Page 18 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
‘Trying to what?’ she prompts.
‘Trying to look after everyone.’ Now it’s his turn to sigh. ‘That’s all I wanted to do.’
‘So why didn’t you?’ She knows it’s mean to say that but she also genuinely wants to know the answer. That is, she’d like to hear the excuse he’s coming up with.
‘Didn’t I?’ The dismay is back. ‘We paid off the mortgage. The kids have everything they want.’
‘Except your time,’ she retorts. ‘Do you really think money is the only thing our children want or need from you? ThatIneed from you?’
‘But …’ He sighs again; this time it’s ragged. Long. ‘But I was providing for you,’ he goes on. ‘For the kids. That’s my job. That’s what I promised you when we married.’
Anna can’t remember asking for such a promise, nor it being given – maybe because it wasn’t something she required. What she remembers is him saying that with her by his side he felt like he could do anything, and she felt proud of that. She felt that was the balance they had: he would go out and do things, achieve things, that he wouldn’t be able to do without her support, and she would have a good life, with a husband who adored her and the kids they both wanted.
He fulfilled his part of it, she guesses, except for this: he doesn’t adore her any more. And it turns out that’s the part she really cares about. Perhaps she’d care more about the providing if he wasn’t doing that, but why can’t she have both? She used to. He had her support right up until the end, because she ran his household for him and that enabled him to go out and do what he felt he needed to without having to worry about clean undies and food in the fridge. Men underestimate the worth of that, they really do – the fact that they wouldn’t be able to put half the time and energy into their work if they also had to do the million small tasks women took care of for them.
They’re staring at each other again but her mind is wandering, to the list of things she needs to tick off today, to planning for the week ahead so she can make sure the kids have everything they need for school, and remembering to take her mother to the shops after they go to the salon tomorrow.
‘What do you want?’ Gary says quietly. So quietly she almost doesn’t hear it.
‘Hm?’ She’s buying time because the question has flummoxed her – not because she doesn’t know what she wants but because he’s never asked her before. Not that she can remember.
‘What do you want?’ he repeats, his voice catching.
She narrows her eyes, trying to work out if he’s genuinely upset or just trying one on. ‘I want you to care about what happens in this house,’ she says. ‘But you don’t.’
‘Anna, I genuinely …’ Another catch in his voice. Another ragged sigh. ‘I love you,’ he says.
She can’t help the laugh that escapes from her lips and she can see how much it hurts him. That wasn’t her intention, but she feels hurt herself and that’s where it came from. All these years of supporting him so he could do what he wanted to do, only for him to consider her – their children – less andless worthy of his time. Because of another woman. Probably. Maybe.
‘It’s easy to say it,’ she says.
‘Because it’s true,’ he says firmly.
‘Not so easy to show it, then. Is it?’
He looks confused again. ‘But I do,’ he insists.
‘By working?’
‘Byproviding.’
This is, she thinks, the point he’ll keep repeating, probably long after they’re divorced.
Divorce.
That’s a word that actually hasn’t popped into her head before. Is that what they’re doing – divorce? Yet another thing she’ll have to manage for both of them because he’s not going to initiate it. Well, it’s a year off anyway. One year they have to be separated. She knows that because her friend Tina just went through it.
‘We’re not getting anywhere here, Gary,’ she says. ‘But what I’d really like is for you to take more of an interest in the children.’
‘I do!’
‘Turning up for an hour or so on the weekend is not taking an interest.’
‘So …’ He frowns.
He really doesn’t get it, does he? Maybe that’s her fault. She made it all too easy for him to not be involved with anything in this household. Loosened his grip on their lives for him, then pulled off the last finger he was using to hold on.
‘Troy has Saturday sport, Renee likes to go along. Maybe you could take them to that each weekend?’
