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“I’m guessing that didn’t last,” I say, finishing my ravioli and pushing my plate aside. Tanner finished his a while ago, and he takes my hand in his again, which feels comforting… even more so than it did before.
“No. It was just after Nash’s fifth birthday when she was contacted by a couple in Willmont Vale, who’d had a property constructed, and wanted Sabrina to design the interior. She took it on and then came and told me about it, which made me kinda mad. It was a vast project, which meant she’d be working long hours over several months, and I felt she should have discussed it with me first. She argued Nash was at school, so it wouldn’t be too difficult, and while I couldn’t disagree with that, things between the two of us were still kinda rocky, and I didn’t like the idea of her being away so much.”
“Because you didn’t trust her?” I say and he sucks in a breath, frowning.
“I don’t remember thinking that at the time. The way I put it to her was that it was gonna be hard to make things right between us if we weren’t even in the same town. She disagreed. Naturally. But maybe, subconsciously, I didn’t trust her. I couldn’t. Not after she slept with Mitch.”
“And you were right?”
He looks down at the table. “She was about four weeks into the project,” he says, raising his head again, his eyes reflecting how painful this is. I want to tell him to stop, but part of me thinks he needs to tell the story, as much as I need to hear it. I need to understand him. “As I’d predicted, her hours were crazy, and she’d barely been at home. She kept assuring me everything was okay, and I wanted to believe her. Things still weren’t right, but I knew they never would be if we didn’t try. So, one Friday, I drove over to Willmont Vale, thinking I’d take her out to lunch somewhere. I found the house easily enough, although I remember feeling surprised by how quiet it was, and that there was no-one working on the site. Sabrina’s car was there, though, so I assumed everyone else must have gone to lunch, and as the front door was open, I went inside… and found Sabrina in the newly constructed kitchen, having sex on the island unit with one of the contractors.”
I can’t help gasping, and Tanner seems to notice. He tightens his grip on my hand, and then brushes his thumb across my knuckles, making my skin tingle.
“W—What happened?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “At least not right then. They didn’t notice me, and I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation with either of them, so I turned around and drove straight home again. I called the mom of one of Nash’s friends and asked if she’d collect him from school for me. She agreed to take him back to her place, and then when Sabrina came home, I told her what I’d seen, and that I’d had enough, and wanted a divorce.”
“How did she react?”
He opens his mouth to tell me, just as the waiter reappears and removes our plates. The interruption is annoying, although it can’t be helped, and once he’s gone again, we both lean forward, and Tanner offers me more wine, which I accept.
As he pours, he lets out a sigh. “She begged me to reconsider,” he says.
“She didn’t want your marriage to end, even though she’d cheated… twice?”
“I don’t think it was that. I’ve never really understood why she made such a fuss over the divorce… not just before, but during and after, too. Like you say, she was the one who cheated, so it would have made more sense for her to want out. Except I guess Sabrina cared more about what people thought than I did. She knew our divorce would become public knowledge, and the subject of gossip, and I think her primary concern was that people in the town would find out what she’d done.”
“Then maybe she shouldn’t have done it,” I say, and he smiles.
“That didn’t occur to her. As far as she was concerned, I was the one being unreasonable and spoiling everything, and when I refused to give in to her pleas, she escalated things into a full-scale fight. I was relieved Nash wasn’t there, because even though I stayed fairly calm, Sabrina was throwing things and screaming the place down.”
“She was? Why? She was the one in the wrong.”
“Hmm… and she didn’t like the fact that she’d been caught… again. She was bitter and angry, and she wanted to lash out, and in doing so, she let slip that what I’d witnessed that afternoon wasn’t a one-off. She and the guy she’d been with had been seeing each other for years, it seemed. His name was Reuben, and he’d worked with her on various projects.”
“Going back how far?” I ask.
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t give me a straight answer. She also wouldn’t tell me if it had just been him and Mitch, or if there had been others. I didn’t like the sound of her silences, so I demanded a DNA test. I had to know if I was Nash’s father… biologically speaking.”
“What happened?”
“She didn’t argue with me about that, which made me think he must be mine, because if there had been any doubt, she’d have put up a fight. I went ahead with the test anyway, and while I was waiting for the results, I slept on the couch, and she practically barricaded herself in our bedroom. There’s no door, so she moved the furniture around, making sure I had to clamber over it to get up there. Of course, she also had to clamber over it to get down, but she didn’t seem to care about that.”
“It sounds awful.”
“It was.”
“Can I assume Nash is yours?” I ask.
“You can. Knowing that didn’t change how I felt about him, but Sabrina took advantage of the situation and used the fact that I’d got the tests done as an excuse to deny me access to Nash when she left.”
“She left?”
“Yes. The day after I got the test results. I think climbing over the furniture had lost its appeal.”
I smile and he does too. “And she took your son with her?” I ask, my smile fading.
“She did.”
