Alexander

As I sat in my car at the end of the drive of my soon-to-be ex-wife’s home, I knew I was risking a restraining order. It looked like I was staking her out. I wasn’t. I was just putting off the final part of the journey. Despite being separated for three years, I hadn’t been expecting the divorce proceedings. I guess we should have gotten around to it sooner but as always, I was busy. I hadn’t thought about it—or her—much at all. I’d been buried in work before we got married, then fallen asleep during our wedding breakfast because I’d worked day and night for a week before the wedding so I could take my wedding day off. And I’d worked every day of our two short years together. Despite getting engaged, married, and then separated, nothing much in my world changed.

After the split, going to the hotel hadn’t been the wrench it might have been for some people. I had no demands on my time other than from work. I didn’t have to listen to Gabby scream at me because I was home late or because I’d spent an hour on the phone during a dinner party. My bed was made, my food cooked for me, and the commute short. If I was completely honest, when Gabby had told me to move out, it had been a relief.

I’d not seen her since. Even though our subsequent, infrequent phone calls had been amicable, I hadn’t been back to the house. She’d told me she’d boxed my things up, but I’d never wanted to collect them. I wanted to concentrate on the future, not my past. I wanted to build the career I’d always dreamed of.

Getting the decree nisi was the first time I’d really felt anything about our separation. I had a gnawing in my gut that hadn’t left me since I’d opened that envelope, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was causing it. I’d called Gabby, and she’d told me she was going to donate all my things if I didn’t come to collect them, so here I was at the end of the drive, stalling before I pulled up to the house and put a full stop at the end of the sentence that was Gabby and me.

What was I doing? I leaned my head back on the headrest. I was dredging up the past unnecessarily. I wasn’t sure what was in the boxes she’d stored for the last three years, but it wasn’t anything I’d missed. Maybe I shouldn’t have come, but I wasn’t about to turn around now she was expecting me. I just needed to get this over with. Perhaps what was in those boxes would rid me of this knot in my stomach that needed untying.

I started the engine and turned up the drive. She’d had it tarmacked. I’d driven this route every day for two years, but now it was as though I’d never been here.

The surrounding trees and shrubs had grown in the last few years, but the rest was the same. Just like my life had continued relatively unchanged, so had Gabby’s. I turned and parked in front of the house. In the last few months before I left, I would often sit in the car, checking messages before I went in, bracing myself for the inevitable row about my hours or something I’d forgotten to do. Things had gotten so bad that it was a wonder I hadn’t left long before Gabby had suggested it.

I opened the car and got out. I still had the house key on my key-chain. I should give it back.

I lifted the knocker, not knowing what reception I was going to encounter.

Gabby opened the door, her face blank of emotion. “Come in.” She flounced up the hallway to the kitchen. She was thinner than when we were married. Her face a little more angular. As usual, she was immaculately dressed and looked like she’d come straight from the hairdresser. That was the thing about Gabby—she was polished. In many ways, she really was the perfect wife. She’d just wanted more than I could give her. My behavior hadn’t changed when we got married. I’d always worked hard. She’d had full disclosure, and she’d pushed for a wedding anyway. She’d pitched me on the whole thing, told me I needed a wife to support my work. But she’d changed the rules on me after we married, demanded more from me once we’d walked down the aisle.

“Thanks for keeping my things,” I said as we stood in the kitchen. Gabby opened one of the drawers in the island and pulled out a bunch of keys. “I thought you might have burned them.”

“I stopped with the effigy. The smoke was getting in my eyes.” She folded her arms. “The boxes are in the garage.”

I wanted to laugh but knew it was inappropriate.

She slung the keys across the work surface. “It’s the green one. They’re in the far garage.” She glanced at me and her eyes narrowed. “You look good,” she said.

I smiled. “Thanks. So do you.”

She sighed but didn’t respond. “Do you want any furniture or anything else from the house?” she asked.

It hadn’t occurred to me to want anything. She’d picked out every single thing in the place. There was nothing of me in there. “I don’t think so.” I picked up the keys and followed her as she opened the French windows and headed outside to the garage block. She stopped outside the door, her mouth turned down, her eyes dark with none of the sparkle I remembered. I wanted to do something, make things better.

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “It was never my intention to hurt you.”

“Of course it was intentional, Alex. You don’t unintentionally work all the time.” She took in a long, slow breath. “It’s not like breathing. You have a choice, and you chose work over your marriage every time. It came before everything; nothing was more important to you.”

“But that was the deal between us, wasn’t it? You knew who I was going in.”

She folded her arms and stared at the ground. “I know we didn’t have some kind of grand love affair—that isn’t who either of us are. We were both practical and straightforward, but I still thought it would work.” She shook her head as if chastising herself for her own stupidity. “I thought when we got married, you’d want to spend more time with me. I thought you’d grow to love me.” Her voice trailed off and she cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry.” I hated that I’d hurt her. She didn’t deserve that.

“It was all a long time ago.”

For me, three years didn’t feel all that long ago. It had passed in a blur. Gabby was the last woman I’d been out to dinner with. The last woman I’d taken a shower with. The last woman I’d spent Christmas with. Three years might have been a long time for her, but for me, it had felt like three weeks. Nothing had really changed in the intervening years except I was getting better quality work in chambers, and I was earning more money.

She snatched the keys from my hand and opened the lock on the garage. From what I remembered, we didn’t keep anything in this space. She opened the door and switched on the light. There were half a dozen boxes in the middle of the concrete floor and my father’s desk that looked like it had been wrapped up in cardboard and plastic. I’d forgotten it was here, but where else would it be? Christ, was this what comprised the history of my personal life? An ex-wife and a few cardboard boxes?

“Your sports trophies are in the one on top, I think. Most of the rest are the clothes you didn’t take when you left.”

“Thanks,” I said, although it made me feel so uncomfortable. I wished she had burned the lot along with my effigy.

“Do you want to go through the house?” she asked. “You can have anything you like—I’ll have to downsize when we sell anyway.”

“You want to sell?” She’d found this house just after we’d become engaged, and I could still remember her face when she told me about it. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her happier. For her, it had been love at first sight. A forever home, she’d said. But forever had only lasted two years.

“I’ll have to. I won’t be able to afford to buy you out.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that she would think I’d make her do such a thing. “Gabby, this is your home. I know how special it is to you. You found this place, furnished it, planted the garden, had it redecorated. I’ll sign it over to you; you don’t need to buy me out.” She was right. I had been selfish during our marriage, but that didn’t mean I had to be during our divorce.

“Don’t do that,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t try to do the right thing.”

“I was trying to be nice.” I was pretty sure I just conceded to something I didn’t have to.

“Exactly. Don’t be nice to me now it’s too late.”

“Okay,” I said. Maybe this was why I’d not been back in three years. I’d been avoiding facing up to what I’d done to Gabby.

“You shouldn’t have married me if you didn’t want to be a husband.”

Rightly or wrongly, I’d never considered whether I’d wanted to be a husband when I married Gabby. I hadn’t been averse to the idea of marriage, but I hadn’t really given it much thought, either. I’d gone in blind, assuming I’d just be able to continue as usual. “I mean it when I say I’m sorry.” And I was. She was right; I should never have married her. I reached out and pulled her into a hug. “You deserved a better husband.”

“I did. But we learn from our mistakes. I won’t go into another marriage thinking things will improve once I’ve walked down the aisle.” She pulled out of my arms.

I wished I could make it better for her.

“Will you?” she asked.

“What?”

“Learn from your mistakes?”

I frowned. There was no doubt I wouldn’t marry again. I wouldn’t put someone through that again. Is that what she meant?

“Maybe start by getting rid of that bloody desk,” she said.

I chuckled. “You think giving away my father’s desk will be my salvation?”

“I wasn’t kidding.” She looked me straight in the eye. “It’s a symbol. I never understood why you were so competitive with a dead man.”

My spine stiffened. “Competitive?” What was she talking about?

“You have to be better, work harder, than Alexander the Great. I’m not sure if you’re trying to prove to yourself that you’re better or to everyone else. Maybe you’re just trying to justify why he never turned up to a sports day or your university graduation.” She shrugged. “Not my problem anymore.”

I glanced at the desk my mother had given me when my father died. I’d never used it. It had sat in the study in this house, but I always ended up working at the dining room table. There was more space. And since I’d left here, I hadn’t thought about it. She thought this was a symbol? Of what? The breakdown of our marriage? My failings? I almost asked her, but I wasn’t sure I wanted her answer. I’d admired my father and been proud of him and the work he did, the career he had. Even now at the bar his was a name that was revered. He’d been the best at what he did. And I wanted the same thing—to be the best. What was wrong with that? I was driven and focused just as he’d been. And I didn’t have children who needed me to turn up to sports days.

It was true I was following in my father’s footsteps. But I hadn’t considered that could be a bad thing. The thing I’d dreaded when I was first starting out was that people would compare us and I’d come up short. Perhaps that was what Gabby had meant—I was striving to have a career as successful as his. It was what I’d wanted since I’d been a child. I wasn’t sure that put me in competition with a dead man, as she put it. To be the best at the bar took hard work. That’s what it had required from my father. That’s what it took from me. There was no point questioning it, looking at the right or wrongs. You couldn’t be a great barrister without putting in the hours just like you couldn’t be a Hollywood A-lister without being famous. Or a fisherman if you didn’t like to spend time outside. I had no choice.

“As much as being married to you was painful,” she said. “I want you to be happy.”

Her words pulled the air from my lungs. I hated that our marriage pained her, when I’d barely noticed it. I should feel more at the end of a relationship that had been meant to last forever. I just didn’t.

“I’m going to go and leave you to it. You can let yourself out,” she said. “Can you make sure you send the papers back by the end of next week? I really want to have this wrapped up before my lawyer goes away the week after.”

“Of course,” I replied. There was no reason to prolong anything. “And you know I want you to be happy, too, Gabby,” I said as she reached the exit.

“Thank you.” She walked away without looking back, leaving me in a cold, dark room with six boxes that summed up my existence to date. And my father’s desk.