Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [49]
Issy was about sixteen-months old by this stage, toddling around on her chubby little legs with a comical stiff-legged gait. She’d transformed from a fretful baby to a bold and happy toddler and was the joy of my life. I hugged her extra tight that night, inhaling her freshly-minted baby smell as if it was anaesthetic ether, and cried for Suzanne and a life that lay in ruins because of that ruthless bastard known as infertility.
Earlier, when I’d sought out the writings of other women and men who’d found out their partner had been unfaithful, I had become used to reading along and nodding in agreement: ‘yeah, yeah, that’s me…yeah, yeah…that’s how I feel too…yeah, yeah…couldn’t have put it better myself…yeah, yeah’. That is until one day when I came across a woman who wrote, ‘Adultery is not only a bad thing that can happen to you, it’s the worst thing.’
I pulled up short. No. That woman needed a wake-up call. Finding myself the victim of adultery had been completely demoralising - stripping me of my confidence and destroying all my trust - but when I compared it to losing William it didn’t even come close. Adultery involves the all too predictable scenario of another human being letting you down and in many ways our lives have always been preparing us for that.
Try holding your longed for and dead baby in your arms sweetie, I thought at the time, if you need to know something that’s worse than adultery. For me it had been bad enough, Suzanne got the whole deck of cards.
Not long after this, when Tony was away, I organised to have a couple of Thursday evening drinks with Melanie after work. I sat on two small glasses of wine and left at 7.30pm to pick up Isabel but Melanie was in such sparkling form, lampooning all the old farts in senior management as only she can, that I got a stitch on my right side from laughing so much.
On the way back to the car park, Melanie said, ‘Welcome back stranger. Did you notice you didn’t mention that bloody husband of yours once tonight?’
After I’d settled Isabel in her cot I sat down at the kitchen table with a hot chocolate, got out a lined notepad and wrote myself a list, which I called: Counting my blessings.
• I have a beautiful, healthy, happy little girl, who has made my life complete. Even if I have no other children I will have her.
• I have a mother and father who love me and care about me.
• I have a sister and brother who love me and care about me.
• All my family still like one another!
• I have wonderful friends who look out for me and make me laugh.
• I am competent at my job and well-respected at work. My workplace is harmonious.
• I have enough skills that if my marriage ends I will be able to support myself and my daughter.
After much deliberation - I scratched it out twice, as though Claire was looking over my shoulder, before adding it back in again - I included one last item:
• My husband did not leave me for the other woman.
***
Family, friends and work: these were the things that sustained me through this time. Although inevitably some cracks appeared.
I remained in the same job for years. I didn’t seek a change to a more demanding position. We released a new range of products over this period, which I convinced myself kept my interest fresh but I knew that I would never be considered for a promotion unless I agreed to work full-time. Full-time positions also come with travel and other demands and I thought with Tony away so much I couldn’t manage that. And I would have had to give up my Mondays with Isabel. You didn’t need to be a psychic to know how the self-righteous ‘stay-at-homers’ at our mothers and toddlers’ playgroup would have responded to this:
‘Why did she ever bother to have a child if she was going to put it in child care all the time?’
Hmm, there was a wee bit of justification going on here. I mean, what did it really matter what the other mothers said if I wasn’t there to hear it? And Issy was actually with her grandmother most of the time, not in