Dear Mr Stephens,
Further to your meeting with us, we have registered the date of your separation from Molly Torrington-Stephens as Thursday, 4 July 2015. As discussed, under Australian law you must be separated for a period of twelve months before you are able to file for divorce. To this end, we request that you contact us on or after Thursday, 4 July 2016 to continue with divorce proceedings.
We confirm your instruction that with regards to financial settlement you wish only to retain assets owned by yourself at the time of your marriage. We do suggest you consider this carefully over the coming twelve months as in the absence of a prenuptial agreement you would likely be entitled to a significant portion of Ms Torrington-Stephens’ assets.
We also confirm your request that a formal custodial arrangement for a child will be required upon continuation of divorce proceedings and that you will give us further instructions with regards to this once the child has been born.
I put the letter down, and I think again about the man in that bar that day.
He was a man who truly knew what he wanted – he just didn’t know how to get it. Or maybe he did, and maybe he just didn’t have the courage to do what needed to be done.
I wipe my eyes with my sleeve and make my way back towards the stairs.
41
Molly – June 2015
I had spent a lot of time that year thinking about what it would feel like to see a second line appear on a pregnancy test. I’d even stared at myself in the mirror and practised the joyous, maternal smile I’d wear when I told Leo our news. I had imagined his equally joyous reaction so many times that I felt like I’d seen it for real.
The reality of that moment in our lives was nothing at all like those fantasies. Leo was asleep in the recliner in the office when I went into the bathroom, and he was still asleep when I watched the second line appear.
I put the test in the bin and then I took Lucien for a walk into the city. He stayed close to me, which ordinarily would have suggested he was not in the mood for exercise, but that day I knew that he was picking up on the tightly-strung emotions that swirled around in my gut.
I couldn’t think about the baby; I wouldn’t let myself accept the reality of it. All that I could think about was the mess that I was in, and the added chaos that I had created.
I thought if I walked long enough, I’d figure out a way to make things right – but all that walk did was to convince me that there was no way to make things right. When Lucien started falling behind me, I called for my car and went home.
Leo was sitting at the dining room table, eating toast and reading the newspaper. He glanced at me when I stepped into the room, then looked back to the newspaper without a word. I stood opposite him and I did not take a seat.
‘I’m pregnant,’ I said. I didn’t make excuses or deny that this was my own doing. I wouldn’t insult his intelligence like that.
In the end, it wasn’t anger I saw in his expression. It was a myriad of other painful emotions – hurt, confusion and realisation, and then right after that an icy and terrible hatred. Leo rose, picked up his wallet from the kitchen bench, and walked out the back door – slamming it behind him. The slam echoed in the empty house long after he was gone. I knew that it represented the death knell for my marriage.
He returned hours later, drenched in sweat and clearly exhausted. I knew he’d gone to the gym. I had a feeling there was a punching bag or a treadmill there that would probably need replacing.
I couldn’t look at him. He came and sat at the other end of the couch.
‘Are we going to get past this?’ I asked him. My voice was hoarse.
‘I don’t know,’ Leo admitted, and finally he looked at me.
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Just… give me space.’
‘Okay,’ I whispered, but it was frustrating beyond words. Leo always said that – give me space – and if I wasn’t so broken, I might have asked him just how much bloody space a man could possibly need.
After a day a day or two, I actually started to wonder if we were somehow going to be okay. We had settled into a surprising kind of calm. The space between us felt fragile, but not as tense as it once had – not so taut it might shatter at any second – now it was a sensitive thing that we had to nurture carefully. We did not talk about the baby or what I’d done – although Leo returned to our bed, and I woke several times to find his hand resting on my belly.
And then, at dinner one night, Leo told me that he had booked his flights to return to Syria and that he and Brad had finalised the plans he’d been working on. He’d tried to tell me in Istanbul, but I’d been so resentful at that stage that I’d always cut him off or changed the subject before he could really explain the project.