The Girl I Used to Be(8)

Often I’d daydream about the time when Rory was older, when he could walk from school at the end of the day and come to the office and do his homework for an hour while he waited for me to finish work. Joe would be out at work, then later, in my daydreams, it would be just Rory and me, in the kitchen, making dinner together while he told me about his day.

It was a strange fantasy, I knew that. It wasn’t as though things were bad now, it was just that I felt I’d missed out on that lovely one-to-one time that most mums seem to have. I shook myself. I loved Joe. I loved Rory. I loved my job, most of the time. There was no reason to live in fantasyland.

I looked up to see Rachel staring at me.

“Sorry!” I said. “I was miles away.”

“Anywhere nice?”

I shook my head. “I was thinking of Rory and what he’d be like as a teenager. At high school.”

Sophie saw the chance of a gossip and came hurrying over. “He’ll be gorgeous. Totally gorgeous.”

I looked at the photo on my desk. Rory was riding his tricycle in the park, his face serious as he concentrated. His hair was blond and floppy and glossy, and far, far too long. The photo was taken a month ago, just as summer started, and already his skin was tanned, his body lithe. Joe and Rory gave me the photo when I got home from work just as Rory was going to bed, and as soon as he was asleep I’d started to cry at what I was missing.

“He’s just like Joe, isn’t he?” asked Sophie.

I smiled. “Yes, beautiful!”

They laughed.

“Would you like another baby?” asked Rachel suddenly. She blushed and I guessed she thought she’d been too forward.

They both looked at me, an eager look in their eyes.

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “I think so. I think Rory would love a baby brother or sister.”

“And they’d love him,” said Sophie, a sentimental look on her face.

“I wasn’t going to have another,” I said. “Not with working full time. It’s just something my mum said.” I thought back to Christmas, when she and my dad had come to stay. “She said the best present I could give Rory was a brother or sister. I’ve got an older brother and we used to get on really well when we were kids. He’s working in Edinburgh now, so I don’t see him as much as I’d like, but we’re still great friends.”

“She’s right!” said Sophie. “He’d have a friend for life.”

I smiled. “That’s a lovely thought.”

Rachel picked up the coffee mugs. “I’ll get these done,” she said, and went into the kitchen.

“So you decided against going down just for the day, then?” asked Sophie.

“I couldn’t face getting the six A.M. train. Joe wanted me to so that he could go to the pub on Friday night, but I couldn’t face it.” I left a pause, and then admitted, “So I told him it wouldn’t get me there on time.”

She laughed.

Rachel came back in to put away the biscuit tin. “What time did you tell him it started?”

“Nine A.M. instead of nine thirty. The train gets in at eight fifty, so I’d have to rush to be there on time.”

She shook her head in mock disapproval. “Lies to your husband. What next?”

I laughed along with the others, but I was well aware that I was telling Joe more and more lies lately. Some nights I’d sleep in the spare room, telling him my head was aching, when all I wanted was to be on my own for a while. Or I’d creep in with Rory, just to spend time with him, even though he was asleep. And I knew that Joe suspected I wasn’t happy. I’d seen him watching me at times, and when I’d smile at him, he’d seem lost in his thoughts and take a while to respond.

Last night, when we were in bed, I felt he was about to ask me about it and suddenly I thought, I’ll tell him everything, tell him exactly what I’m feeling, but then he turned away from me and went to sleep. I was still sitting up, putting my face cream on, and I wanted to lean over, to kiss his cheek, to try to regain some of that closeness, but I just couldn’t. So I turned away from him, too, but I couldn’t sleep.

I seemed to have gone from someone who was always honest, always open, to someone who said whatever had to be said for an easy life. I didn’t know how that had happened.





FOUR


THAT NIGHT I took Joe up on his offer of wine. It was Monday, that was his excuse, and I realized then that virtually every night lately he had an excuse to open a bottle. “It’s Thursday!” he’d shout from the kitchen. “Nearly the weekend! Come on, let’s have a glass.” He was pretty good at having just one or two glasses, though, and so was I, now. I hadn’t always been like that.

So that Monday night Joe poured us each a glass of wine and we did what I loved best: lay at either end of the sofa, legs entwined, and talked. We put some music on and I lit some candles and for a while nothing existed but us. Our family. We talked about everything and nothing, as we always did, but the conversation always came back to Rory. It was our favorite topic, guaranteed to put me in a great mood. Joe told me about swimming and the park and how Rory had befriended a dog who lived across the street from us, and I soaked up those stories. I could never hear enough of them.

I told him what the women at work had said about having another child. “Do you think we should have another?” I asked, suddenly overcome with sentimentality. “Do you think Rory would like a little brother or sister?”