‘Just imagine how good it would feel if you found them. Plastered their names and photos around the place a bit.’
A few minutes later Stephen’s voice reverberated through the walls. ‘No more stories. I’m going to sit at the end of the bed while you go to sleep, okay?’ Then more forceful. ‘Thomas. Get back into bed. Right now. I’m not joking this time, buddy.’
I rolled my eyes. Perhaps if my husband hadn’t styled himself as the fun parent, he might not find the process so tough. But then, bedtime wasn’t a breeze for boring-strict-Mum when I did it every other night of the week, either.
The office door opened, and Thomas strutted in. Grabbing my leg, he tried to pull himself up, mountain-climber style, into my lap. Stephen appeared behind him, grabbed the neck of his dressing gown, bundled him up and carried him away. I heard a thump through the door as Stephen dropped him back on his bed. ‘Water!’ Thomas wailed.
‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to call me back.’ The woman at the other end of the phone cut off the call.
I dropped the phone on to my desk and shifted in my chair. A rivulet of sweat gathered between my maternity bra and the top of the stretched skin of my stomach. All I wanted to do was lie on the couch and eat my way through the rest of the packet of chocolate biscuits I had hidden from Thomas in the top of the larder. I checked the desktop calendar lying open beside my notebook. Eight working days until my maternity leave started.
Somehow, less than half an hour later, the story was filed. I tried to push the image out of my mind of the store owner trotting to her car, wielding keys positioned between her fingers. There was still a continuous rhythm of bangs and thuds reverberating from Thomas’s room as he rolled around in his bed, his knees colliding with the wall. I gathered the empty glasses and plates from around my desk and carried them through to the kitchen.
As I placed them in the soapy suds still stewing in the sink, I became aware that Stephen’s phone was buzzing on the counter, the vibration moving it across the shiny surface. It was a rare sighting of his phone in the wild. Stephen’s phone was normally either at his ear, in his hand or his pocket. He had even taken a brief call while I was in labour with Thomas – apparently, there was something more pressing happening that afternoon at the building firm he owned. I hadn’t let him forget that one.
I kept my hands in the water, idly picking away at determined blue playdough under my nails. How long should I hang back before I ventured down the hallway and relieved Stephen? At some point, all kids have to fall asleep, right? Even with dads who were no doubt giving in to requests for one more story or an extra bedtime song.
The phone buzzed again. I turned it over. It was a message, not a call, and from a number that I didn’t recognise.
‘Miss you,’ the message blinked. Surely a wrong number. I swiped to unlock the phone, putting in the date of our wedding anniversary as the security code. It brought up a text exchange with the unsaved contact. Odd.
‘What are you up to?’ Stephen had asked on Monday night. Monday night? I had been contorting myself at a prenatal yoga class, trying to maintain my zen. I’d dragged myself down for a rare class at the studio, though it would have been much easier to just stay home and do another YouTube workout on the LEGO-strewn lounge floor. Stephen had said he was working late, that night. I remembered because I’d had to send Thomas to my parents, where he’d wreaked overtired havoc.
‘Just lying on the couch,’ the mystery number replied.
‘Lucky couch.’ He signed the message off with a heart-eyed emoji. An emoji! Was that meant to be cute?
‘What are you doing?’
‘Sitting here, thinking about you. See you soon?’
‘Of course.’ Whoever the other number was, the message was ended with a heart in return.
Then the exchange had fallen dead for a couple of days. I lowered myself to the kitchen floor, the too-trendy square handle of the cabinet sticking into my back, the cold metal of the phone in my hands. Lucky couch? Thinking about you? I could not get my thoughts to run in order. It was like watching television when Thomas had the remote, zipping forward then doubling back. The blood had retreated from my fingertips, and my stomach had started somersaulting. The tiles were cold under my shins. What was going on?
I shut my eyes. Stephen had been away from home more than usual, blaming work. I’d assumed he was doing extra hours so that he could take some time off when the baby arrived. It had never occurred to me to question whether he might have been somewhere else.
It had been a long time since he had said anything that flirty to me. And what if there was more to it than just messages? On the one hand, the idea was preposterous. This was my clueless Stephen. He once tied himself in guilty knots when a woman at a party gave him her number. Later, we discovered she only wanted him to advise which type of steel she should use for her fence. But on the other, he wasn’t the type to message anyone for the fun of it. I had had to show him how to set up reminders to reply to his work emails, and it had been months since he bothered to respond to any of my texts.
Thomas had finally fallen silent in his bedroom, and I could hear Stephen plodding back down the hallway towards me, blinking like he’d returned from a disappointing all-night dance party. He rubbed his eyes as he emerged into the white LED light of the kitchen but stopped in the doorway when he clocked his phone in my hands. He looked at the illuminated screen, then my face and back again. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Who is this?’ I rose to my feet.
I had to grip the cold floor with my toes to keep myself upright. ‘Who are you texting?’
He spluttered, a mottled flush spreading over his face. He looked as if he’d just swallowed something rancid. ‘What? No one.’
I thrust the phone at him. He snatched it from my hand and looked at the open conversation.
‘What is going on?’ My words were harsh in the balmy evening air.
He pushed the phone away, his hazel eyes sparkling. ‘Nothing is going on. I can’t believe you’re going through my phone.’
I stared at him. An evening chorus of crickets had started up in the garden, highlighting the silence between us. I watched him struggle for words. My flicker of hope that there was a story to explain the messages evaporated. He had always become tongue-tied at the first hint of a lie and would avoid someone for months rather than risk a confrontation. The back of my throat was caustic with heartburn and fear danced on my nerve endings. I had only just finished getting the baby’s room ready, and Stephen still had to put the cot back together. What had he done to us? To me?
He hunched his shoulders and turned away, taking cover from my gaze. ‘I don’t have to stand here and be interrogated by you. Am I not allowed any privacy anymore?’
He flung open the fridge, grabbed a bottle of beer and stalked over to the living room. I heard the TV switch on. Was that it? He was just going to try to ignore it? I had swallowed dozens of minor disappointments for the sake of our little family, but this one wasn’t going to be one of them.
I followed him. ‘You can’t just walk away. Who is this?’
He stared at the television, determinedly avoiding my eyes, his shoulders drawn up to his ears.
‘Talk to me.’ I grabbed his callused hand and pulled him towards me. I could hear my voice becoming more and more shrill. Was he not even going to make eye contact? I stepped in front of him to block his view of the screen. ‘I’m Thomas’s mother. I’m about to have your second child, for God’s sake. I deserve to know what is going on. I’ve given you fifteen years of my damn life.’
He still would not turn to face me. I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed hard.
‘Just bloody answer me!’ I swiped a thick stack of magazines from the coffee table on to the floor. The clatter as they hit the beautiful grey wood (we had agonised