But I can’t stand to hear this for a moment longer. I shake my head, and the slight pain in my skull as I do so is perhaps a fitting punishment for what I’m about to say. ‘I need to tell you something, and this is really hard for me to admit… but I hope that you will see how committed I am to us fixing this. Okay?'
I’m talking too much – prolonging the moment, putting off what I need to say because I’m so utterly mortified to have to say it. The patient acceptance I see in my wife’s gaze does nothing to bolster my courage. I raise my chin and I look at the television on the wall above the fireplace. It is huge and it does not belong in my house; it belongs in her house. This is our house, and that makes it my house. Every aspect of this moment pulls at me and I am torn up in knots inside that seem to be getting tighter as I procrastinate with thoughts instead of telling Molly the truth.
‘I had planned a trip for us too, Molly,’ I admit eventually. ‘I was going to surprise you too.’
‘You were?’ I glance at her only long enough to recognise the shock in her wide eyes.
‘I had hired a little cabin on the south coast. I couldn’t wait to see you,’ I admit. ‘I missed you so badly, even talking to you on the phone was painful for me. I had visions of this love-fest in a sleepy village I’d found online. I Googled something lame like “most romantic getaways, driving distance of Sydney”. It was a simple little place, secluded – no bells or whistles, just a big bed and a balcony over the water on this little inlet. I’d even booked a car so we could take Lucien with us.’
‘You should have told me, that’s so sweet…’ she says, but then she shakes her head against my thigh. ‘In any case, the “sweet idea” is all very well and good, but it doesn’t make any difference because you didn’t come home anyway.’
‘You told me the name of your resort when we were on the phone, and I Googled that too.’
I remember the sinking feeling in my gut as I read about it, and realised just what kind of place she’d planned for us. I’d been imagining our weekend away to be just like that amazing trip we took to Uluru – staying somewhere comfortable but modest – somewhere I could afford to pay for myself. I didn’t think the setting mattered until I saw what she had planned. I thought our focus would be on time together more than anything else.
‘So…?’
‘You called it a “retreat”,’ I say gently. ‘But it wasn’t a “retreat”, Molly – it was an exclusive resort – the price for even the most basic room was thousands of dollars per night, and I knew you wouldn’t have booked the most basic room.’
‘I didn’t. I wanted to surprise you – I knew how tough things had been for you in Iraq,’ she whispered, and she shook her head again. ‘I don’t understand, Leo. It’s not like we couldn’t afford it.’
‘I’d planned a humble, simple weekend away. You would have been so disappointed if it had gone ahead as I planned. No gourmet food, no butler, no private balcony with sunken spa, not a masseuse in sight. And Molly, I knew I was going to feel very uncomfortable in that place you had booked – but that was your expectation of a casual weekend away. I didn’t even know about such places, let alone think to book them for us.’
‘Are you telling me that you didn’t come home because you didn’t want to go to my resort?’
She sounds angry, and so she should. I hesitate a little. ‘No, it was much more complex than that. There were good reasons to stay. There was genuine unrest brewing; good stories to write…’ I dare to glance at her again and find her eyes swimming in tears. The breath leaves my lungs in a rush. ‘No. Yes. Okay, Molly, I will be brutally honest with you. I stayed in the field because I felt powerful and capable there. And when I looked at your plans for our first anniversary, I felt completely out of my depth with you.’ I force myself to continue – tearing myself open – pressing through the pain because it might be a way forward and we have to find a way forward, but the words I say come from a place so deep inside me that I could have hidden them forever and no one would have known. ‘I don’t think I have ever felt as inadequate as I did that day.’
Molly draws in a shuddering breath and a single tear rolls down her face. I’m breathing heavily because that admission was hard work and now I’m feeling exposed and unsure if it’s even going to be worth it. I touch a shaking fingertip to dry the line of moisture that has run from her eye down into her hair, and suddenly I need to hold her: I need to wrap my arms around her and promise her that I will do better.
I remain still, because I am not at all sure I deserve to have that need met.
‘If you had just told me this…’ she says unsteadily.
‘Surely you understand that I couldn’t.’
‘Why are you telling me now?’
‘I told you,’ I whisper, ‘I will do whatever it takes to fix this. Maybe these conversations, as painful as they are, are all that was missing in the first place. Do you think?’
Molly sits up and she throws her arms around my neck and she presses her face into it.
‘I’m so sorry, Leo.’