‘Ethan.’ I was furious. How dare he call Ruby? How dare she go along with it? No wonder he’d stopped going on about children; why bother when he had my cousin doing his dirty work?
‘He’s worried about you. I am too. You have what you want: the big house, the perfect husband, but you could lose it all. Ethan might walk if you aren’t on the same page, Adaline.’ Claudia whimpered and Ruby shushed her, stroking her wispy dark hair.
‘Well, maybe he should. Maybe I want to be with someone who doesn’t view me as an interchangeable incubator for his offspring. Maybe I want to be with a man who can only imagine having children with me and if he can’t have them with me, he doesn’t want them with anyone,’ I said, thinking of Jennifer and Lucas.
She shook her head. ‘That just doesn’t happen. That guy doesn’t exist.’ She looked back down at her baby who’d fallen off her nipple. ‘Is this because of Elodie? You’ve been … different.’
‘Well, of course I have. Something this big changes you. Elodie’s disappearance made me reassess my life.’
‘So what now? You’re going to leave Ethan and work in a coffee shop?’
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, deciding whether or not to tell her. ‘No. I’ve been thinking about going into event planning or interior design.’ I’d actually contacted a few companies just to see. I don’t think I’d have done it without Harriett reassuring me I’m brighter than I think or without Christopher telling me how capable I am or without you suggesting I’d be good at it, all those months ago. One interior company just outside of Crosshaven asked me to send a portfolio; between taking care of our parents, and endless research on Jack and David, I’d been putting something together to send to them. Ethan caught me working on it last night and snapped that he never wanted a wife who worked and besides, I was going to make a fool out of myself. ‘I want to work. I want to earn for myself.’
She pulled a face. ‘Come on, Adaline, you haven’t worked in years. And even when you did, you were a just a PA on a shit wage. Without Ethan, you’ll have nothing.’ She let her words hang in the air like a bad smell, before continuing in a patronising tone. ‘Have a baby. Just one,’ she said, as though she were trying to convince me to indulge in sugary confectionery and not a life that will forever be tied to my own. ‘You’ll love it when it arrives. Being a mother is unlike anything else in the world.’
I looked at her bloodshot eyes and her leaking boobs and the dark circles and thought I’d never judged her for wanting a child; why was she judging me for not wanting one? I’m starting to believe being a parent is like standing in quicksand, and rather than asking for help out of it, they want to pull you in so you’re all sinking together.
I shouldn’t have been surprised Ruby thought so little of my ability to succeed without my husband. Up until recently, I’d thought so little about myself. It still hurt though, El. I have a feeling you’d be supportive if I told you I wanted a career, even if that meant losing Ethan and the shot at a baby I didn’t want.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, standing up.
Claudia started to wail.
‘Oh, really?’ asked Ruby.
‘Yes, I don’t know if Ethan told you but we’re having dinner with his family tonight and I need to go.’
Ruby looked panicked. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked over her screaming bundle of joy. ‘Tom isn’t back until this evening. Can’t you stay?’
I wanted to fling her words back at her. Remind her motherhood is simply the best and this – the house, the husband, the baby – is exactly what she wanted so why complain that I’m leaving her to it? Instead, I said, ‘No, sorry. I have to go.’ I ran a finger along Claudia’s cheek. ‘Take care.’
Ethan was going straight from the office to his family’s house so there was no time to have it out with him. By the time I arrived at Steve and Lynn’s home, I was still upset by Ruby’s comments and by Ethan going behind my back. It didn’t help that every time I’m forced to see Ethan’s parents, a cloud of dread descends because their favourite pastime is making me feel an inch tall. His parents don’t think I’m good enough for their son and never have.
When I first met Steve, he Google-mapped our parents’ home and I think Mum and Dad’s three-bed semi-detached didn’t quite compare to their four-bed detached with two reception rooms, and it was all downhill from there. I used to worry I was the problem – I wasn’t university-educated, our family aren’t rich, I was too opinionated – but I quickly learned that neither Lynn nor Steve had a single positive thing to say about either of their sons’ partners, past or present.
In the early years of our relationship, I was so swept up in Ethan’s charm, his money and the fantastic sex, that I could overlook how his parents treated me. Naively, I thought when we were married, Ethan would speak up against his parents when they put me or my family down. I was wrong.
Lynn welcomed me inside. She is round and homely, though every time I look at Ethan’s cookie-cutter mother, I remember him telling me she sat him down just before he went away to university and told him, ‘Be careful about taking a girl back to your room and putting yourself in a position where she can accuse you of something,’ deciding not to discuss with her son the importance of hearing a ‘yes’ before having sex with a woman and instead choosing to paint women as insidious liars out to wreck a man’s life.
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’.