to Marshall's old farm. I’ve had Kell and Xan here on occasion for dinner in the evening. Xander’s come over in the morning to sort the boys out for the day. I’ve never withheld the children from them. But I have withheld myself.
I’ve taken great care to not get involved with them, and at times I’ve cried myself to sleep over it—wanting to talk, wanting to touch, wanting to be loved again. But I’m terrified if I let them in again, I won’t survive it a second time around if they do something that blows it all up.
The outside pressure sits like the elephant in the room, just waiting to go on the rampage. Because they’re in Devon, near if not with me, people are already speculating about our relationships. If we restart everything again, how will that play out? I’ve been seeing a few bits of hate on-line. Everyone with an opinion, some positive, live and let live. But other stuff is downright nasty. I don’t want to hide, but nothing I’m seeing is making me want to be out in public either. It’s just too complicated. So I do nothing, hoping in a weird way that they will do something.
“I’ve got to go to LA,” Kellen tells me.
It’s midweek at the end of September. We’re in the big family kitchen at Cornhill and I’m preparing to go to London for a few days, taking the children with me.
“It’s NSM business and I need to go.” He’s playing with Sorley and isn’t looking at me. I wonder what it actually is that’s making him leave.
“Is Xander going with you?” I ask. Where one goes the other usually follows at some point.
“No, he’s staying here. He’s started the commission for Kasey for his ranch. More wire horses for him to cut himself to pieces on.” He grins. “So I’m going alone, but I’ll see James and Bucky while I’m there, so, every cloud….” He finally looks over at me, gets off the floor and comes across to stand in front of me. “Will you miss me?”
