‘Then go, Molly! Go back to your ivory tower. Go and lament with your daddy what a scumbag I turned out to be and you can even have his approval back. Just fucking go!’
I burst into tears and then I ran up the stairs and lay on our bed and just sobbed. Lucien came and lay on the bed beside me and I knew Leo would be pissed off about it, but I let the dog comfort me and then when he fell asleep there, I childishly let him slobber all over Leo’s pillows.
It was well after two in the morning when I heard Leo climb the stairs. I was still lying awake – although I’d long since stopped crying. He sat on my side of the bed right beside me and I thought he was going to apologise. Of all our fights, and there had been more arguments than I could count over that last year, we’d never been quite so cruel before – neither one of us, and I was as scared by it as I was shocked. It was a sign that all of those things that had been building – the disdain, the lack of respect, the contempt – even my betrayal of his trust – those aspects to our marriage had completely overtaken us.
‘We can’t do this anymore,’ he whispered.
I sat up. Lucien sat up too, and then he saw Leo and leapt off the bed and disappeared down the stairs. Leo didn’t move and he did not touch me. The room was semi-dark, illuminated only from the lights downstairs. I could see Leo’s face, but I couldn’t read it.
‘I know,’ I whispered.
‘I know we always say this, but I promise you, Molly, I mean it. I don’t want to fight again tonight.’
‘I don’t want to fight either,’ I said, and I thought about how many times I’d said that to him over the years. There was a basic essential truth to the statement. I had never wanted to fight with him – it was the last resort when I grew desperate. I had only ever wanted to reach him, but it is so very difficult to catch up with someone who is always pulling away.
I waited, because this was the part where he was supposed to take me in his arms and we’d console each other. When Leo did not move to comfort me, I was actually confused.
‘You know what my childhood was like,’ he said, still very quietly. ‘You know – that argument tonight? We could have had a five-year-old in the next room, lying in bed shaking with the fury of it, and we’d still have gone at it like that. We weren’t in control of ourselves. We weren’t respectful of each other and we haven’t been for a long time. What we had, it’s just gone, Molly… and what’s left isn’t worth repairing. I have seen what life looks like for a kid when a family revolves around anger. I want the defining moments of our baby’s life to be filled with laughter and love, not fury and shouting. We can do that for our baby,’ he stopped for a moment, and cleared his throat before he added, ‘But we can’t do it together.’
At this I lost my breath. I was forming a counter-argument even as I realised what he was saying was true. It was still habit to argue, but I had run out of energy for the fight.
‘You told me you hated me tonight. You can’t say you didn’t mean it, can you? Face it, Molly, I’ve done a terrible job of being a husband – I’m a complete failure at this. All I have done is to hurt you and to disappoint you.’
‘That’s just not true, Leo,’ I said, but I was surprised at the calm resignation in my voice. ‘We did have good times – we had some great times.’
‘We did. But we’re a long way from those days now. I know I’ve already treated you badly, Molly – I know that as well as you do. But now there’s this new thing between us that I just don’t think I can forgive. If you think things have been ugly in the past… God, it can only get worse the way I feel now. The best way forward for us is a fresh start – apart.’
I knew I needed to apologise, but I also knew that the words would mean nothing at all to Leo now. I had taken something from him, and in so doing, I had damaged the trust between us in a way that could never be repaired. All that I could hope now was that if I could be mature about this, I might one day regain some of his respect.
Leo turned to face me, and I could just make out the shape of sadness in his eyes.
‘This is who I am, you know. I can’t change, I don’t even want to – no more than you want to change. We’ve given it our best shot, and we could have kept trying for another year or two, even ten years, but the outcome would always have been this moment. Now that we are going to be parents, we can’t afford to waste any more time trying and failing. I would rather see you happy and content and peacefully settled down with someone else…’