“Everything okay?”
“It’s fine.” She tightened her grip on the phone. “The place is fantastic. So Christmassy. I’m glad you encouraged me to come. We’ve only been here a day and so much has happened. Do you remember that I told you I thought there was some reason Erica picked this place?” She told him about Erica and her relationship to Hattie and he listened without interrupting.
“That’s huge,” he said when she finally stopped talking. “And Erica didn’t tell you?”
“Not before we arrived. And we were ready to check out and go somewhere else because that was what she wanted, but then everything blew up.” She told him about Stephanie and the chef walking out.
“It sounds as if you’ve been surrounded by drama.”
“Yes, but in a way it was a good thing because it forced Erica to get involved. You know how good she is in a crisis, although to be fair, Hattie was pretty good, too, so maybe it’s a family trait.”
“I’m still trying to imagine Erica writing a letter to Santa.”
Anna smiled. “I know. But Delphi is adorable, and you know how it is with children—they don’t respect boundaries or tread gently. They just say it how it is, and Erica’s pretty much like that herself.”
“So she’s happy, and so is Claudia.”
“Yes. I think this is just what she needed.”
There was a pause. “And how about you? Still thinking about the kids leaving home?”
Anna walked across the room and curled up on the bed. “Yes. And I wish I didn’t feel this way.” She badly wanted to make him understand. “You should have seen Claudia’s face when she was working in the kitchen last night. She was energized and excited. And this morning at breakfast I could see she was just dying to get back into the kitchen. And Erica has this great job, and is planning how she can build a relationship with Delphi and Hattie. They have so much to look forward to.”
“Have you given any more thought to the conversation we had?”
“The one about having another baby?” She leaned back against the pillows and stared out the window. “Was it a serious suggestion? Do you want another baby?”
“I want you to be happy, Anna.” He sounded tired. “If having another baby will make you happy, then I think we should at least talk about it.”
Would it make her happy?
“I don’t know. When I think about the kids leaving home, I just want to freeze time and somehow stop it happening. And I know this is life, and that it changes all the time for everyone. It is changing for Claudia, and Erica. And Hattie, as well. This is normal, but it doesn’t make it easier to handle. I don’t know how I’m going to cope when they’re gone.” And her friends seemed to be better at handling change than she was. Even Claudia, who had been struggling for half the year, seemed excited and upbeat. It took her a moment to realize that Pete hadn’t spoken. “Are you still there?”
“Still here.”
She felt suddenly guilty.
“Am I moaning? I don’t mean to moan. I know I’m lucky. And that’s half the problem. I love my life a little too much. I don’t want it to change.”
“I know.”
Something in his tone wasn’t right. “What? I know you’re thinking something, so just say it.”
There was an extended silence. “I know how much you love being a mother, and you’re a great mother—”
She was holding her breath. “But?”
“But it’s not very flattering to know you’re dreading the kids leaving. I know you’ll miss them—I’ll miss them—but you seem to be forgetting that we still have each other. I know empty-nest syndrome is a thing, and I get it, but there’s a difference between missing them—which is healthy and natural—and dismissing what’s left of your life. When you say you don’t know how you’ll cope when they’re gone, I feel hurt because you’re basically saying our relationship isn’t important to you anymore. That I don’t count.”
Anna felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. “Pete, that’s not true. You know it’s not true.”
“I’m telling you how I feel, Anna. You’re anxious about how you’re going to cope when they leave, but not once have you seen it as an opportunity. You focus on what will be missing from your life, not on what is left. And that’s me, by the way. Us. We’re what is left, but you don’t seem at all excited about that.”
She opened her mouth to point out how wrong he was, but when she tried to find evidence that would refute his accusation, her mind blanked. He was right. She did think about what she was losing, and not what would still be there. She hadn’t been able to see it as an opportunity. And she felt a rush of guilt because only now could she see how it might have felt to him. As if the two of them being left alone together was a bad thing. Something she was dreading. And she was dreading the moment the twins left, but not because she didn’t want to be with Pete. She loved him. She adored him.
And now she’d hurt him. Pete, who had been there for her through thick and thin. Pete, who always listened and paid attention to her feelings. Since when had she been so careless with his? She’d made him feel as if he wasn’t enough and the mere idea that she’d caused him pain made her chest ache.
She gripped the phone, wanting badly to put things right, wishing they were having this conversation face-to-face. “Pete—”
“I’ve lost count of the number of times this year I’ve suggested going away together. I even booked that weekend for our anniversary, but Meg had something going on and you wanted me to cancel.”
Her guilt intensified, which might have been why she felt the need to defend herself. “She had an exam on the Monday. I wanted to be around for her. It didn’t feel like the right time to go away.”
“No, the truth is that at some point we stopped being a priority. Our relationship is something that gets slotted in around the kids. Before the kids were born, before they were part of our lives, we enjoyed being together.” He spoke quietly. “Remember that trip to Paris we took after we left college?”
She hadn’t thought about the trip in years. “We had no money. We stayed in that place with the bed that squeaked so badly we could only have sex on the floor.”
“We couldn’t afford to eat in restaurants, so we took French bread and ham back to our room.”
She closed her eyes and let her mind go back there. They’d drunk cheap red wine and studied the guide book trying to work out how long it would take to walk to the Eiffel Tower because they couldn’t afford a metro ticket. “You’re forgetting the cheese.”
“I’ve never forgotten the cheese. And we could only go to places that were free. We walked everywhere—”
She smiled. “I wore through a pair of shoes.”
“But we had fun. We laughed a lot.”
They had laughed a lot. How could she have forgotten that trip? “The wine was terrible.”