‘But you haven’t, Molly,’ he said tightly. ‘Not really.’
‘Leo, I’ve put up with two and a half years of this part-time marriage. If that’s not patient, I don’t know what is.’ I was so angry that the words shook in time with my hands.
Leo sighed heavily, as if I was being completely unreasonable, and then he spread his palms wide on the table. ‘We are barely even friends anymore, Molly.’
‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ I snapped. ‘If you don’t like it, change it.’
‘Well, how do we change it then?’ he said, and he raised his eyebrows at me pointedly. ‘Tell me, Molly – how do we find a way forward where I still travel as much as I need to, and you don’t spend your whole life back here feeling hard done by?’
‘You travel less!’ I exclaimed. ‘Surely it’s not asking too much for you to prioritise your wife above your career for at least half of the year?’
Leo blew out a heavy breath, and then he said, ‘Molly, that’s not going to happen. Not any time soon.’
‘Can’t you see what this is doing to us? To me?’ I gasped, and he tapped his fingers against the table impatiently and stared at me with visible frustration.
‘Obviously I can. Do you think I like disappointing you?’ he growled, then he sighed again and ran his hands through his hair. He looked so uncomfortable and frustrated in that moment that I barely recognised him. ‘Look, I didn’t know how to bring this up, but I think it’s time that we …’ He tailed off and stared at me. He seemed to think that I could finish the sentence for myself, but I had no idea what he was trying to say.
‘What?’ I demanded furiously. ‘Time we what?’
‘Molly,’ Leo said, pointedly calm again now. ‘You need to think long and hard about whether you really want to stay in this marriage. I am not going to give up my career anytime soon.’
Once he said those words, it was like all of the fight and the air left my body at once and I deflated until I had slumped in my chair. Suddenly the loudest sound in the house was once again the ticking of the kitchen clock.
‘You want a divorce?’ I choked. I was beyond shocked – beyond stunned. Leo had completely blindsided me.
‘I didn’t say that. I don’t know what I want – I don’t know what the way forward is. I just know that neither one of us is happy, and we can’t go on like this. I’m flying out tomorrow.’
At this I gaped at him. ‘You’re running away.’
‘I’m not. We both need space. We need to figure out what it is we want and whether our goals for our lives even line up anymore… if they ever did. I’ll be back with Brad when he comes home for the birth.’
He stood then, and as he turned to walk up the stairs, I finally lost the fragile hold I held on my temper. My hands were in fists and my voice was so loud that it echoed all through our apartment. I knew Mrs Wilkins and the students in the terraces next door would have heard me, but I didn’t care one bit.
‘How dare you drop that on me and then leave the country! You’re a bigger coward than I ever realised, Leo Stephens.’
‘Why don’t you go talk to your parents about it, Molly?’ Leo threw the words casually over his shoulder as he mounted the stairs, his tone mild again, as if we weren’t having the most fraught conversation of our entire marriage. ‘I’m sure you’d find a very sympathetic audience there if you want to discuss what a shitty husband I’ve been.’
‘You’re a bastard!’ I hissed, standing so fast that the chair I was sitting on clattered down to hit the polished floorboards.
‘And you are a spoilt brat,’ Leo said flatly, and he glanced down at me from the stairwell. ‘I’ll pack now and sleep in the study. My flight is at six.’
I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to run down the stairs and sweep me up in his arms and kiss me until I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to find a way to make everything okay between us again, because I knew that I wasn’t going to feel okay until we did.
But I was left alone again – shaking with anger and frustration. I’d always assumed that we’d come through the rough patch eventually and life would be wonderful again. Until that night, it had never even occurred to me that I’d lose the battle if I ever tried to force him to choose between his career and our marriage.
Three weeks passed. He had asked me to think about what I wanted and I did – in fact, that was all I did. I watched the calendar tick down to the birth of Penny and Brad’s child, knowing that Brad and Leo would be back in Sydney a few days before.
When Penny texted to let me know that Brad was back, I emailed Leo to ask him what time his flight was getting in. He called me a few hours later.