Page 47 of The Work Husband

I wish we could find a way to go back to how things were before. Erase everything that’s happened, like wiping one of those old video tapes to record new stuff over. But we can’t because no matter what we decide to do now, what’s happened will always have happened, and I can’t change that.

You look so innocent, sleeping there – like you haven’t got a care in the world. I wish you could stay that way forever, but I know you can’t – same as I can’t fall asleep and realise when I wake up that it’s all been a dream and we can just carry on like before.

Sam, I love you. I wish I could have always been

Your

Ava

My hands had been steady when I picked up the letter, but they weren’t now.

The paper was fluttering even though the air in the room was still. I felt sick. I read the note again, right the way through. I thought about taking a photo of it with my phone, but my phone was in the bedroom, and there was only one more thing I was going to do when I went back in there.

I didn’t need a photo anyway. I knew what Ava had written and what it meant. My palms were slippery with sweat, so much that I worried if my fingers touched the writing on the page, they’d smudge the purple ink. Maybe if I wiped my palms all over it, I could erase it all, but I knew I would never be able to wipe it from my mind.

Feeling like the muscles in my legs had been replaced with wet spaghetti, I walked back into our bedroom. Silently, I retrieved Sam’s jeans from beneath the bed, replaced the letter in the pocket and slid the jeans back again.

I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had absolutely no idea. I found myself longing to talk to Jamie, to turn to him for comfort and advice, even though I knew it was Sam I needed to talk to.

But I also knew that I couldn’t let him know what I’d found.

Not yet.

TWENTY-THREE

‘So run this past me again. She did what?’ Drawing furiously on his vape, Jamie power-walked down the street so fast I had to scuttle to keep up.

‘Wrote him a… look, would you slow down?’ My pointy ballet flats weren’t up to the pace, and the last thing I wanted was to face-plant in the middle of a busy Mayfair street. ‘I can’t tell you what’s happened if I feel like I’m doing a spin class.’

‘We’re here anyway.’ Jamie came to an abrupt stop and pushed open the door of the sandwich shop. ‘I’ll grab a table. Get me a pastrami on rye, extra pickles and a full-fat Coke, please, babe.’

I joined the queue at the counter. It was lunchtime on Monday, and I’d only just had the chance to reveal the weekend’s events to my colleague – or, at least, the very briefest precis because as soon as I’d mentioned Ava’s letter, he’d said, ‘What the actual fuck? Come on – we can’t talk about this here,’ and hustled me out of the office at top speed, which turned out to be on target to beat my Parkrun personal best.

The relief of having someone I could confide in was overwhelming. Throughout Saturday evening and Sunday, I’d tried to pretend to Sam that everything was okay, having simply no idea when or how to reveal to him what I knew. Our reconciliation had brought me so much joy – for those few hours, I’d been reassured that we loved each other and everything would return to normal.

But Ava’s letter had brought that crashing down again. I couldn’t talk to Sam – I could barely look at him. In the end, I’d faked a migraine and gone to bed, where I’d remained for most of Sunday.

I’d tried to call Molly, but her phone had rung out, and she’d responded a few hours later with a brief text message saying that Arthur had colic and had been screaming the house down all weekend, it was taking all she had not to scream too and she hoped I was okay.

There was no way it was the right time to tell her just how not okay I was; she had enough on her plate. There was only one person left for me to turn to now, only one person who’d understand.

I reached the front of the queue at the sandwich shop counter and ordered Jamie’s lunch and a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel for myself, although I wasn’t hungry. Then I joined the queue on the other side of the counter, waited for our food to be ready and carried it back to our table.

Jamie was watching me expectantly, twiddling his vape in his fingers.

‘Right,’ he said, when I’d sat down. ‘What’s all this, then? Hit me with it.’

Miserably, I gave him a rundown of the contents of Ava’s letter.

‘They’ve slept together,’ I choked out. The words felt as jagged as razor blades in my throat. ‘Honestly, I never thought it had got that far. But it has.’

‘Are you sure? Like, it could have been a letter she wrote him years ago and she only gave it to him now, or he’s kept it or something like that?’

I shook my head, remembering the crisp, expensive paper, the bright purple ink. ‘It wasn’t old. It looked like it had just been written.’

‘And you haven’t said anything to him?’

‘I just don’t know how I should play it. I mean, obviously it’s over. Either he’s going to end it, or I’ll have to.’