After the Fall

KATE


At first all I could think about was Luke. How he used to touch me, how he would have looked into my eyes and said my name if it had been him I was in bed with. I expected it to be terrible. Well, maybe not terrible so much as disappointing, bland, like fish paste after you’ve developed a taste for caviar. A little bit later I found myself thinking about my watch, about things lost and found again. It occurred to me briefly that Cary had been robbed too, and of so much more than jewelry. I wondered fleetingly how he could bear the pain. Then I must have stopped thinking about anything—Cary, Luke, caviar, Venice. I was disoriented when I opened my eyes afterward. I guess I even enjoyed it, though not in a way that would have had the people in the next room complaining. Mainly I was glad that it was over, that we’d survived it without inflicting further damage on each other.
I was more relaxed with Cary after that. We’d done the deed; he’d seen me naked; it didn’t have to keep feeling like one long first date. Though it was another week before we tried again, things loosened up a little. We spent less time sightseeing, more time asleep or lingering over robust espressos in one of the tiny bars dotting every street. He made me laugh at dinner, pointing out the honeymooners and surmising how well things were going by what they’d ordered. Then he would request scallops and zuppa di cozze for our own table, the seafood arriving with the scent of the ocean, fresh from the Venetian lagoon. He noticed my watch was missing and bought me another. More impressively, he made a complaint to the city police, drafting his report into the early hours one morning by painstakingly cobbling together sentences from our meager phrase book.
And he never rubbed my nose in it. There were no long discussions of my infidelity, no accusing glances or betrayed expressions. Just Cary, on vacation, enthusiastic and interested and attentive. Sarah had told me once about a girlfriend of hers whose husband had had an affair. She took him back and they went on with the marriage, but he was never allowed to forget his lapse. The affronted wife was always bringing it up in front of their friends or upbraiding him for his sins whenever she was drunk. She even made him wear a pager so he could be contacted at all times. By contrast, we didn’t talk about it at all. I wondered sometimes if Cary was suffering from a kind of posttraumatic amnesia, if he had blocked it out completely, removed the offending memories as neatly as a surgeon cutting away cancerous tissue. He’s a scientist; I wouldn’t put it past him. The topic just never came up. But at least we were talking again, which was more than we did before we left.




CRESSIDA


Of course, in the end my conscience got the better of me. Dr. Whyte was sorry to inform me that the fellowship couldn’t be delayed, only declined. On the bright side, though, there was every reason to expect I would be successful again should I reapply next year. My father, he added, as if I didn’t know, was a highly respected man, and everyone in the field had great hopes for his recovery, et cetera, et cetera. Even the hospital in Michigan was accommodating, and invited me to get back in touch if my plans changed. It was almost too easy, reversing in minutes all the plans that had taken months to set in place. Had they ever really been destined to come true?
So that was that, all I had ever wanted gone at once: fellowship, marriage, the support of friends or family. For a crazy instant, surveying the ruins, I had the urge to call Luke, to run back to his side. Why, I’m not sure—so I was at least left with something, maybe, even if it was only the devil I knew. He’d always been good at standing up to my family, making sure he got his way. For a second I was tempted enough to lift the phone. Then reality intervened and I replaced the receiver. I already had enough problems.




LUKE


There’s a girl at work who likes me. Well, not at work but through work, and like isn’t what it’s really about. I’ve a fine antenna for such things, something that never atrophied during my scant few years of marriage. I don’t suppose I gave it a chance, but like that reputedly durable cycling ability I wonder if such a sense ever really goes away. I can see myself at eighty, in a nursing home, knowing full well which of the female residents—or nurses, if I’m lucky—fancies me and which will be more of a challenge. People say you lose interest in that sort of thing as you get older, but I can’t imagine a life without sex in it somewhere, even if it is just thinking about it.
Mind you, I hadn’t done more than think about it since I’d moved to Boston. Maybe it was because everyone I met was from work, and it’s dangerous to get involved there, or maybe it was that I didn’t have the energy for the hunt after the upheavals of moving and divorce. Still, think about it I did: the way Kate writhed when I cupped her buttocks; Cress’s small sigh as she let herself go. Some mornings I would wake up sure I was with one of them; most nights I went to sleep wishing I were.
Memories, however, can take you only so far, and as winter tightened its hold on the city I needed more than those for warmth. So I guess I was ripe for the picking when the PA of a client started flirting with me over the phone. We’d never even met, but she must have liked my accent or something…. Pretty soon I was making up reasons to call her boss and hoping I wouldn’t get straight through. We’d talk about her roommate, my new car, what she was wearing that day. This went on for a few weeks, with our conversations becoming less and less professional. “Would you like to hold?” she’d ask, and I’d say with a leer, “Hold what?” Pretty juvenile really, but it was as much as I was getting.
The adolescent nature of our exchanges was explained when I finally met her at a pitch to the client. As I came into the conference room there was a voice I recognized but a girl I didn’t, and for a second I struggled to reconcile the two. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen, twenty at the most. Theoretically I was old enough to be her father, or at least to know better than to date teenagers. She was pretty, though, in that airbrushed North American way, and throughout the meeting I kept catching her looking at me when she should have been taking notes. Once I’m sure I saw her lick her lips.
As soon as we wound up she was by my side.
“So how do you like Boston?” she asked.
“It’s certainly different,” I replied, damning with faint praise and wondering if she would be sophisticated enough to take offense. She just laughed.
“You’ll love it once you get to know it better.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, knowing where this was heading, daring her to take it there.
“Yeah,” she replied, with more confidence than someone of her age should have. “Why don’t I show you some spots that only the locals know about?”
I’d been in Boston going on four months by this time, but that was no reason to turn down such a generous invitation. There were always new spots to be seen.





CARY


We made it to France and ended up staying, extending the trip a further six weeks. Things between us weren’t brilliant but they were improving, certainly enough to make continuing worthwhile. Kate still had moments of impenetrable silence, and I still found myself worrying about where she was or what she was thinking while she sat opposite me on trains or at breakfast, staring into the distance, opal eyes blank. But she was also laughing more often, and as we left our hotel on our first night in Paris I’m sure she was humming softly as we crossed the Seine.
Nonetheless, I was nervous about suggesting the extra time, fearful of her rejection or disinterest. I agonized over it for an entire evening through dinner, managing to dredge up the courage to ask only minutes before she fell asleep. For a moment Kate didn’t reply and I feared the chance had been lost. Then out of the warm darkness next to me I heard her sleepy voice.
“Sure. Why not?”
I suppose her response could have been more animated but I didn’t care. She’d said yes—I lay awake all that night too excited to sleep, plotting where we might go, what we might do. Beside me Kate slept on. Asleep, probably uncaring. But there.
“So where do you want to go?” I asked her over breakfast the next morning.
“Today?” she asked, pouring a cup of the chocolat chaud that had appeared at her elbow as soon as she had sat down. We’d been at the same hotel for four days. The waiter was obviously paying attention. “I thought we agreed on the Louvre?”
“Not today. I mean in the next six weeks.” Six weeks! Forty-odd days, a month and a half. I felt almost giddy with delight, and something else. Relief. It was as if I were inhaling again after months of holding my breath.
“Oh,” she said, looking up almost shyly. “I wasn’t sure if you were serious.” For a second I panicked, but she hadn’t finished. “I haven’t thought about it. Do you have any ideas?”
I’d focused so completely on convincing her to say yes that I hadn’t dared settle on a destination. We could go to the moon for all I cared.
“What about Egypt?” I asked, thinking on my feet. “You could see all the clay pots you like there.”
“Too many terrorists, and I’m over clay pots. Besides, there’s more of that sort of thing in the British Museum than Cairo and Rome put together.”
“London then?”
“Too cold. And too expensive. God, I’m starving,” she said, reaching for a plate of croissants almost before they had been placed on the table.
“Somewhere warm then. Turkey?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged, dismembering the pastry in a spray of buttery flakes. “But wouldn’t I have to wear a veil there?”
I thought again.
“Somewhere warm and licentious then. Greece. Temples for me, beaches for you. And judging by their statuary you could probably walk around topless if you wanted to.”
She looked up and smiled, then went back to licking her fingers. “No temples. We’ll see what you want to in Paris, but after that we’re having a vacation. God knows we need one. No churches, no museums, no galleries. I just want to lie in the sun for a very long time.” Kate looked suddenly tired. Exhausted even, her face collapsing into a series of lines and shadows. For a moment I thought she might cry, but as soon as I noticed the slump it was gone, features pulled back into line with an effort. She was quiet for a moment, as if concentrating on the transformation, then finally spoke.
“Spain.”
“Spain?”
She nodded. “Maybe I could work up the energy to go out for tapas now and then.”
“?Olé!” I replied, and we both laughed like drains, though it wasn’t the slightest bit funny.
I faxed the hospital as soon as we had finished breakfast. They weren’t thrilled at my request for extra leave, but it was owed, so what could they do? Theoretically I knew I was supposed to take no more than four weeks at a time; realistically I was sure that my department respected my work too much to fire me. Still, I wouldn’t have bent the rules a year ago. I managed to find a conference to attend to give my request some validity, but though I registered and paid the fee I never showed up. I don’t think we even got to that city. Luckily Kate had thrown in her own job when we’d left, citing personal reasons as an excuse to evade the required month’s notice. I think she told them her mother was ill or something; I didn’t get involved. Let her put her duplicity to good use for once.





CRESSIDA


Instead of settling into Michigan, I spent October watching Father die. It seems I do a lot of that: watch people die, and always from cancer. It’s so often the same … the drawn-out suffering and gently graying skin, the panic in the eyes, the putrefying breath. I found myself beginning to long for a stroke or an aneurysm, a car crash even. Anything but this prolonged decline.
I grieved for my father; of course I did. But he wasn’t all I was grieving for, and the endless days of turning and toileting him, administering morphine and adjusting drips, left too much time to think. My mother hovered outside the door to what was once their bedroom as if waiting for an invitation. At least five times a day she would ask me, “How is he?” and my response was always the same: “The same.” He’s dying, I wanted to scream; how do you think he is? Frightened, I imagined, angry and penitent and defiant. But she was frightened too, so I held my tongue. I suppose this was the first death she’d seen.
Then one day something changed. Father was deteriorating quickly and his oncologist suggested that he be moved to a hospice. I could give him drugs, but I couldn’t lift him or propel him back to bed when he was agitated. He was becoming incontinent, and occasionally delirious. We tried hiring a nurse, but Father, a doctor to the end, was so contemptuous of her skills that she soon resigned. After that, Mother and I alternated nights getting up to take care of him, though at the end of the first week it was obvious to all that she wasn’t up to the task either physically or psychologically. A family conference was called. Cordelia made the decision and no one dared argue.
The first time I went to the hospice to visit there was a middle-aged man bending over Father, dressed only in jeans and a T-shirt. Mother asked him sharply what he was doing, then was immediately apologetic when he introduced himself as the chief physician.
“It’s designed to make the place more like home,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “I’m Paul, Dr. Paul Mahoney. We’ve found that too many white coats can be a bit intimidating for both the patients and their families. Besides, it’s not as if they’re really necessary.”
Mother twittered something about maintaining standards and hospitals being different in her day.
“Yes,” he said placatingly, not at all ruffled by the criticism. “I’m sorry to have confused you, but you’ll soon get to know us all.”
“I wanted to introduce something similar on my own ward,” I said, “so the children wouldn’t be scared of the staff. But the hospital authorities wouldn’t have it—said it was a security risk.”
Dr. Mahoney looked at me for the first time then.
“Oh, so you’re a doctor too?”
I nodded, foolishly pleased. When I mention working at a hospital most people assume I’m a nurse.
“Where are you based?”
“At the Royal Children’s normally, in pediatric oncology. I’m on leave at the moment, though.”
“She’s been nursing her father,” my mother interjected. “Heaven knows what I would have done without her. We would have ended up here a lot earlier, I suppose.”
I was so stunned by this public display of gratitude that I could only stare at the floor. Too many kind words might reduce me to tears.
“Good on you,” said Dr. Mahoney with quiet approbation. “It’s very hard to tend to someone you love, to watch them deteriorate while you stay well. Guilt, pain, anger and all that.” Then he added, “I cared for my wife when she was dying of breast cancer. Luckily we didn’t have children. As you’d know, it’s a full-time job.”
I caught him looking at my hands. My left hand specifically, the empty fourth finger. He saw me notice and smiled unapologetically. I found myself smiling back, amazed that my face still remembered how to do so.




LUKE


Our date began with dinner at a small Italian place on Long Wharf, followed by a jazz club nearby. But really, who cares? She was sending out all the signals, and from the moment we met at the restaurant I knew where we were ultimately headed. The only question was whose place we’d end up at.
Hers, it turned out. From what I could see, it was barely a rung above student accommodation, all sticky-tape-marked walls and bikes in the hallway. For an instant I couldn’t help but compare her apartment to the house I’d shared with Cressida: classically neutral furnishings always arranged just so, the towels in the bathrooms replaced as soon as they were damp. Then the lights went out and any further interior design evaluations fled my mind. She was as ready for it as any woman I’ve slept with, almost pushy in the way she hauled me into her bedroom. I was more than ready too, pent-up and aching after six months’ enforced celibacy. My only initial concern as her hands roamed smoothly from my chest to my groin and her impatient nipples dug into my rib cage was to make sure I lasted. Usually I’d try to spin things out, to savor the experience rather than bolting from start to finish, but it was a battle I was losing. Her fingers were on my belt, then beneath it; her mouth followed suit. As it did she guided my hand beneath her own clothes, where instead of underwear all I felt was skin, soft and damp and drawing me in like a siren. I lowered her to the carpet, pushed up her skirt and went suddenly soft.
I was mortified. This had never happened before; I had never even dreamed of it happening. I stalled for time, suddenly diverting to other techniques that I usually couldn’t be less interested in with a woman spread like warm butter on the floor in front of me, praying desperately as I did that it would all be okay. Never before had I realized that there was such a disadvantage to being a man. If a similar thing had happened to my partner—complete and catastrophic loss of desire, along with all anatomical correlates—she could have just carried on as before and no one would be the wiser. But I licked and I probed and I manipulated and nothing happened, just a question mark where there should have been an exclamation point.
Eventually I had to give up. We were both getting cold, and I was hideously embarrassed. She said all the right things—that it didn’t matter, it meant nothing, we could wait awhile and try again—but it didn’t help. I knew I couldn’t do it. She invited me to stay the night, no doubt hoping she’d get lucky in the morning. I waited until she was asleep, then got out of there as quickly as I could. Our agency lost the campaign two weeks later and I never had to speak to her again.
The worst bit was that I didn’t know why it had happened. I didn’t have too much to drink; I hadn’t taken drugs; I swear I wasn’t thinking of my twin regrets ten thousand miles away. Maybe it was her peculiarly raised vowels or those winter-upholstered thighs, just a little too heavy for someone her age. But afterward the episode did make me think of home, and specifically Kate. I felt stupid and anxious and furious at her. What had gone on in that Boston high-rise only underlined to me how well Kate and I had been matched, how right things were between us. Yet she’d forced me into some artificial decision, refused to hold on with both hands to something unique. A year, that’s all I’d asked. What’s a year in the scheme of things? Worse, she’d assured me she would leave Cary, but had ended up staying with him. I wondered if she’d even told him the truth, that she chose me, that he was just the default. She’d gotten off scot-free, the coward, while I’d paid the price for us both: impotence and exile.
Seven months of rising as reliably as yeast whenever I saw Kate, and now this. She was still comfortably ensconced in her marriage bed, while I couldn’t even service a teenager. Alone that night back in my apartment I cursed both her and Cary. I hoped my ghost was with them every time they lay down together for the rest of their lives.



KATE


We went to Spain and gradually I fell in love again. No, that’s too strong. Returned to love? Accepted love? Settled for love?
The thing is, I fell in love with Luke, not Cary. Fell for the sheen and the sweat, the adrenaline of the hunt. Faltered, reeled, collapsed. There was no falling with Cary. Loving him was gradual and logical, inevitable as the path of a glacier. But Luke was a thunderclap, appearing out of a clear blue sky, soaking me to my skin, then moving on, leaving everything looking different. And post-Luke nothing was the same.
Not a day went by that I didn’t think of Luke. Had the cards fallen differently, however, who’s to say I wouldn’t be pining for Cary in the same way? I knew now what I’d miss: his patience, his enthusiasm and easy smile. His forgiveness.
Despite my initial misgivings, I adored those months in Europe. No, adored is also too strong…. I enjoyed them, more with each passing week. Cary and I stayed in some beautiful places, saw some wonderful things. Yet once we had made our peace with each other my thoughts started turning to home. I found that I longed for Melbourne’s vast sky, clear blue and lucid, uncluttered by souvenirs or cathedrals. I missed our clean, straight streets, the logic of our planning. I missed Sarah. I missed understanding what people were saying; the tacit empathy that came from speaking the same language. Europe was glamorous and fascinating and exotic, and it had been good to us. But it wasn’t home, and I was ready to go home.




CARY


We arrived home in early December, six weeks having turned into just over three months. All my leave and most of my savings had run out, but it had been a more than worthwhile investment of both. Things weren’t back to normal, but they were approaching a new kind of normal. We talked; we laughed; we made love on occasion: a future had been salvaged. Admittedly, I still hadn’t spoken to Kate about her affair. Somehow there had always been a reason for putting it off, though I had planned to discuss it. Why? I wanted to ask her. What was missing that you had to get from him? Was it just better or different sex—I could live with that—or something more fundamental? What did he give you that I don’t? And how can I be sure it won’t ever happen again? The last one occupied my thoughts particularly. At the end of the day, why had she stayed with me? I hoped it was love, though neither of us had dared utter the word the whole time we were away. Had she loved Luke? I didn’t even really know why they had broken up. Cressida had seen them kissing and confronted Luke, but how much longer would it have gone on if she hadn’t been a witness? And where would it all have ended?
The questions formed themselves hourly to start with, then perhaps a little less frequently as our trip wore on. Yet still I didn’t ask them—fearing the answers, perhaps, or reluctant to upset our fragile truce. Kate certainly didn’t volunteer any information—acting, in fact, as if the whole thing had never happened. Perhaps that was the best approach. It was certainly the one I seemed to be taking.
But the strategy was shot as soon as we got home. There, amid the pile of bills and junk mail that had accumulated during our absence, was a wedding invitation from Joan and Tim. Kate glanced over my shoulder as I opened it.
“I didn’t even know they were engaged,” she exclaimed, then flushed. Of course she didn’t. We’d been away. Why should she?
“Mmm,” I replied, staring at the card, unable to meet her eyes. My heart thudded in my throat. Even seeing Tim’s name rattled me. How much had he known?
“Here’s the phone bill. And oh, we missed the council elections. I suppose they’ll be after us now for failing to vote. Remember when Simon next door didn’t vote and he had to do community service? I think he had to spend a day planting trees with people who’d held up shops and stuff. It seems a bit ridiculous, doesn’t it? He said—”
“Kate,” I interjected across her prattle. I recognized the symptoms—a patina of chatter to mask her unease. “Should we go?”
“I don’t want to go,” she said quickly. “I haven’t seen Joan since … since the trivia night, and …” She was blushing again and winding up to talk some more. I held up my hand to stop the flow.
“I didn’t ask you if you wanted to go. Do you think we should go?”
Kate sagged; her eyes lowered. We both realized that Luke would be there and probably Cressida as well, assuming she could get back from Michigan. Of course she would be invited; Tim had always adored Cressida.
“It’s up to you,” she muttered, my forthright, opinionated wife, the one who had made all of our decisions with little more than a nod in my direction. Things change.
My initial reaction was to decline. Kate and Joan weren’t that close anymore, so why on earth would I put myself in the situation of being in the same room as my faithless wife and her relatively recent ex-lover? Yet the more I thought about it—and I thought about it a lot, at work, in traffic, while Kate slept beside me at night—it seemed that maybe here was the answer to my questions. If she still loved Luke, if she had ever loved Luke, it would be obvious. Kate was emotionally transparent: grief, joy and anger showed up on her features like makeup. The whole time she was having the affair I’d known something was wrong, just not what. If she still wanted him it would be apparent, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist speaking to him if there was anything left to say. I sent our acceptance.
Did I do the right thing? The wedding was slated for February, another three months away. There was still time to pull out if necessary. Did I really want to put myself through such a reminder? But reminders were evident everywhere anyway. The fault lines in the relationship were there for good now, acutely visible, though I hoped in time they’d fade. For a while it seemed that every time I turned on the TV or opened a book adultery was featured. Songs on the radio fantasized about it, denied it, celebrated it. The subject came up in jokes or conversation, the evening news. Not long after we returned a prominent athlete was found to have had a fling with a teammate’s wife and was subsequently forced to resign. The ensuing scandal led to a whole new slew of e-mailed gags—more uncomfortable reminders. Had it always been like this? Was the whole world so obsessed with sex, and forbidden sex in particular, yet I had somehow failed to notice? There seemed nothing more powerful, even when meaningless.
For all we could pretend the affair hadn’t happened, things, it seemed, would never be the same. Still, the baby would have changed them anyway.





LUKE


I opened the envelope with a sense of foreboding. Tim and I had hardly spoken since I’d left for the U.S., yet here was something suspiciously thick and creamy with his handwriting on the front. It wasn’t as if we’d had a falling-out, more that there just hadn’t been anything to say. He didn’t approve of what I’d done with Kate; that much was obvious. He didn’t approve of my moving to Boston either, though I failed to see how remaining in Melbourne would have won me any points. And I didn’t approve of Joan, though I’d been less up-front in conveying my emotions. It was none of my business, a lesson he would do well to learn. He drove me to the airport and we’d shaken hands. Since then we’d exchanged the odd e-mail: I’d forward the latest joke doing the rounds of North America; he’d write back and tell me about his job or Joan, as if I’d asked.
I knew they were engaged. It had happened before I left, further hastening my departure from his apartment. Through lawyers, Cress had proposed that we sell our house. We were both moving overseas at that point and neither could afford to buy the other out. I agreed without thinking about it much. It was too big for me to live in, and she was right not to want the bother of tenants and maintenance from the other side of the globe. I returned a few times before my departure to collect my designated half of the furniture and get the place ready for the auction. With both of us gone it looked vulnerable, smaller. For a minute or two I allowed myself to feel some regrets, then put them aside. I hadn’t even chosen the place; had never wanted to live in the suburbs anyway. Why start tearing up about it now?
As expected, the letter contained a wedding invitation. But there was worse: Tim had attached a note, asking me to be his best man. To tell you the truth I had been planning to skip the whole event, say with deep regret that distance and work commitments, yada, yada, yada. The guest list scared me. Tim was still in touch with Cressida, so there was every chance that she’d be there, and Joan, I knew, had once been friendly with Kate. Why on earth would I fly twenty-four hours to endure that?
Yet Tim’s request made a refusal difficult. I suppose I should have anticipated it, but I’d assumed Tim’s nose had been so put out of joint by my debauchery that I was no longer up for the role. Instead, it seemed that he was bravely going to put friendship and loyalty above my disgrace. What could I do? Tim was still my friend. He’d been best man for me; he’d given me a room when Cress threw me out. By then I would have been away for six months anyway, so it was probably time I paid my family a visit. I booked a ticket.




CRESSIDA


The wedding invitation included Paul, for which I was grateful. I’d moved in with him only two months after we met, and not everyone was as accepting of the relationship. I could almost hear the whispered phrases when I returned to work or walked into a room at either of my sisters’ houses: rebound, impulsive, can’t cope without a man. Really, though, the decision made sense. The sale of my married home had been arranged when I thought I was taking the fellowship, and since my father had been moved to the hospice there was no real reason to continue living with Mother. Oh, my sisters said I’d be company for her, but she spent most of her waking hours at my father’s bedside. I was no longer needed. Time to go back to my job, to find another place to live, to make a second attempt at a life of my own.
Paul was part of that. It was certainly convenient that he’d asked me to move in, but that wasn’t why I had accepted. We got along well; he made me laugh, he listened, he valued my ideas. He was nineteen years older than me, but that was about our only significant difference. Perhaps best of all, he was as passionately involved with his work as I was. He understood the late nights, the middle-of-dinner pages, the responsibility I felt for my patients. He never apologized if plans had to be changed if he was needed at the hospice, and he didn’t expect me to either. I had been dreading going back to work and facing the gossip of the hospital, but found to my surprise that I was enjoying my job more than ever, feeling free to throw myself into each shift without always watching the clock or wondering guiltily if I cared too much. My moving in was good for both of us. He’d been lonely since the death of his wife; I’d begun to resent my family’s claim on my time. Acquiring a partner, no matter how hastily, gave me back some status in their eyes. Yes, he probably was a bona fide father figure this time, but so what? It hadn’t worked out the traditional way. And it wasn’t as if I had promised to marry the man. We were just living together, seeing what happened, allies as much as lovers. Matrimonial refugees, as Paul once laughingly described us. We both knew that no matter how much a commitment was meant it could still be undone. Better just to live from day to day.
My father was holding on, though just barely. Often if Paul was paged into work while we were at home together I would go in with him and spend the time in an extended paternal visit. Father was almost always cataleptic with painkillers, but that didn’t matter. In many ways it was better. He asked no awkward questions about my failed marriage or the divorce settlement; he didn’t sit in judgment on my career or life choices. He would have approved of Paul, I’m sure, but it was a relief not to have to seek that out.
Some days, if Paul had the time, he would help me bathe him. There was a nurse for such tasks, of course, but that didn’t seem to stop him. I fell in love with Paul in these moments, my heart defenseless against the tenderness with which he shaved my fallen father or soaped his atrophying limbs. At other times Paul would help me feed him, wipe his mouth or his bottom when it was needed. Luke would never have done such a thing. He would have thought it beneath him, obscene. I replied to Tim’s invitation, joyfully accepting for us both.




KATE


I couldn’t find a damn thing to wear to that wedding; nothing, anyway, that didn’t make me look fat or frumpy. I’d reached the four-month mark of the pregnancy, an awkward time when it was obvious I was putting on weight, but not yet that I was expecting. Everything I tried on stretched too tight across my abdomen or hung tentlike from below my bust, hardly the look I was trying to achieve. But what was I trying to achieve? I didn’t want to go anyway, would never have agreed if Cary hadn’t insisted.
I had realized I was pregnant just before we left Europe. For the previous week all the symptoms had been there: nausea, fatigue, aching breasts, though I was thankful I’d never gone the complete Hollywood route and fainted. At first I thought I was just tired, then that I’d eaten something that disagreed with me. When I finally did my math the grim truth dawned on me, and was quickly confirmed by a trip to the drugstore. Pregnant! I couldn’t believe it. What were the odds? I’d stayed on the pill, at least up until the prescription had run out, a few weeks after ending things with Luke. I’d meant to renew it but was too depressed or distracted at the time. It had felt like I’d never have sex again anyway, so what was the point? The thought crossed my mind when I finally slept with Cary in Venice, but I could hardly stop him. As far as he was concerned I hadn’t been taking it for a year, and was probably infertile. I didn’t want to get into any deep discussions about family or future at that time anyway, and the risk of conception seemed so slight. It wasn’t as if we were going at it night and day, even after that tentative reconciliation. I’d just tried not to think about it, crossed my fingers instead of my legs, hung on and hoped for the best.
But pregnancy was something I couldn’t ignore. As if to prove the point, the morning sickness that would be my companion for the next ten weeks kicked in as soon as we got home. I vomited all through Christmas, a very different Christmas from the last. As I doubled over the toilet for the third or fourth time on the morning of Christmas Eve it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if the heart I’d carved into the fig tree in the botanic gardens one year ago was still there. I wasn’t doing anything special that day, but I didn’t have the energy to go and look.
I’ll admit I wasn’t too thrilled about the situation on any number of levels. It was too soon. We weren’t ready. Cary and I were barely talking to each other normally; now we were having a baby. I’d hardly proven myself reliable, but before long something was going to rely on me. I wasn’t even sure I possessed a maternal streak. I kept waiting for it to show up, but all that arrived instead was nausea, regret and anxiety. At night, when the worry kept me awake, I imagined the little one inside me, shipwrecked in such a hostile environment, and hoped that I’d learn to want it.
But in another way I guess the pregnancy was for the best. It closed all other options. Right through everything, through Europe, through being able to look Cary in the eye again and not pull away when he reached for me, I still wondered if just maybe … I knew Luke hadn’t chosen me; I knew Cary had and that I was better off with him, but every so often I’d find myself wondering if things were truly over. This baby said they were. Utterly. No other man would ever want me now, and from what I’d seen of Sarah’s life I’d hardly have time to think of anything else anyway.
Cary, of course, was thrilled. He cried with joy when I told him the news, and slept each night with a hand on my stomach. He had even started thinking about names, e-mailing me his ideas from work almost hourly for the first trimester. And I guess the timing was appropriate—I was thirty-three and didn’t even have a job I had to resign from. It was time to grow up and get on with things. And that meant attending this damn wedding, if I could ever find a dress.




LUKE


I flew into town the day before the wedding. Why arrive any earlier? I had dinner with my parents that night, dropped into the rehearsal and planned to fly out again on the Sunday morning after the big day. No point using up too much precious annual leave.
After the rehearsal I tried to tempt Tim into coming out for a drink. He wavered for a minute, then declined as Joan swooped over to claim him.
“Hello, Luke.” She gave a polite nod in my direction, then took his arm. “Come on, Tim, we still have to staple the wedding programs.”
He smiled ruefully and allowed himself to be led away. My disappointment surprised me. I could have done with the company. For some reason I felt on edge, was more jittery than I had been the night before my own wedding. Exactly why I couldn’t say, though it obviously had something to do with the thought of seeing Cress and maybe even Kate again. Still, I didn’t anticipate any scenes, and had no intention of causing them.
As it turned out, they were both there—one ignoring me, the other eating me up with her eyes. I couldn’t look during the first part of the ceremony, but later, from my vantage point at the altar as Tim signed his life away, I had a chance to study them both. Kate was near the back, dark head lowered, uncharacteristically subdued in navy blue and somewhat heavier than I remembered. To be honest, it took me a few seconds to spot her, and I would never have thought that of Kate. But when I did finally locate her and my gaze lingered it was as if a message had been sent. She looked straight up, straight into my eyes, almost devouring me with her hunger. The impact was such that I nearly took a step back; then Cary touched her arm and she dropped her face again. Cress, by contrast, wouldn’t even glance in my direction. She looked great—creamy shoulders, upswept hair, pink lips—though I couldn’t work out who the older man sharing her hymnbook was. Maybe a friend of Joan’s parents whom she’d been saddled with and was too polite to ditch.
I didn’t see either of them again until much later in the night. There was the service, of course: promises and confetti flung around with comparable ease. Then there were the photos that dragged on for an hour, and parading in ahead of the happy couple with the chief bridesmaid on my arm. Neither Cress nor Kate was seated near the bridal table, and I spent the evening making polite conversation with the bridesmaid and Tim’s mother while surreptitiously scanning the room for both of them.
It was Cress I had expected to feel bad about. She was the one I’d betrayed, after all, the one I’d promised to forsake all others for, an oath I’d managed to keep for less than a year. But to my surprise and slight pique she looked fine. Happy even, and genuinely so. She smiled as she danced, whispered and giggled to the old man next to her all through my speech, something the decorous doctor I’d always known would have frowned upon. I was sorry I’d never seen that side of her.
Kate, though … Kate was drowning in the noise, in the music, in that terrible blue dress she was wearing. I could see her going under, opal eyes flashing a distress signal every time she looked my way. But did I dare approach her? I knew her fierce pride, the anger and humiliation she would have felt when I elected to stay with Cress. Twice I got up to go to her; twice I sat down again. Maybe she just wanted to have it out with me, and I couldn’t face that here.
I was jolted back from my thoughts by the bridesmaid tugging at my arm, looking slightly green.
“We have to dance,” she hissed, gesturing toward the floor, where Tim and Joan were already shackled in their bridal waltz. Tim couldn’t dance, I thought, as I watched him shuffle around the floor as if he were wading through mud. I allowed the bridesmaid to lead me up to join them, hoping she at least knew what to do with her feet. For a moment we managed all right, but then I felt her clutch me and put her head to my chest.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered, alarmed. Her arms had gone around my neck, and I felt her going slack.
“I’m not well,” she moaned quietly. “I think I’ve had too much to drink. Or maybe it was the oysters. Or both.” She belched softly, and I could smell the main course.
“Do you want me to take you back to the table?” I asked, our feet slowed almost to a stop.
“Yes,” she murmured, all her weight on me now, head buried in my neck.
We’d gone only a step or two, though, when I felt her body tremble, heard that shallow cough. She was going to vomit, so instead of heading back to the bridal table I quickly steered her straight outside, past the surprised eyes of the guests and into the cold night air. The last thing I saw as we left the reception was Kate, her eyes naked with want. I knew that look. I’d seen it a million times, every time we’d made love, or said good-bye: every time I looked up and saw her coming across the gardens, the pub, the forecourt of the museum.
As the bridesmaid retched into the rosebushes I urged her silently to hurry. I knew that look, and it was still there. I thought Kate would never forgive me for not choosing her—it was why I hadn’t called after Cress threw me out, sorely as I’d been tempted to—but maybe I was wrong. Maybe we still had a chance. As soon as this girl had finished being sick I was going to go straight back in and find out.




CRESSIDA


The wedding was fun. I’d found I loved being anywhere public with Paul, loved showing him off and basking in his attention at the same time. Whenever Luke and I had gone out—to parties, trivia nights, what have you—I would barely see him all evening. I don’t think that he was already being unfaithful, though the possibility has crossed my mind. He never articulated a reason for his absences, though I understood it well enough. Coal to Newcastle, bananas to Africa. Luke may have loved me, but I was old news. Why stay with your wife when there was a whole room full of fresh people to charm? Paul is different. Grown-up, dare I suggest, and sure of his choices. He talks to others, but I’m the one who really captures his attention, whose company he plainly prefers. It’s new; I’m new; maybe that will wear off. Somehow, though, I don’t think so.
Luke was at the wedding, of course. I had wondered how it would feel to see him again, but when I did there was nothing—no pain, no longing, just some embarrassment at how blatant he was with that girl. I sensed him watching me once during the service and looked away. The other person I avoided was Kate, for obvious reasons. She didn’t seem all that great, actually, staying in the background and not even drinking, as far as I could tell. That wasn’t like the old Kate. She looked puffy, worn-out, and didn’t once get up to dance. Despite myself I felt a stab of triumph. I hoped she hurt; I hoped she saw Paul holding me close and wondered who he was. I hoped they both wondered. My turn to sparkle.
But though I wouldn’t look at Luke, Paul did—curious, he said, to see what sort of fool would throw away someone like me.
“He’s quite the player, your ex-husband,” he observed as we danced together.
“What did I tell you?” I asked.
“Yes, I know,” said Paul. “But I hadn’t expected him to be quite so …”
“Good-looking?”
“Out-there,” he responded firmly. “Oh, okay, then, handsome,” he amended, pulling me closer, completely unperturbed by the fact. “He’s bloody gorgeous, isn’t he? I imagine every woman in the room is hoping he will ask them to dance.”
I shuddered slightly, remembering another wedding. For a moment or two Paul and I watched as a bridesmaid threw herself at him and he bent down to whisper in her ear.
“See how he does it?” I found myself hissing at Paul. “Next he’ll be kissing her in the middle of the floor, or slipping off somewhere for a quick grope.”
As I said the words I realized I was angry, an emotion I thought I was through with. So there wasn’t quite nothing after all. But it was only anger, and I could live with that. No sorrow, no regret.