One Small Mistake(96)

With a smile, I greeted Ethan’s parents and my traitorous husband. I made polite conversation, biting my tongue against Steve’s insistence that if women did as good a job as men, of course they’d be paid the same. Sometimes I’m sure he says these things just to bait me, but I tell myself to sympathise with him because his dislike of women is most probably a product of his mother abandoning him when he was young. She went on to remarry and have a daughter; I’ve only ever heard Steve spout jealous poison regarding his half-sister.

Mum and Dad don’t know how I feel about Ethan’s family. Before the wedding, which was mostly directed by Lynn, our families only crossed paths once when we had dinner at my parents’ house. Mum put so much effort into hosting, but Steve and Lynn spent the entire evening making little snide remarks, referring to their house as ‘cosy’ and making Mum change the cutlery twice because of watermarks on the silverware. They didn’t even stay for dessert. I knew Mum and Dad were hurt, but we didn’t talk about it, and Mum just kept saying, ‘Ethan comes from a lovely family’ when what she really meant was ‘wealthy’.

The Archers make out they’re a close-knit group, but their youngest, Daniel, moved to Bali to be an artist. This left Steve, with all his abandonment issues and blatant disregard for any career in the arts, spitting feathers, and now it’s like they only ever had one son with his financially stable career. I actually bought a few of Daniel’s paintings and had them shipped to the UK. Every time Lynn and Steve come over, they compliment those pieces without even knowing they were created by their forgotten son, and I get a little kick out of it.

I was just about to tuck into a slab of chocolate fudge cake when Ethan whipped the plate out from beneath my poised fork and held it up. ‘Mum, can you cut this in half?’

I glanced at him.

‘It’s too big,’ he told me. ‘Do you need all that sugar and cream?’

A few months ago, this comment would’ve made me hate my body and go on another diet to shrink my size eight waist, but this, along with his sly attempts to manipulate me via Ruby, made anger sizzle. I bit my tongue though, not wanting to cause a scene in front of his family.

Steve chortled. ‘Lynn doesn’t have any self-restraint either.’

To my outrage, Ethan laughed.

‘Ada, I picked up some prenatal vitamins for you,’ said Lynn, taking her place beside her husband.

I stiffened, then glanced at Ethan who was studiously focusing on his dessert. This was another set-up.

‘Ethan mentioned you two are … struggling. I read it’s never too early to take prenatals,’ said Lynn. ‘It’ll all be worth it in the end. My life just wouldn’t be the same without children.’

But this is the thing. For years, Lynn’s life consisted of weekends spent at the side of a rugby pitch in all weathers while shedding her carefully chosen friends and replacing them with other mums from the school gates, pouring hours into her children’s homework to ensure they go to good universities, only to have them grow up and fly the nest. Meanwhile, she is a wife, a mother and nothing else. I don’t want that for myself. And it’s taken me long enough to admit it.

Everyone’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to speak. ‘That’s nice.’

‘Nice?’ Lynn seemed perplexed by my choice of word. ‘It’s wonderful. Isn’t it, Steve?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Choosing not to have children is rather selfish in my opinion.’

I looked again to my husband who was nodding. Agreeing with his family that I was selfish for not wanting him to spunk inside me and fill my womb with a child he had very little interest in raising since it was ‘my fucking job’ to do so. ‘I think it’s easy for a man to tell a woman she should have children, especially when he’s not the one who has to give birth.’

‘Well,’ said Lynn after a pause, ‘birth can’t be that bad, I’ve done it twice.’

Yes, and you’re married to Steve, which proves you’re a glutton for punishment, I thought, imagining you thinking the exact same thing.

‘When you have a baby, if it’s a girl, you can name her after your late sister,’ said Lynn. ‘We wouldn’t mind, would we, Steve?’

You have been missing for five months. Not once in that time has anyone been so bold as to refer to you as deceased in my presence. I’m not stupid, I’m sure most people think it, but not many are insensitive enough to say it out loud. I put my fork down. ‘I’m sorry?’

Lynn looks to her husband for reassurance. ‘Yes,’ said Steve. ‘We thought when you have a child, it would be a kind thing to do.’

‘She’s not dead.’

There was an awkward silence.

Steve cleared his throat. ‘Sorry?’

‘She’s not dead,’ I said again. ‘My sister isn’t dead.’

He sat up straighter, puffing out his chest. ‘A body hasn’t been found yet but let’s be serious …’

I turned in my seat to Ethan, forcing him to finally acknowledge me. Reluctantly, he looked up.

‘Are you going to let them say these things to me?’

I waited. I’d spent our whole relationship carefully treading the line of defending myself as much as I could without being rude or difficult. But it wasn’t fair. These were his parents. We were supposed to be a team and I’d never let our mum and dad speak to Ethan the way his had spoken to me. We stared at one another. His parents were jabbering at us, but we ignored them. A line had been drawn in the sand of our relationship and he had a choice to make.