If he said yes, would that make her feel lighter, or would it wrap another chain of doubt around her neck?
The past ten years had been emotional. First her mum dying, and her dad struggling to cope with the grief. Then, less than a year later, she and Dean had married. Four years ago, her dad had had a heart attack and needed more support, especially when he’d had to take early retirement and hadn’t known what to do with himself. And then, three and a half years ago, after several miscarriages, Mia had been born. But Dean’s business had suddenly taken off just when Becca had gone back to work, and life had been hectic ever since.
Every time she thought they’d reached a settled phase, something else would happen. The most recent upheaval was buying this house next to the golf course on the edge of Llandudno. It was more stressful than she could have imagined because it was a new build and Dean had wanted changes to the specification, so it fitted their needs perfectly. ‘If it’s going to be our forever home, we’ve got to get it right,’ he’d said more than once.
Becca would be the first to admit that she and change were not good friends.
It took her a while to adjust to new ideas, and after the troubles of her past, her therapist had advised her not to take on too much change at once, to let one thing become part of her routine before introducing anything else that was new. Life had other ideas of course, pulling her this way and that, thrusting decisions and situations in her path at a speed she found overwhelming at times.
Too much change at once gave her a mental paralysis, a state of mind where she was incapable of knowing what it was she actually wanted. Unable to voice an opinion, she just let events happen. And that was how she’d ended up here, married to Dean with a three-year-old child, instead of in Australia with Connor and – who knew – possibly a different child. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t thought about it a hundred times. Probably a lot more, if she was honest. Especially on those days when Dean wasn’t there and she was alone, trying to entertain a hyperactive Mia. Lonely. Yes, that was the truth of it. She often felt lonely.
Dean’s business was like a third person in their marriage, regularly taking him away for weekends and sometimes weeks at a time. In recent years, he’d specialised in running corporate events based on golf – his passion – using iconic courses all over the world. Companies would run team-building activities, strategy workshops or sales events in the mornings, followed by a round of golf in the afternoon or evening. Work and play. It was a win-win formula. He’d spotted a gap in the market and he’d been so right. Now he had so much work, he’d taken on a partner, an ex-professional golfer who had the industry contacts he needed; together, they were dynamite. It didn’t help that his partner was lithe and attractive and called Alice.
Becca didn’t like Alice. Or was it that she didn’t like Alice being Dean’s business partner?
The fact that Dean and Alice spent so much time together was the problem, and she found her insufferable, all puffed up and full of her own importance. She had a tendency to ignore Becca because, really, what did they have in common? Alice was focused, driven, her life all about golf, to the exclusion of almost everything else. There was no overt animosity, just a tendency to avoid each other if at all possible, a strategy they all seemed happy with.
Becca sighed. Hand on heart, she couldn’t say she was happy. Stressed: that was her overriding state of mind, a hamster on a wheel, running to keep up with everything life was throwing at her. It wasn’t how she’d envisaged her life with Dean.
Did I make a mistake? she wondered now, looking at her message to Connor. Did I pick the wrong man?
2
Becca woke feeling groggy and unprepared for the new day, having stayed up longer than she usually would, waiting for Connor to answer. Eventually, when her eyes had kept closing, her chin nodding on to her chest, she’d understood there would be no reply and she’d crept back to bed.
In her first hazy moments of wakefulness, Becca thought back to when she and Dean started dating, and he would bring a cup of coffee for her to drink in bed in the mornings – workdays and weekends. It was a routine that had never faltered from the first night she’d stayed with him. He’d always done it for his mum, he’d explained, after his dad died and she was on her own. It was his way of showing her she was loved.
Once Mia had arrived in their lives, and Dean’s business took off, their routines were transformed, and coffee in bed became a thing of the past. Not even on birthdays or Mother’s Day. In fact, Dean was so distracted by the myriad tasks he always had to do that he hardly bothered to say good morning these days, his mind on work as soon as he hopped out of bed. Of course, she was happy for him that he found his business fulfilling, but it absorbed so much of his time and mental energy there was nothing left for her. Or Mia for that matter.
How strange, she pondered now, as she watched him getting dressed, that the man who had been absorbed by the idea of a family for all those years before Mia had arrived now spent so little time with his daughter. Perhaps the reality doesn’t match the dream? Not for the first time, a cold emptiness filled her chest, a sense that somehow she wasn’t shaping up to be the wife and mother he’d hoped she’d be. That home life wasn’t as enjoyable as being at work.
She watched him slick back his short dark hair and gave herself a mental shake. It’s all for us, she reminded herself. He’s building a secure future. Wasn’t that what he’d said the other night when she’d told him she missed him? ‘It won’t be forever. But we’re in the middle of our expansion plans and I can’t take my foot off the gas just yet.’ He’d kissed her then. But even when he was kissing her, she wasn’t sure his heart was in it.
Loneliness was the last emotion she’d expected from marriage. But there it was, chilling her heart, the moment she woke up and saw her husband eagerly preparing for his day. Was it any wonder she’d taken to daydreaming about her past? No harm in daydreams, she told herself, pushing Connor’s face out of her mind and focusing instead on her husband.
Dean slapped aftershave on his face then stood in front of the wardrobe surveying his assortment of ties.
‘Jon Snow,’ she said as she watched. It was a little game she liked to play, each tie having a name, and this one was named after a newsreader who loved a splash of colour.
He reached for the tie, raised an eyebrow as he turned to her, holding it up under his chin, a riot of fluorescent patterned silk. ‘This one?’
‘Perfect.’ She watched him deliberate then carefully put it back, pulling out a conservative navy and maroon one instead.
‘Alice hates Jon Snow.’ He grimaced in the wardrobe mirror as he slung the tie round his neck. ‘Says it’s juvenile and lacks class. I’ll go for David Cameron instead, I think.’
Becca took a sip of water from the glass on her bedside table, swallowing her retort back down. So, Alice has a say over how you dress now? Nice. Of course, she wouldn’t say it, wouldn’t want to start the day with an argument, and she knew how petty it would sound.
Dean finished tying his tie and took his suit jacket from its hanger, shrugged it on. ‘Presentable?’ he asked as he turned to face her.