CHAPTER 16

 

A couple of days later, Seattle F.C had a home game but Cate was so mortified by how she’d behaved at Trent and Lena’s engagement party that she decided to stay home.

The children were asleep upstairs so she went outside to the dock and dangled her bare feet in the cold water of the Sound. She trailed her ankles through the murky depths feeling them gradually become numb.

Cate put the palms of her hands on the wooden slats and imagined lifting herself up and sinking down into the Sound, letting the tempting blackness swallow her whole. She looked at the cluster of rocks a little further along the coast and wondered just how many rocks she’d need to stuff her pockets with to ensure that she wouldn’t resurface again.

Maybe she’d be doing them all a favour? She thought about what Kian’s reptilian U.S. agent had said when she’d first arrived in Seattle. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this,” he’d remarked when Kian was out of earshot, “but your husband’s job pays the bills.” Cate had been too stunned to react; she’d just sat there with a fake smile plastered on her face. Yes, it was true but she’d never heard it put quite so bluntly before.

“Your job,” he’d ventured closer, making sure that nobody else in the room could hear him, “is to keep him happy.” Again, she knew he was right. That’s what good, little WAGS did – it was what separated the wives and fiancées from the “flavours of the month.” They blended into the background, taking care of the home and the children so that their husbands could focus all of their attention on sports.

Based on her performances since she’d moved to Seattle, if keeping her husband happy had been a real job, Cate would have been given her P45 (or the American equivalent) a long time ago. Kian was a lot of things right now but he definitely wasn’t happy. He was frustrated; she could see it burning in his almost-black eyes whenever she caught him looking at her. He was more than likely horny; she could barely remember the last time they’d made love. He was definitely angry; she’d embarrassed him in front of his team-mates at the engagement party.

The trouble was that Cate didn’t know how to make Kian happy anymore; she didn’t remember what being happy actually felt like.

She scooted forward on the dock, her calves sinking deeper into the icy-cold water. The numbness was a blessed relief. The water was so black that she couldn’t see her toes anymore.

As she lifted herself up off the dock, the baby kicked inside her womb. Cate sat down again with a thump and dropped her head in her hands. She’d been so entranced by the black nothingness that she’d forgotten that she was pregnant. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, rubbing her hands over her swollen belly, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

Hot tears trickled down her cheeks. She felt even more like a failure. How could she have even contemplated taking not just her own life but the life of her unborn child? What kind of a mother am I? Cate dragged her fingers through her inky-black hair, her fingernails scratching thick, angry welts into her scalp.

She’d only thought about hurting herself once before. She’d sat cocooned in the empty bath with the shower curtain pulled across, having just found out that Kian had cheated on her with Jenna. She’d felt the unbearable, suffocating pressure inside her chest and had fumbled for the razor she’d thought she’d seen at the side of the bath. She hadn’t wanted to kill herself; she’d just wanted to break her skin to let out some of the pressure. Instead, she’d grabbed Lola’s rubber duck and just thinking about her three-year old daughter playing with her dolls just down the hallway had been enough to stop her.

Cate looked back at the house. She thought about Lola and Mateo who were both fast asleep upstairs. What would have happened if she’d actually gone through with it? They would have been all alone – Kian wouldn’t be home for hours and it was Nate’s night off.

Would they have woken up and come looking for her? Cate retched uncontrollably. She needed to purge herself of the hateful thoughts that had tempted her, even for the briefest moment, to lift her body up off that wooden dock. Would one of them have found her lifeless body, bloated and tinged with blue, floating in the Sound?

She’d felt unhappiness before but this was different, it was heavy and smothering. In the past, there had always been a logical explanation for how she was feeling. She’d felt heartbroken because she’d been betrayed by her husband; humiliated because he’d lied about it for months afterwards, using their friends and family to help him cover it up. She’d had panic attacks because she was pregnant again and she’d almost died the first time she’d given birth.

“Help me,” she whispered, her desperate plea skimming over the gunmetal waters of the Sound.

Cate heard raised voices and when she turned around, Eric and Nate were stood on the strip of land between the two houses. She was too far away to hear what was being said.

“Cate?”

Keeping one hand on her belly, as if the constant reassurance could somehow atone for what she’d just thought about doing, she reached up and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

Nate dropped down next to her on the dock, “you’re shivering?”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the heat of his body.

“I’m OK.”

She didn’t know if it was because Nate had found her at her lowest point, almost as if the Sound had answered her prayers, but Cate found herself confessing to Nate just how badly she was feeling. “Every morning I wake up and I think I’m going to be better today. I’m going to be the best mum and wife.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself,” Nate said gently.

“I just don’t understand why I’m so unhappy,” Cate looked across at the bright lights of downtown Seattle just across the Sound. “I’ve got two happy, healthy children and another one on the way. A husband I love, a beautiful home…If you were looking from the outside in, you would think that I’d got it all.”

Nate turned Cate around to face him, “depression doesn’t work like that, Cate.”

Cate looked shocked, “I’m not depressed, I mean… I can’t be. What have I got to be depressed about?”

“I’m not a psychologist or anything like that but you said you had similar feelings when you were pregnant with Lola and Mateo, maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones?”

“I’ve heard about post-natal depression but I didn’t think it could happen while you were still pregnant?”

“My mum had really bad depression when she was pregnant with me. I was born six weeks early after she crashed her car into a tree,” Nate confided. “My dad thinks it explains a lot.”

“That’s awful,” Cate gasped, “is she OK now?”

Nate looked at Cate’s ankles which were still submerged in the icy-cold water. “Your feet are turning blue.” He lifted them up out of the water and rubbed them to get the circulation going again. “I think you should tell Kian how you’re feeling.”

Cate shook her head, “I can’t ruin this for him. He loves Seattle.”

Nate wiped the tears which stained her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “Sweetheart, you just tried to hurt yourself.”

Cate gripped Nate’s arms. “Please don’t say anything. I won’t ever do it again, I promise. I just got stuck in the moment… I thought that if I wasn’t here, it would make things easier for everybody but then I thought about Lola, Mats and the new baby.” She felt as if her heart was literally being ripped to shreds. “I couldn’t do it to them. I couldn’t do it.”

“It’s OK,” Nate said gently. “I won’t say anything, I promise. But if you can’t talk to Kian, will you at least talk to me? You shouldn’t have to deal with this by yourself. My mom said that one of the worst things about her depression was how alone she felt.”

“Thank you,” Cate squeezed her eyes shut. If Nate told anybody that she’d thought about killing herself and her unborn child, even for the briefest moment…

“I can’t…” She pressed a hand to her throat. “I can’t breathe.”

“Open your eyes,” Nate said calmly. “Look at me. It’s just a panic attack, sweetheart. You said you’d had them before.” He pressed the palms of her hands firmly against his chest. “Try and follow my breathing, OK.” As she felt his chest move in and out, the tight grip on her throat began to loosen.

“I’m sorry,” Cate said quietly, “I’m such a basket case.”

“Nonsense,” Nate smiled but it didn’t reach his pale-blue eyes. He looked across at Eric’s house, which was now shrouded in darkness. “We all have our issues, sweetheart.”

“Can I ask you something?” Cate desperately needed a change of subject. “What’s going on with you and Eric? I overheard you at the Taco Shack. He said you shouldn’t have come here?”

Nate didn’t say anything for a few seconds; he concentrated on drying Cate’s feet. “I’m sorry,” Cate stuttered, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I’m gay,” Nate said quietly. “That’s why I had to leave Sacramento. My dad doesn’t exactly approve.”

“Layla said you came to visit her last year but had to leave early. Did something happen between you two?”

“We kissed, that’s all,” Nate grunted. “Eric won’t admit that it was anything other than a drunken mistake.”

“Does Layla know?”

Nate shook his head, “I’ve never actually “come out” or whatever but I think she knows that I’m gay. I haven’t told her about Eric…” He looked across at Eric’s house again. “She loves her job. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise that.”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to live and work next door to him?” Cate asked as Nate helped her stand up.

“I haven’t got much family left,” Nate said. “I want to be close to Layla. Besides, Eric’s a busy guy, I’m sure he’ll try and avoid me as much as he can.”