Page 36 of The Life We Almost Had

Try to make a baby – tick.

Was it wrong to yearn for something exciting?

Someone who excited me?

I thought about everything until Adam fell asleep and then I reached for my mobile.

Do you want me?Ross had asked.

I gave him my answer.

Chapter Nineteen

Adam

Dawn was pushing the darkness aside when my phone vibrated under my pillow. I hadn’t risked the alarm, not wanting to wake Anna. Not wanting her to know. Not yet. I watched her sleep, her face unguarded.

My certainty of the previous night dipped and swelled. I was changing my mind about four million times a minute.

Could I do it?

Should I?

Anna and I had been so unhappy for so long, in some ways it seemed like the right thing to do but… I wasn’t sure. It was early but her mobile lit up with a text. I looked at the screen and then I knew for sure.

I crept around the house, shoving things into an old rucksack, praying she didn’t wake. When I had everything I needed, I took one, last lingering look at my wife. I contemplated kissing her goodbye but instead I slipped out of the front door, closing it silently behind me.

Chapter Twenty

Anna

The bed was cold and empty when I woke. The house too still. Too quiet. I wondered where Adam was. I tried to remember whether he’d mentioned going out but we’d barely spoken last night.

I reached for my phone. There was a text from Ross. It said,If you ever change your mind…I felt a momentary pang of regret but turning him down was the right thing to do. He wasn’t the answer. I didn’t know what the answer was.

Saturday stretched before me long and languid. It was ridiculous that during the week my alarm startled me from sleep, but at weekends I was always awake impossibly early. I got up. Once we would have relished a lie-in, fingers greasy from buttered toast, tongues hot from coffee and later with kisses. We assumed our selfish time was precious, short. Convinced that before long we would have a Moses basket nestled at the foot of the bed. A toddler to take to the park. Weekends would be spent feeding ducks, riding bikes, cutting men from gingerbread before pressing Smartie buttons into the dough. Bath-time. Bedtime. It would all centre around them, the children we hadn’t yet been able to bring into the world.

By ten I had showered, dressed, changed the sheets and cleaned out Hammie’s cage while he hared around in his plastic wheel. There was still no word from Adam. I had an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. I lit a vanilla candle before I retrieved the bills we had stuffed down the side of the microwave. I might as well do something useful with my time before he came home. The house felt different without him here. For a moment I pretended he was never coming back.

You should leave. That would make me happy, I had said Thursday night, but would it? I didn’t feel the same about Adam when I looked at him anymore but had my shame, my guilt, clouded my vision? We never used to bicker like we did now. Would we be happier apart? Would Adam? Should I set him free? Set both of us free? It was hard not to cling to the familiar. The comfortable. I still remembered crying in my old cat Pugwash’s fur, reluctant to let him go despite knowing it would be best for him. Wanting him to be pain-free but unable to contemplate a life without him.

I opened the kitchen drawer to fetch our banking folder. Instead of being under the clean tea towels I had placed there yesterday morning, it was on top of them.

Unease squirmed in my belly as I scanned the contents. Our savings account book was missing. A chill swept through me. Adam must have taken it, but why?

He’s leaving you.

The thought popped into my head.

I reached for my phone and called him. His photo smiled up at me from my screen. There would be an innocent explanation. Adam wouldn’t use the money we had been saving for our family.

He wouldn’t just take it.

My palm was clammy by the time his answer service kicked in.

He had rejected my call.

By lunchtime Adam still wasn’t home. I had rung him incessantly. I was driving myself crazy with theories because the fact was too painful to face. Adam had taken our savings book without discussing it with me.

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