Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [97]
‘Keep your voice down Alex. I think people can hear us.’
‘I don’t care who hears us.’
‘Please believe me when I say that this is not a choice between Tony and you. If only it was that simple. It is a choice I am making for my daughter. She comes first in my life and one day when you have children of your own you will understand that.’
‘Well frankly I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever have children because I seem to have such lousy taste in women.’ And when he finished saying that he stood up and walked out on me.
Ouch - that last comment hurt - but what else could I expect under the circumstances.
***
Only words were exchanged that day but they felt like body blows. I’d rehearsed my lines carefully beforehand, but instead of sounding calm and rational as I’d planned, I feared I’d only succeeded in seeming callous and cold. That evening I barely had the energy to feed and bathe Isabel. After she was asleep I slumped in the arm chair and sat there all evening, completely still. My body ached all over and I found I could only breathe shallow breaths; it was almost as if my ribs were broken. This tight feeling stayed with me for weeks afterwards. I wanted to cry but when I willed the tears they never came, that night or on any night thereafter.
Alex refused to speak to me for the next three weeks. He managed to transact all work business via terse emails or by sending me documents in the internal mail with equally terse memos attached. It was just as it had been that week in early June, except that there was no thaw in relations this time.
I was sure Melanie and Karen must have noticed but they never mentioned anything.
Alex asked for - and was granted - a week off in the middle of this period. I heard he went to Byron Bay. He told Edward he needed a break before I left so he could be on deck to train my replacement, but I knew the real reason. When he returned I made one forlorn attempt to enter his office and talk to him but he refused to look up from his work and simply said, ‘I don’t want to talk to you. Please leave my office.’
So I sent him an email. It only contained one word - sorry - printed over and over, all the way down the page.
He probably deleted it as soon as it appeared in his Inbox. However, as far as I was aware he never tried to contact Tony. I thought my appeal to his better nature might work.
As it was, Tony was away almost all of this time, working and looking for suitable accommodation for us in Hong Kong. Instead of two competing males seeking my attention, I now had none. To fill my empty hours I packed and cleaned and spoke to real estate agents and organised our visas and researched our new life in Hong Kong. There was plenty to do. After Issy went to sleep I would work until late every night, falling into bed exhausted.
The girls at work were keen to organise a farewell dinner for me but I demurred. The company’s annual dinner dance was scheduled for the Saturday evening before I finished work so I suggested that could instead serve as my farewell; we girls could head out afterwards for some more drinks and dancing. The real reason I wasn’t keen was because I knew that Alex would not attend my farewell and his absence would be noted. At least at the dinner dance there was safety in numbers and he could ignore me without it being obvious to all.
On the Saturday prior to the dinner dance I dropped Issy off at Mum’s and headed to the Eastern suburbs. I’d had a tip off about a Chinese herbalist who specialised in fertility treatments and allegedly could help with sex selection. My rational science brain remained sceptical but I went along for a consultation just the same, figuring it could hardly hurt, and left with several herbal concoctions and pills, lots of advice and a much emptier wallet. It’s not as if I wouldn’t have been able to find a Chinese herbalist in Hong Kong, of course, but I thought I may as well get