Page 45 of One Day at a Time

Later that night, Gregor had come in for a coffee when he was dropping her off. They’d got into the habit of spending more time together. Sunday brunch. Thursday night antenatal class. Baby shopping on a Saturday. They’d even gone to the cinema on Friday night, but she’d missed the beginning of the movie because she’d had to pee every five minutes and missed the end because she fell asleep. But still, it was good to be on friendly terms again. It was comfortable. Easy. If she were being honest,she might even stretch to an admission that she was enjoying his company.

She’d just handed him a cappuccino, made with the Tassimo machine that she’d brought from their house, because he’d been on a caffeine ban for a year before she left. Clearly he’d given up on that now. Maybe he’d made some changes after all.

‘Okay, I have a proposition to put to you,’ he’d said, as they’d settled at the kitchen table.

‘I’m listening.’ She had braced herself, figuring that this was probably going to be the ‘we need to sell the house’ conversation. It wasn’t the worst idea. That way, they could both buy somewhere instead of continuing to pay extortionate rent on this place.

‘When couples were in your therapy sessions, you used to say that sometimes they needed to take a break from each other so that they could get space to regulate their feelings.’

‘You were paying attention. Well done,’ she’d teased him.

‘And you would tell them that a month was a good amount of time to spend apart.’

‘Yes. It gave them time to process their feelings and get a fairly good representation of what life would be like without the other person.’

‘Well, what about if we do the opposite? Why don’t we try living together for a month again? Just a month. See where it leads us.’

He’d suggested getting back together a few times over the months, but she’d always gently let him down, telling him that big decisions were unwise right now. However, maybe a month trial could work. Could it? She’d been unable to come up with a good enough reason to refuse right there and then, and if she were being honest, there was a part of her that was open to it. More and more, she’d been thinking that life would be so easy, souncomplicated, if they were a family again, and all she had to think about was bringing this baby into the world, and doing it with the support of a loving partner by her side.

‘Okay, let me think about it,’ she’d blurted, before she changed her mind.

‘Really?’ He’d looked as shocked as she was.

Her warm mug of steaming decaf coffee had stopped her from hugging him there and then, and it was probably just as well, because that’s when he’d said, ‘In the spirit of us starting over, and having a clean slate, I do need to tell you something. It’s a bit of an uncomfortable admission, so I’m just going to blurt it out. While we were separated, I slept with someone else.’

‘You what?’

‘I slept with someone else. A couple of people, actually.’

Sheena had wondered if the baby was pressing on her lungs, or if she really had lost the ability to breathe.

‘You slept with more than one person.’ She’d been aware that she was basically repeating what he’d said, but she’d hoped that would make her brain absorb it, because right then, all she’d been experiencing was a blank mind, a rush of blood to the head and the failure of her cardiovascular system. She’d fought to regain the power of speech. ‘Who? Who did you sleep with?’

‘There was a woman at the gym that I’ve known for quite a while. And then there was someone I met on Bumble. Actually, she was before the woman from the gym.’

‘FuckingBumble? You? You were on Bumble?’

Sheena had felt as if she were being vacuum-packed, as all the air left her body. It had taken her a moment to rally, and even then, her words were slow and stumbling.

‘So let me get this straight. The man who’d had the energy and inclination to have sex with me approximately once in thesix months before we separated left his marriage and suddenly he’s Leonardo Fricking DiCaprio?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that…’ He’d turned more than a little bit pink in the face.

‘Then what would you say? Because I hate to point it out in front of our child…’ Her hands had automatically gone to each side of her bump, and she’d really hoped that they were in the right position to cover the little one’s ears. ‘…But the lack of sex and passion in our marriage was something I asked you to change many times and was one of the straws that broke the horned-up camel’s bloody back!’

She’d been aware that she may just have referred to herself as a desert animal with a hump, but her mind had been firing in several different directions, and she’d had limited control over what was coming out of her mouth.

‘So wait a minute – when was the last time you had sex with someone?’

She’d watched his face flush even pinker and she’d known.

‘Oh God, it was the night before I told you I was pregnant, wasn’t it? You bounced into that café like you were on a fricking pogo stick. Unless of course you’ve still been shagging since then?’

‘No, no!’ He’d put his hands up. ‘That was the last time. But can I just say here – Sheena, you left me. You called it quits. We had an agreement that we could see other people. I did nothing wrong.’

His forcefulness had made her back up and examine what she was feeling, until she’d circled back to the crux of the issue. ‘I don’t know what this says about me, or us, but if I’m being honest, Gregor, and I’m not proud of this, it’s not the fact that you slept with someone else. It’s just that you wanted to. And yet, for a long time, you didn’t want me.’ There. That was it. He’d madeher long for affection, passion, physical touch, excitement, and delivered none of that. Yet he’d made the effort for someone else.

She’d run an emotion check. Did she feel jealous that he’d slept with another woman? No. She truly didn’t. She was just mad that he’d apparently rediscovered his libido now, yet he hadn’t bothered to do that when they were married.