A Wedding in December Page 22

  “They look great. Happy.”

  “Yes. And they’re going dancing tonight. That’s good. I’ve been worried about Katie. Something isn’t right.”

  “She’s probably tired. Jet lag. And she does a tough job.”

  “I know, but she’s been doing a tough job for a decade and—” She broke off, unable to explain a mother’s instinct. “I feel something is wrong.”

  “You worry too much. It’s probably nothing.”

  She hoped he was right and that nothing was bothering Katie.

  Her mind shifted to her younger daughter. “I like Dan very much. He’s kind and attentive, he has a good sense of humor and he seems to know Rosie. But do you think it’s a mistake for them to get married so young?”

  “I’ve been married once in my life and I made a mess of that, so I don’t think I’m qualified to answer.”

  She put her phone back in her bag. “You didn’t make a mess of it, Nick. Marriages end. It’s a fact of life.”

  “It’s also a fact that there has to be a reason for them to end.” He drained his glass. “I’ve been wondering lately if things would have turned out differently if I’d done a different job.”

  “Nick, that’s crazy. What else would you do?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe a museum job, with better hours.”

  “Museum jobs frequently come with hideous hours, and worse pay. And you love what you do.”

  “But I was away so much I ended up living on the fringes of the family.”

  She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Even now, we’re at dinner, but you take calls from the girls. You’re like this inseparable trio and occasionally I join in.”

  Their food arrived, but neither of them touched it.

  He was looking at her and she was looking at him.

  “Are you saying you felt shut out?” She felt a rush of frustration and something close to guilt. “I never complained about your job, Nick. I never complained when you were gone for weeks at a time, when you returned with half the dust of the desert in your bag. I understood it was what you needed to do. It was the life you wanted. But you can’t blame me for building a life that worked for me. A life that I wanted. You know what my upbringing was like. Sterile. Lonely. My parents were detached. I used to think they loved me, but didn’t know how to show it. Now I’m not even sure that’s true. I think maybe I prefer to think that because it’s easier to handle than the alternative. There was nothing cozy about our home. Nothing warm or welcoming. I wanted to build something different for our family. And I’m proud of what we created, and what we had for such a long time.”

  “You created.” He picked up his fork. “You made our family what it was.”

  His use of the past tense felt like a physical blow. “That’s not true. You were part of that family, too.”

  “All I did was show up occasionally.”

  “I don’t resent your work, Nick. I never did. You were following your passion, and I was following mine.”

  “But yours was making our family work.”

  “You make it sound self-sacrificing, but it wasn’t like that. I wanted to create the family environment I’d dreamed of having when I was growing up. I wanted warmth and love, good food, laughter. I did it for me.”

  “I was selfish. I see that now.” He put his fork down. “I keep thinking of that time I was packing for that trip and Rosie had an asthma attack. Do you remember?”

  She remembered. She could smile about it now, but at the time she hadn’t felt like laughing. “You asked me where your boots were.”

  “And you told me where you’d put those boots if you knew where I’d left them.”

  She blinked innocently. “I’m sure I would never have been so vulgar.”

  “I deserved it. I deserved a lot worse than that. Our daughter couldn’t breathe and I was packing for my trip.” He ran his hand over his face. “It wasn’t that I didn’t care, or wasn’t worried.”

  “I know that.” Had she known that? Had she occasionally felt exasperated and angry that his priorities seemed to be in the wrong place?

  He let his hand drop. “You handled it with more skill and grace and calm than I ever could. You didn’t only calm Rosie when she couldn’t breathe, you calmed us all. You never panicked.”

  “I panicked constantly. Inside I was a wreck.”

  “I never saw that.”

  “I didn’t dare let anyone see.”

  “It made me feel inadequate.”

  “I felt inadequate, too.”

  “When?” he demanded. “When were you ever inadequate? Give me an example because I don’t remember a single time.”

  “Most of my life I suppose.” She finished her champagne. “I was never quite what my parents wanted me to be and then, for a little while when we were first together it felt so right nothing else mattered. But then as you climbed the career ladder, things changed. People judge you by what you do. All those dinner parties where I was introduced as Professor White’s wife. As if without you I wouldn’t exist as a person. Even though I knew that raising the girls was probably the most important thing I would ever do in my life, I still felt—” she struggled to find the right word “—less. I felt less.”

  He frowned. “I never once felt you were less. I never made you feel that way.”

  “Your colleagues did. Once they discovered I wasn’t one of them, I wasn’t worth their attention except as a way of getting to you.”

  “Academics can be a strange bunch.”

  “People can be a strange bunch.” Her toes were warm, her whole body relaxed. “When people asked me what I did, I talked about academic publishing as if that gave me the credentials I needed to be accepted into the group, but my job was something I did to bring in extra money. You were the success.”

  “As I said the other day, I may have succeeded at some things, but I didn’t succeed at our marriage.”

  “There is no blame, Nick. And there’s no pass or fail with a marriage.” She spoke softly. “Maybe we got the balance wrong. I don’t know. I didn’t want the girls to feel your absence, so I worked doubly hard to make sure we had fun when you were gone. I didn’t want to spend the time counting the days waiting for you to come home.”

  Was that why they’d drifted apart? Was it her fault?

  In the beginning his absences hadn’t mattered so much. If anything they’d added an exciting edge to their relationship and his homecomings had been accompanied by passion and a greater appreciation of each other.

  She picked up her fork. “I suppose life got tougher. The demands were greater. My focus was always on keeping the family stable and happy. We were a three, and sometimes a four, but hardly ever a two. The truth is it took effort to be a two, and I didn’t have much energy left.”

  “I was the same. Work and family came first, and that didn’t leave anything much for the two of us. Maybe if we’d done more things like we’ve done today we’d still be a couple.”

  She didn’t want to think about that. She couldn’t think about that. If it was true, then it was heartbreaking. “It’s not easy to have a snowball fight in Oxford. And dogsledding through the Bodleian Library would definitely be frowned on.”

  His gaze softened. “We had fun today, Mags.”

  “I know.”

  “We had fun together. We were a couple.”

  “We were pretending.”

  “We might have been pretending to be a couple, but the fun part was real enough.” His tone was rough. “Rosie left home four years ago. The last four years was our chance to reconnect. To make time for us. We should have grown closer, not farther apart.”

  She ate half the goat’s cheese without tasting any of it and then they swapped plates.

  “I’m sure we’re not the first couple who has grown apart.”

>   He put his fork down. “Do you hate me, Mags?”

  “What? Do I—?” She was astonished by the question. “No! How could you even ask that?”

  “Because all the divorced couples I know hate each other. John and Pamela don’t communicate at all. Ryan and Tracy aren’t even in the same country.”

  “She moved?”

  “He moved. Took a job in Frankfurt.”

  “Oh.” She pondered that new piece of information. “I suppose some people might find that easier.” But not her. She liked the life she’d built, and the comfortable nest of memories that cocooned her when times were hard. Was this a good time to mention that she didn’t want to sell Honeysuckle Cottage? No. That conversation would be better had another time. Probably when she’d worked out a way to afford it by herself. Maybe she could rent a room to a student. There was demand for it.

  “I feel responsible.”

  “For the fact that Ryan took a job in Frankfurt?”

  There was a gleam in his eyes. “For the demise of our marriage.”

  She nibbled at her half of the fish. “It’s a shared blame, Nick. It takes two.”

  “Does it? Because I see a lot of things I did wrong—things I regret—but I don’t see anything you did.”

  “You implied that I shut you out.”

  “No. I was telling you that I felt on the edge. Not the same thing. There are things I’d change if we had our time again.”

  “Mm?” She tried to sound casual. Did she want to hear the alternate scenario? The one which might not have ended in divorce? No, not really. The time to have had this conversation was long past.

  “For a start I’d notice that you didn’t love your job. Thinking about it now, it’s pretty obvious. You love being outdoors. You always have. You love nature. I should have seen that any job that kept you trapped indoors would be the wrong one.”

  “I made my own choices. And I’m not like you. I didn’t have a burning passion. I applied for lots of different jobs, and took one that made me an offer. I’m sure millions of people do the same thing. We land in a place as much by accident as design.”

  They finished eating, although she barely tasted the food.

  “Instead of having dessert and coffee here, why don’t we go back to the tree house? We can sit in front of the fire and finish our conversation without half the world listening in.”

  She thought about it. “I suppose the horse pulling the sleigh might be less tired if we go early.”

  They bundled up and made their way out into the cold.

  They had the sleigh to themselves for the short ride down to the village. From there, they’d take a car back to Snowfall Lodge.

  Maggie snuggled under the thick blanket and Nick put his arm around her and pulled her closer. Maybe she should have pulled away, but she didn’t want to.

  It was for warmth, she told herself. For warmth, that was all.

  She realized how rare it was to travel like this, with no car fumes, impatient drivers, or stop-and-start traffic. The horse and the sleigh left no human footprint, and there was something magical about it.

  They could have been alone in the world, the only sounds the muffled sound of the horse’s hooves on the snow and the occasional soft swish of its tail as they made their way down the trail that led to the village. They snuggled together under the blanket, watching the stealthy swirl of snow that fell silently around them.

  Maggie was glad of the layers she’d put on, and also glad for Nick’s strength and warmth.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder, enjoying the clean, freezing air and the steady presence of the trees that guarded the edges of the trail.

  The end came too soon, and when they climbed into the waiting car she felt a pang of disappointment.

  Back in the tree house, Nick headed straight for the kitchen and she stripped off her outer layers and stood in front of the flickering fire.

  “Here.” Nick handed her a mug full of scalding hot coffee. “This will warm you up. It’s snowing again—can you believe that? And there’s a blizzard forecast for tomorrow.”

  “All those years I dreamed of having a white Christmas, and suddenly there is so much snow there’s a chance we’ll be snowed in.”

  “Do you hate it? Are you missing Honeysuckle Cottage and our usual Christmas traditions?”

  Maggie walked to the window and stared out at the trees. Trees always made her feel calmer. “No. I love it. It’s the most perfect place I’ve ever stayed.”

  “You’re enjoying yourself?”

  “Yes. Real life seems a long way away.”

  “But in a week we’re going back to that life. And you’re returning to a job you don’t like. Resign, Mags. Make that the first thing you do when you get home.”

  “Without another job to go to?” He’d always been more impulsive and adventurous than her. “It’s a good thing one of us is sensible.”

  “I’m not sure I agree. Not if being sensible traps you in a life you don’t like. Give yourself the gift of a fresh start.”

  She blew on her coffee to cool it. “I’ve already had about fifty rejections. It’s pretty obvious that I don’t have the qualifications or professional training to do the job I want to do. If I resign, all I’ll give myself are money worries. What’s good about that?”

  “The job you’d like to do is garden design?”

  “Some of my happiest moments have been spent in our garden, and I’m proud of what I’ve created. I think losing the garden will be one of the worst things about selling the house. A garden isn’t something that happens instantly. It matures and changes over time.” She looked at him. “Like a marriage, I suppose.”

  He held her gaze. “Do the training. Get the qualification.”

  “I’m too old.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “If you can learn to drive a sled pulled by huskies, I’m sure you can learn garden design. That lead dog was a character.”

  “He was adorable.”

  Nick sat down on the sofa and put his mug on the low table. “You don’t have to factor in the kids anymore, Maggie. They have their own lives. Katie’s career is going well and Rosie has only just started her postgrad and is about to be married. Time to think about yourself.”

  “What about the cost? I wouldn’t only lose my income, I’d be out of pocket. That sort of course would cost a fortune.”

  “We have the money, Mags. We can afford it.”

  Should she point out that they were no longer a “we”? “A divorce is expensive. Lawyers. Two properties. Two sets of bills.”

  His eyes darkened. “We’ll find the money for this. It’s about priorities.”

  Her heart softened. Another man might have fought hard to keep as many of his assets as possible. Nick wanted her to do a course that would be of no benefit to him whatsoever.

  “And what if I do the course, get the qualification, and then can’t get a job? What a waste of money that would be.”

  “Maybe you’d enjoy the process, in which case the money wouldn’t be wasted. And maybe you would get a job. There are no guarantees, unless you don’t do it in which case it’s pretty much guaranteed that you won’t be a garden designer. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll think about it.” She finished her coffee. “I suppose we should get some sleep if we’re to be up and about for tomorrow’s romantic challenge.”

  He finished his coffee and stood up. “I enjoyed tonight, Mags.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’ll make up the sofa. Unless you think the girls might pay us an impromptu visit before we go to sleep. Do you think we should share the bed, to be safe?” There was a tense, awkward pause and for a moment his gaze met hers. Her skin tingled, and she thought back to the moment after the snowball fight.

  Only a few days before, the future and
her feelings had been clear, but now suddenly everything was tangled and murky. If they shared a bed it would become more complicated. And it didn’t feel safe.

  She was the one who had started this. She’d insisted that they keep up this pretense, and at first it hadn’t seemed a hardship. But she’d been thinking only of the girls, and now suddenly, she could think only of herself.

  Something had changed in her. Shifted.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. We already agreed to meet over at the lodge for breakfast at ten tomorrow. They have no reason to come here. I’ll fetch the bedding,” she said. “I put it away in the basket upstairs so that the girls didn’t see it.”

  She busied herself making up the couch, plumping pillows and tucking in blankets. This part she was good at. The practical stuff was easy. It soothed her and calmed her.

  “Good night, Nick.” She smiled and walked to the bedroom, hoping she looked more composed than she felt.

  By the time she’d finished in the bathroom, he’d turned the lights out in the living room.

  From her vantage point on the shelf she could see his bulk curled up on the sofa.

  She felt a shimmer of emotion that she didn’t fully understand. They’d had more honest exchanges in the past couple of days than they’d had in the past couple of years. Would it have made a difference if they’d had those conversations sooner?

  Telling herself that it didn’t matter, she slid into bed and propped an extra pillow under her head so that she could watch the snow falling. There was something calming and hypnotic about that silent swirl of flakes, blurring the edges of the world outside.

  At some point her eyes drifted shut and she dreamed of walking through the snow hand in hand with Nick.

  When she woke the fire had gone out, and the snow had stopped. Sunlight poked its way through the trees. The delicious aroma of fresh coffee told her that Nick was already up and around.