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“Would you consider giving me another chance?” His face opened up. He looked young and vulnerable all over again like he had when they were just two kids in love.
“I’m not sure. I have a whole new life on the island. It’s a lot to take in. I thought you’d moved on.”
“I haven’t,” he admitted.
“We’d have to see a counsellor. I couldn’t start things back up again the way they were. We need to get to the bottom of what went wrong before we could even consider trying again.”
He nodded vigorously. “Counselling, yes, let’s try that. I think it’s a great idea. If it doesn’t work out, we can go our separate ways, but at least we’d have tried. I know that’s what the kids want us to do.”
“And what about you?” she asked.
“I want that too,” he said, reaching for her hand and taking it in his.
She stared down at their connected hands, her mind in a whirl. How had they gotten here? She’d never have imagined this was how their coffee catch-up would go. She’d come here with questions, and now even more of them buzzed around in her thoughts. But she owed it to herself and her family to see if they could salvage their marriage.
She nodded. “Okay, let’s see a counsellor.”
Seventeen
When Monday rolled around,Preston convinced Bea to postpone her flight. So she did. Instead, the two of them went to a counselling appointment. He’d managed to find a counsellor through a friend at work who’d had a cancellation and could slot them in at the last moment. Bea was nervous about the whole thing — she’d never been much for counselling. It seemed invasive.
Telling your innermost thoughts to a stranger and having them ask questions like “And how does that make you feel?” and “What did you think of that?”It set her teeth on edge. But if that’s what it took for Preston to rethink the destruction of their family unit, she owed it to her kids to give it a chance.
Bea met Preston outside the counsellor’s office. He leaned in to kiss her, but she turned her head so his lips met her cheek instead. She wasn’t ready to do what he was asking — they wouldn’t get back together until she felt as though he’d changed and she could trust him with her heart and her family again. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. She’d had a glimpse of how life could be without him, and it beckoned.
Now that she was back in Sydney, it was hard to believe she’d spent the past two months on Coral Island — it was more like a dream than the reality of the bustling city where she’d spent all of her adult life.
She’d spoken to Dani that morning, who assured her the renovation would go on without her. They talked over paint selections and decided together what should be done. Dani said she was happy to coordinate with Brett and that Bea shouldn’t worry herself — the cottage would still be there when she was ready to return to it.
There was an undercurrent of excitement in Dani’s voice, and Bea knew she and Harry were both barracking for their parents to reconcile. The knowledge of that made her anxiety worse — she couldn’t promise them a reunion, only that she would let their father have an opportunity to make amends. After that, they would both see if they were ready to give their marriage another chance.
The rapid about-face Preston had undertaken was confusing and a little concerning to Bea. Maybe he’d felt pressured to give his new girlfriend the family life they’d all shared together, to give his new son a chance at having a father around. Maybe he’d changed his mind once he realised how much he’d missed Beatrice. Or perhaps there was something else going on she hadn’t quite put her finger on yet. But whatever it was, she was determined to take things slowly and be more careful with her heart this time around.
“Please take a seat. I’m Juliette.” The counsellor sat across from them. She crossed her short legs, her green jeans contrasting sharply with a bright orange silk shirt.
“What brought you in to see me today?” She smiled, glancing from Bea to Preston and back again, her heavily made-up eyes half hidden behind a pair of black-rimmed spectacles.
“We’re separated,” Preston began, in his most businesslike voice. “And we want to work through the issues that caused the separation in the first place. We’d like to give our marriage another chance.”
“For the sake of our children.”
“Our family,” Preston corrected, reaching for Bea’s hand.
“I see. Why don’t you tell me what happened, and we can go from there?”
As Bea and Preston laid out the circumstances that led to their separation, her heart was squeezed from every side all over again. The more she thought about the years leading up to their split, the more regret she felt, realising how differently she would do things now given a chance at redemption. But was redemption even possible after everything they’d been through and all the pain they’d each experienced?
Hearing Preston’s side of things was eye-opening, to say the least. She’d had no idea he’d felt the way he did in their marriage. She had to give him, and them, a real chance or she would only add to her list of regrets.
Three weeks later, Bea was still in Sydney. She’d found a room to rent from a friend of hers who had a fully furnished guesthouse available above the garage. They were away overseas, and Bea had promised to keep an eye on the place for them while she stayed there. The property was impressive, with a double tennis court, large in-ground swimming pool and extensive landscaping. Every afternoon, the watering system flicked on and sprinklers saturated the property — she’d been caught outside reading or walking more than once when she forgot to check her watch.
She and Preston had attended counselling sessions twice per week with Juliette and her garish-coloured clothing. Bea had come to love the woman, who rarely asked the kinds of questions that made Bea’s skin crawl and instead listened with compassion and empathy to both their points of view in equal measure.
Bea felt as though they’d made progress, although readily admitted to both Preston and Juliette that she still wasn’t willing to open her heart up to the idea of a reconciliation. The lack of interest surprised her. She’d loved Preston for so long, but couldn’t put a finger on when that had become a habit more than a reality for her.
“Give it time,” Evie had said when she’d confided in her friend. “There’s a lot of pain involved.”
But at this stage, she wasn’t sure time would do much more than make her more resolved to move on. During one of their sessions, she’d forgiven Preston for his unfaithfulness and the way he’d broken the news to her. They’d both shed tears that day. Still, it didn’t change the way she felt about their marriage.
