Sonny is giving me a wide, toothless smile as he sits on my lap and we rock gently back and forth on the swings in the playpark. I can’t tell if he is grinning because he is enjoying this or because of the long fart he’s just let out. But as long as he’s not crying, I’m not complaining.
Throughout my pregnancy I looked forward to simple activities like this. Taking my child to a playpark, joining baby clubs and meeting up with other mums for playdates. I wanted to be one of those parents huddled over a table in Starbucks with a latte and a babycino, listening to one another moan about weak bladders and chafed nipples. Instead, I’ve never felt so lonely.
I use my feet to push the swing forwards and Sonny lets out a gurgling sound followed by a second, much louder fart. I can’t help but laugh, my first one in days, I think. I go anywhere I can these days so that I don’t have to spend time under the same roof as Finn and his family. If we’re not wandering aimlessly around Milton Keynes’s indoor shopping centre, then we’re haunting one of the half-dozen playparks in the area with which we’ve become intimately familiar. I wear my sunglasses everywhere, even when it’s not bright enough to need them, because I can’t bear it when strangers recognise me and start giving me that look; the one that says ‘poor cow’ or ‘I’m glad I’m not her’ so clearly they might just as well have bellowed it out loud.
I’m happy Lorna and I are back in touch. When we met for coffee yesterday, she tried to say the right things, telling me I deserve better than Finn and his family. And I know she’s right, but something stops me from extricating myself from this toxic situation.
Finn has moved out of the Annexe and into one of the spare bedrooms of the main house, no doubt much to Debbie’s delight. I wouldn’t know just how elated she is because she and Dave have been giving me a wide berth since the revelations of their son’s affair were made public. I imagine Dave has had much to do with keeping Debbie away from me, because if I see even a hint of satisfaction in her face, I’ll grab her walking stick and smack her around the head with it. Sometimes I even fantasise about doing that just for the hell of it.
How has my life come to this? I am stuck in a house I hate surrounded by people I don’t like and who don’t like me. I am the mother to a baby I’m still struggling to attach to and the wife of a liar who has no respect for me or our marriage. We have so little money that I cannot afford to rent on my own, and living out of a suitcase in a Holiday Inn with a baby is just about impossible.
I have considered packing Sonny’s and my bags and catching a train to London. I still have friends there who knew me before I became this object of pity, friends who text me and email me and who give a damn about me even if I rarely respond because I am too down on myself to discuss my dire situation with anyone else. But who is really going to appreciate me and a child sofa-hopping in their one-bedroom apartment? And that’s not fair on Sonny. So I’m stuck.
To describe Finn and me as not in a great place is an understatement. We are so far removed from ‘great’ that we might as well be orbiting different planets. I don’t know if I still want to be married to him. If you’d asked me before Sonny was born whether I’d stay with a cheat, the answer
would have been an absolute no. I didn’t do it with Ellis. But there’s no longer only me to think about. I have to put our child first. And because Finn is a far better parent than I am – it turns out he’s had an extra four years of practice with Chloe – Sonny needs at least one of us to have our shit together. I love my husband but I hate him in equal measure. How do I move past that?
I have surprised myself in my willingness for him to continue seeing his little girl, because I could have been a real bitch about it. And perhaps if I didn’t have Sonny, I’d resent Chloe and Emma more than I do already. But Finn has a relationship with his daughter and will do for the rest of his life, and it’d be cruel of me to come between them just because I’m jealous. However, it doesn’t mean that I want to meet her. I’ve also warned him in no uncertain terms that he is not to go to Emma’s place. And when she drops Chloe off at the house, Sonny and I remain in the Annexe. I’ll let her see her half-brother soon, but not yet. Small steps, I remind Finn.
It’s on days like this when I wish I had an ordinary mum and dad who’d come to my rescue and take over the adulting that I’m struggling with, not continue sailing around the world. When we finally managed to connect via Skype a few days ago, the excuse for their radio silence was that they’d been living and working for a wildlife charity in Tristan da Cunha, a South Atlantic island and one of the least-connected inhabited places in the world. And with a patchy GPS system, they assumed all the emails they’d sent me from the yacht were being received. They weren’t.
To their credit, once I told them of the latest in my long line of dramas, they were adamant they’d be docking in Cape Town, South Africa, and flying home. But an Icelandic volcano spewing ash into the atmosphere has grounded all flights for at least a fortnight, so they are sailing to southern Spain instead and will drive the rest of the way here. Until then, it’s just me and Sonny in our own little bubble.
In my darker hours I’m ashamed to admit that I have mulled over Debbie’s offer to pay me to leave this all behind and start again. Who would miss me? Finn has a ready- made family he can move on with, Debbie would get the daughter-in-law she always wanted, Dave could go about his life without me questioning its gaps, and I wouldn’t have to deal with their dysfunctional, co-dependent, claustrophobic crap. Even without knowing her, I’m sure Emma would probably be a better mum to Sonny than I am.
Perhaps Debbie was right when she described me as a ‘cancer in their family’. They were ticking along perfectly well until I came along. Maybe I’m going to be equally toxic around my son, my negative energy damaging him in ways I won’t recognise until he’s older and it’s too late to do anything about. If I took her money and left Sonny with them, perhaps he’d have a chance of normality?
But even imagining not being around my little boy is enough to bring me out in a cold sweat. My baby and I might not have connected, but by God I’m trying. I am confronting my fears about being a danger to him and wanting to protect him from the world in the belief that the final piece of the motherhood puzzle will eventually fit. It has to. I pull him in closer to me as the swing glides gently back and forth.
The buzzing phone in my pocket distracts me. Finn’s face is lighting up my screen. Most of the time I send his calls to voicemail, but I decide to answer this one.
‘Hello,’ I say, my voice emotionless. ‘Have you heard the news?’
My heart sinks. ‘What have you done now?’
‘It’s about the house. They’ve identified the bodies found in the garden.’
