It was a sense of being out of place that triggered today’s memory. I was looking around, marvelling at the immense windows and the photos of celebrities nursing newborns on the walls of the lobby. I wondered how much this medical care was costing her – costing us, I corrected myself – and then suddenly I remembered terse discussions we’d had in the early days of our marriage about combining our finances.
Molly had been determined from the outset that we should just roll everything together. It didn’t seem a big deal to her, just the logical next step. I’d been carrying on as I always had – automatically paying the bills on the terrace on my own. For me the best-case scenario was for us both to live at my place and for me to manage the bills on the house, and then we could just separately manage our private expenses. I didn’t even want to know how her money situation worked – the trust fund, her shares, her assets – I wanted to stay ignorant.
I had set my heart on an outcome where I could continue to pretend that the vast difference in our net worth wasn’t actually real. I’d always felt rich before I met Molly. I had no debts and plenty of savings – more money than I could have dreamt of when I was a kid. But then I married the love of my life and I couldn’t escape the reality that, comparatively, I was still a pauper after all. It bewildered me why Molly was so determined that I should have access to her money, but over time, it became harder and harder to avoid it.
‘It’s stupid for you to pay all of the bills here, and impractical for us to try to split them. Leo, my money is your money. It would be so much simpler just to roll it all together now so we don’t need to worry about a budget for the renovations. My tastes are expensive…’
Eventually I did as she asked, but only because I could see she was getting upset about my refusal and I still felt a little guilty about insisting she move into my terrace in the first place. We rolled my savings account and salary over into the trust fund and Molly somehow set up for all of our bills to go to her personal business manager.
I would never have to pay a bill again. The idea was less comforting than I might have imagined it would be. Was I technically a ‘kept man’ now? I didn’t like that idea one bit. I did not marry Molly for her money – in fact, I had married Molly in spite of her money. If I’d had the ability to take her but leave the trust fund with Laith, I’d have done it in a heartbeat.
It bothered me immensely that the source of our wealth was Laith Torrington. If I had despised the man following my encounters with him around Declan’s death, I positively hated him after he refused to come to the wedding. I wished I could have convinced Molly to just cut ties with it all and start a real life with me.
I am not surprised by these memories as they rise, but now, as I see her in the waiting room, I wonder if I’ve made peace with it all. I really hope I have, and that our former tensions were not a foreboding hint of things to come. She had been looking at her phone, but now she sees me approaching and the relief on her face is undeniable.
‘Didn’t you think I was coming? I told you I’d be here,’ I say. She leans forward and I kiss her cheek.
‘I know.’
‘How’s your day been?’
‘Busy. Yours?’
‘The usual. Failed PT, frustrating OT, lunch and then I escaped to come here.’ Her smile is a little too sympathetic and I realise my self-deprecating humour hasn’t translated as I intended. The lack of progress with my mobility is really getting to me. I was so sure I’d be walking again by now. ‘Just joking. It’s been fine. What happens today?’
‘I don’t know. They gave me a referral for tests to have this week but I can’t remember what they were for…’
‘You’re about twelve weeks so I think it was probably the nuchal translucency screening scan and blood test,’ I murmur, and I point towards the corridor. ‘There’s a sonography unit here and I saw a pathology collection room, maybe we can still have them done today.’
‘You’ve already been reading, haven’t you?’ she says, and she raises an eyebrow at me, then narrows her eyes.
I grin at her. ‘Maybe.’
She’s right – I was up researching until very late. I am still a little ambivalent about the pregnancy but there’s one thing I feel one hundred per cent sure about, and that’s how I feel about Molly. I will make myself an expert on all things baby-related if only to support her as we move forward.