And she seems so jaded. I hate it, and I hate knowing that I probably caused it. ‘Is that a bad thing?’ I ask her. ‘Do you think I’m being naive?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I just… I really don’t know if I can go through all of this again, Leo, not if we’re going to wind up right back here.’
‘We won’t, I promise.’ I release her gently, then run my hands over the stubble on my head as I exhale. ‘God, this is not what I was expecting when I came over here today.’
‘I’m so sorry, Leo,’ she sighs.
I take her hand and hold it tightly between mine. I consider the softness of her skin against my fingers, and the burning fire of the way that I love her. Perhaps there is hard work ahead of us, perhaps there is a mess behind us that I cannot see yet, but I am not afraid of a fight – and I’m certain that if there is one thing in my life worth fighting for it’s Molly.
25
Molly – December 2011
On the morning of our wedding day, I woke up in Leo’s terrace. It was my terrace too by then, at least in theory. We had moved the last of my clothing in the weekend before, and we were going to be leasing out my apartment as an executive holiday rental accommodation. The terrace did not yet feel like home to me but we were discussing renovations. It was the smallest home I’d ever lived in and it would cost a fortune to make it a comfortable space for me but I knew I would build a wonderful life there… as long as Leo was happy.
He was lying on his side beside me, wide awake; he had been watching me sleep. I turned towards him and stared back at him in the early morning light. He’d had a haircut the previous evening, and except for a shadow of dark growth over his cheeks and neck, he was almost clean-shaven. Leo tended to let his hair and beard grow wild between haircuts, but I loved the civility of his look when he was newly shaved.
‘Hey,’ he whispered.
‘Watching me sleep, huh?’ I whispered back.
‘I didn’t want to go back to sleep in case I woke up and realised this was all a dream.’
I smiled softly and touched his cheek with my hand.
‘I know how you feel.’
‘Are you nervous?’ he asked.
I shook my head. I wasn’t at all nervous about marrying Leo, or the ceremony, or even the reception we’d planned – but I was nervous about Dad. He hadn’t responded to the invitation. I’d called Mum, and she told me he didn’t want to come, but she was working on it. I’d asked her if she’d come alone if he refused. She didn’t answer me.
I could not believe I was about to marry the love of my life but without my parents there to see it happen. . . without my father there to walk me down the aisle. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
‘I just wish Dad was coming,’ I said.
‘I kind of wish that too,’ Leo whispered.
‘You do?’
‘For you I do.’
‘They might surprise me. Mum said she was working on him.’
‘Will she come without him if he refuses?’
I swallowed. ‘I really don’t know.’ I tried to keep my voice steady but failed as I whispered, ‘I don’t want to walk down that aisle by myself. It’s the only part of today that won’t be just as I dreamt.’
‘It makes me so angry that they can’t just be happy for you, Molly.’
‘Maybe if we hadn’t embarrassed them at the awards dinner…’ I said. Leo’s jaw tightened, and I added hastily, ‘I didn’t mean that you did the wrong thing. I just meant maybe if I’d been honest and told them upfront earlier, maybe things would have been different.’
‘Things couldn’t have been different because the awards dinner wasn’t the problem, love. I’m the problem, you know that.’
‘You are not a problem.’
‘To your dad, I am. I don’t fit in his world – I’m a worker bee, not royalty. You’re marrying beneath you.’
I regretted bringing the topic up. I pushed Leo onto his back and straddled him, and when he looked up at me with surprise, I said, ‘Well if I have to marry “beneath” me, I may as well make the most of it!’
26
Leo – August 2015
As I’m pushing myself into the obstetricians for Molly’s appointment, I realise that I have recovered a memory from the first year of our marriage. It happens like that sometimes – there’s a feeling or some vague familiarity and all of a sudden I know about a moment that had been completely lost to me just seconds before.