Page 80 of We Live Here Now

79

Freddie

She cooked beef Wellington for dinner tonight and got dressed up and was all smiles and affection. It took every ounce of energy to play along while in my head the wheels kept turning to the rhythm of fucking bitch fucking bitch fucking bitch. Two long days since I found the envelope from Mark and she’s been sweetness and light and not said a word. I chewed the meat and pastry—at least one of us can afford to buy a huge lump of organic finest beef—until it was a pulp, not trusting my dry throat to be able to swallow.

I can’t figure her out. What game is she playing? She’s got this one hundred and fifty thousand pounds from Mark hidden away, but she’s still here playing the forgiving wife. I did the washing up, insisting she go and relax, and she kissed me, telling me to hurry so we could watch a film together. She had lipstick on her teeth and it suddenly revolted me. My wife felt like my enemy. I made a work excuse, ignoring her disappointment, and went to the red room with my laptop and pretended to work. Eventually she went to bed, and I promised to join her as soon as I could.

I haven’t joined her. I’ve been staring at the red walls, lost in the heavy flock wallpaper, thinking of her cold dead body. The insurance claim. The money that would be all mine. Even Mark’s one hundred and fifty thousand would come to me. What’s good for the gander is good for the goose.

The house cools around me as the night thickens outside. She said she’d been out all day today, in the local town, and once again I’d noticed her eyes slip away from me as if she was hiding a secret. I can’t stop thinking about her seeing a divorce lawyer. Maybe they’ve told her she has to keep up the charade of pleasantries. Don’t give me time to launch a counterattack. Devious little Emily. My stomach gurgles, the heavy dinner too rich for my nerves, and I get to my feet. I should go to bed. Sleep on it. Be fresh in the morning. The bees are buzzing so loud in my head I think it’s going to split.

A lamp is on in the sitting room, and as I go to turn it off, I see Emily’s iPad on the coffee table still has its screen lit up even though she’s been upstairs a while. It’s weirdly not locked but open on her emails. I pick it up, sitting on the sofa, and am about to go into search to see if she’s been chatting with a divorce lawyer when I realize the email thread that’s open is from her old work account. And the date is from a few weeks before the holiday. I didn’t even know she could still get into that account. I presumed it was all deleted when she left, but maybe she archived them for reasons I can’t fathom. What other explanation could there be?

It’s not a group thread, just Emily and her old boss, Neil, who she always raved about but who I thought was a bit of a smug prick. Handsome in an older-man way, I guess, but even if Em couldn’t see it I knew he looked down on women a little, like they always needed looking after or rescuing. One of those .

I pause before hitting the search button, my eyes catching on a phrase. I have no regrets and we’re both adults but I perfectly understand. And this is premature, but please know that you’re getting the promotion tomorrow. Not because of this, obviously, but because you deserve it. It had already been decided before the conference, in case you had concerns.

Not because of what? And why was he talking about no regrets? Them both being adults?

I open up the whole thread and feel steadily more sick as I read the whole thing through. I remember the conference she went to. It was over a weekend. A bunch of them from work were going and she said it would be good for her promotion chances.

The written phrases make my vision swim. Shouldn’t have done it. We were drunk. It was great but it can’t happen again.

Emily fucked her boss.

I toss the iPad down, not wanting to touch it. She drunk-fucked her boss for a promotion. My Emily. Holier-than-thou Emily. She cheated on me. No wonder she was so shitty during the holiday. Was it because she was struggling with the guilt?

A second, more awful thought dawns on me. The drinking on holiday when she was pregnant and hadn’t told me. In the long weeks she was in the coma, I’d fought those niggling questions in my head about why she’d been drinking if she thought she might be pregnant. Why she was so moody. Now the answers are coming to me with crystal clarity.

The miscarriage she had in the hospital. The pregnancy I grieved for.

Was that baby even mine?