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“I told you. To cope. With the stress of work, the run-up to summer, and you… not being there. Emotionally present. And I think it all got on top of me when Anonymity Smith came out as non-binary to me.”
My blood ran cold, and I froze in the process of drawing absent-minded circles into the sand.
“How come?” My voice sounded strange and distant to my own ears, but she didn’t seem to register anything was amiss.
“I guess it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was so strung-out with everything else that that was when I started smoking in earnest, rather than just the odd cigarette before work began. Suddenly I was responsible for the most personal of this child’s inner workings. And it was up to me whether to make or break them.” She blew out a breath of air through her lips. “I knew that you’d find the receipts or see the transaction on the bank statement if I got the cigarettes myself, so Stella got them the same time she bought her own, and I gave her cash.”
I shook my head and returned to the topic that spoke to me most. “So you… have a problem with non-binary… ness?”
“What?” Her expression was incredulous. “No, of course not. It was just another block on top of the teetering Jenga pile that was my life, and I didn’t dare let it fall in the final half-term of the year, the most active one.”
“Let’s rewind. You said I wasn’t emotionally present. But neither were you.”
“Well, I had a reason for that. Because I was stressed with work. Your job isn’t quite as stressful, so I don’t expect you to understand, but it was just…”
She stopped and clawed at her hair, then let out a growl of frustration.
“The pressure. You don’t understand the pressure of being nice all the time. You get to walk out of work, and come back to the village and be yourself again, rather than Customer Service Jean. For me, the only time I can relax and be my true self is when I’m within our own four walls. Because the moment I step outside, I’m besieged by pupils, or former pupils, or parents, or former parents. I’m not Petra out here, I’m Mrs Taylor. Or the former Miss Andino.”
Now she scrubbed at her eyes.
“When I was training to be a teacher, my mentor told me to be the person I needed the most when I was younger. This was one of the first things she told me – and she never even knew about the shit I went through with my family. The person I needed most when I was younger was who I am now. At work. Kind and compassionate and loving. I project as much love and care onto those kids as I can because they, like me, might be missing it completely at home. It might be the only love and care they get in the whole of their childhoods. But I just can’t keep that up all the time.”
“But what about me?” I was surprised to find my voice breaking. “Don’t I deserve your love and care too?”
“Well, I can’t pour from an empty cup!” Petra’s voice broke too. “Don’t you understand? There’s nothing left of me to give. And I thought I could rely on you to prop me up when I was falling, but instead of that you’ve just been… absent.”
Here it was: the perfect opening for me to tell her why. Why I’d been absent. What I’d been going through.
But I couldn’t say it. Not when she was looking at me so… accusatorily.
“You can’t twist this on me. You can’t make this all my fault.” Now my voice was unexpectedly even. “I’ve been absent, yes, but you have too. You’ve been pouring your worries into those tiny little cigarette packets you carry around with you. I’ve tried to be there for you, but every time I tried, you pushed me away.”
Petra looked like she was about to retort, but then she deflated. “Fuck.” She pushed a hand through her hair again. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” She put her head in her hands. This was when I’d ordinarily have pulled her in for a hug, but I still didn’t dare touch her somehow.
After a moment, she sat up straight again, and wiped her nose roughly with the heel of her hand in the absence of a tissue. Another deep breath and her eyes settled on me, just for a second, before her face crumpled.
“Oh, Jean.” For a second, she looked like she was going to reach for me, but instead she looked past me out into the sunset. “Perhaps I’m just not that good at being married. Perhaps I’m better off alone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She didn’t answer.
“Petra?”
“I just… I feel like one of those squishy overstuffed fabric sofas your parents had in their living room, but one that’s been stuffed so full you think it’s about to burst. I can feel myself getting more and more rigid and my seams ripping, and now I’m so close to exploding that I need to get you out of the way. So you won’t be in the destruction zone when it blows.”
“When it blows?” This time my voice was incredulous. “Isn’t this it? Blowing?”
“Perhaps it is.” Now her voice was soulless. “And I do need to get you out of the way. So I don’t destroy you any more than I already have. I really do think we need a divorce, Jean. I just can’t see us ever being happy again. Can you?”
“I can.” Somehow, I still felt it.
She looked back at me in surprise.
“I’ve been thinking so much over the last couple of weeks. And I think we can find our way back through this. Just with… time and space. More time and more space.”
“How much more? We’ve had two weeks, and we’ve been at opposite ends of the village. There isn’t a whole lot more space to have, not unless I left the village entirely. Which would throw a spanner in the works with regards to my job.”
