Page 81 of The One Day You Were My Husband
“I can’t, Carrie. It’s not a won’t, it’s acan’t.”
“This can’t be real,” I say eventually.
“I know,” he says. “I often find myself wondering if it really happened. I mean, I’m such a regular, boring guy. Sometimes I can’t believe it was anymore than a bad dream.”
There’s another long pause. A car horn beeps near him; someone walks past with a bunch of jangling keys.
“You and me, though, Carrie,” he says. His voice has changed. It sounds as if he’s standing next to me again. My body responds immediately.
“You and me were real. We never felt like a bad dream. Our time together was the one thing I held on to, no matter how bad things got. Some days it was what kept me alive.”
—
After Maya has gone to bed, desolate at the chain of events she’s set off, I finish her abandoned drink and pour myself another. Beneath me, the city is quiet and unguarded, a silent carpet of light and slow-moving traffic. I stand at the window, looking across at the faraway black ribbon of the Söderström River, beyond which Johan will probably be arriving home to his partner and stepson. I think about my own husband and children and feel the burn of self-loathing once again. What am I doing here?
I climb in with Maya, who’s asleep with an arm flung over her head, just like when she was a baby. I allow myself to stop thinking about my family for a moment. To think instead about Johan. The sound of his voice. The sound of him smiling down the phone. I fight it, then stop fighting. I bathe in these guilty waters.
I reach for my phone. I’m not sure what I’m planning to do, but I know I’m in danger now. Maya doesn’t stir as blue light spills over the bed.
Calmly, without any effort to stop myself, I open up the Roof app and open my messages.
I stare at the picture of his face, the green T-shirt, the laughter in his eyes, and then I press Contact Host.
Our relationship was very real to me, too,I type into the chat box. Then I press send.
Twenty-eight.
The next morning brings a multiple major trauma helicoptered in from somewhere south of the city. Three simultaneous emergency surgeries is a good antidote to a physical and emotional hangover; I don’t sit down for eleven hours straight.
When I do, I’m on the bus back to my apartment and it’s after 10 p.m. Maya has messaged me to say she’s made us dinner and is now watchingSex Lifein my bed. There are three missed video calls and a string of messages from Robin. Nicola has tried to call and then sent some panicked messages. Dad’s got viral pneumonia and is receiving supplemental oxygen and fluids. It’s an adenovirus and therefore untreatable.
I reread her messages with building anxiety. Adenovirus infections tend to be mild, plus he’s in competent hands, but I don’t like it. Alzheimer’s does not have a positive impact on immune function and Dad’s already weak. I try to call her, but she doesn’t pick up.
The first thing I see after ending the call is a notification from my Roof app, reminding me to respond to Johan.
Whenever anyone messages me via Roof, the app sends what feels like a semi-aggressive number of push notifications until I log in and respond. This reminder means Johan must have messaged me earlier.Click to read message, the notification demands.
I make myself stay in my WhatsApps. I read the ones from Robin first, because it would be a betrayal to do anything else. And for a moment I’m able to give myself over completely to the video of Maeve doing the Macarena backward and Raffy sitting on the toilet, quietly singing songs fromEncanto. Poor Robin, who’s flying the kids over on Monday, sounds distracted and overwhelmed. We have guests arriving in the Pig Shed the day after tomorrow. Guiltily I message him back, reminding him that he’ll need to sort that out, too. Hopefully he’ll be asleep by now; he’ll read my message in the morning when he’s got more energy.
There’s another more recent message from Nicola, to say Dad’s really improved since this morning and they’ve taken him off oxygen. They expect him to recover.
I close my eyes. Thank God.
Only then do I open up the Roof app and read Johan’s message.
He messaged me at 11:03 this morning, just as I scrubbed in to watch one of Yanika’s consultants deal with a bowel obstruction.
I hope you’re not feeling too bad about last night. It was classic Maya. But actually I’m glad it happened—I needed to say what I said. I am truly sorry. You should have been told.
How are you feeling?
—
Back at my flat, Maya reads the message several times. “I spend a lot of time helping my clients forgive themselves,” she says, “but I’mreally struggling to do that for myself today. ‘Classic Maya’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.” She looks up at me. “He’s opening a door, isn’t he?”
“Possibly.” I try to ignore the perverse streak of pleasure that flows into parts of me no longer reserved for Johan.
“Are you going to reply?”
