Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [127]
‘You sound like the counsellor.’
‘Yeah I’ve been to that many counselling sessions I probably could start my own practice. So how are you coping with big four-o? Do I dare ask about that other milestone?’
‘My command? No probably a couple of years away yet, but, hey, I’ve adjusted.’
‘And in the meantime you have your twins to keep you busy.’
‘Yep, they’re great. And even though there’s two of them they are still not as hard work as Isabel was as a baby.’
‘No she was a real piece of work.’
Now I can finally feel that things have happened for the best, if not for that little piece of work. We’ve set up the computer so Isabel can videoconference her father on Skype (ironically using the technology that has probably saved quite a few pilot’s marriages), but I know it’s not the same as having him around for a cuddle. I hope she will learn to forgive her stupid parents in time.
One of the many mistakes I made in my failed marriage, although this actually took place before the wedding day, was pretending to be someone I was not. I appeared to be the perfect girlfriend, the uncomplaining little woman who never minded my boyfriend’s many absences, only to reveal another altogether more insecure and demanding identity once I had that wedding band on. Tony was quite justified in accusing me of that.
This could never be said of my relationship with Alex. I was hideously awful to him for a long time. He knows my true colours alright.
Remember that day when he sabotaged all my flat hunting efforts? His plot was to stop me signing a rental agreement so that we could instead find a larger place that would also accommodate him. He didn’t count on my old Mother Bear instincts. I refused to move in with him until just before Henry was born. I felt that Isabel needed time to adjust to losing her father before I imposed a new man on her. So we had this strange little period of dating whilst I was carrying his child. It is customary for these matters to be conducted in a different order: the going out, then the conception, but the abnormal now seems normal in my topsy-turvy world.
I honestly don’t know why he put up with me during this time. One moment I’d be pushing him away, saying that I needed space and he would back off as requested. Then I’d get panicky when he hadn’t called and phone him up to accuse him of sleeping with other women and abandoning me - let’s just say I have a few residual trust issues to work through yet. The poor guy couldn’t win. He didn’t even get much sex as compensation: the Ghost of Miscarriages Past put a big dampener on that.
I asked him one day, ‘Why are you putting up with all this? It’s obvious I’m completely mad.’
‘Not mad. Just a bit odd. I know you’re going through a stressful time and I’m making allowances, okay.’
I think I was mad, but things settled down once Henry was born healthy and even more so when Tony withdrew his custody claim. I can feel my sanity returning and I’m now trying to make it up to Alex in a big way.
So, all in all, life is pretty good at present and I am nauseatingly in love with this man.
Not that he’s perfect. His untidiness, which seemed so refreshing when I was married to the housework Nazi, no longer appeals as much. The guy is a grot. Now the tables have completely turned and I’m the one ‘tsk, tsking’ about wet towels on the bathroom floor. I’m gradually getting him trained but it’s never going to come naturally. Thank God for our cleaner is all I can say. Oh, and he’s completely absent-minded. You send him to the shops to buy some milk and he comes back with some fantastic goat’s cheese and a new type of olive he’s picked up at the deli, and some fresh figs that were a great price at the greengrocers but no milk. Then again he is a better cook than I am, and takes Henry and Isabel out to breakfast and the park for two hours every Saturday morning to give me a chance to sleep in, so I think I will keep him.
Another thing I’ve discovered,