‘I’d probably think that too. I deserve it.’
Brenda sat forward, her words urgent. ‘No, it’s not revenge or some bitchy way to punish you. It’s…’ She hesitated, reframed. ‘It’s because I don’t think that I could listen to what a wonderful life you’d had without feeling it should have been mine. There’s some consolation in knowing that the other path didn’t lead to a lifetime of bliss.’
Eileen felt her shoulders beginning to relax and there was a weird sense of familiarity. This was starting to feel like the old Eileen. Talking to the old Brenda. The one who was always so much smarter and kinder and wiser than them all.
Eileen’s hands had stopped shaking enough now to sip the wine. ‘Maybe it would have with you.’
Brenda shook her head. ‘No.’
That surprised Eileen. ‘You don’t think so?’
‘No. Even back then, if I’m really honest, I knew who he was and it made me nervous. I can say that now. I’d have lived a life with him, and I’d have been insecure for every day of it. For every heartbeat that adored him, there was always the feeling that I was waiting for him to choose someone else. I just didn’t think it would be you.’
Eileen groaned. ‘I owe you a lifetime of sorrys.’
Brenda nodded. ‘Maybe. But I think we’ve had enough for now.’
‘Not enough,’ Eileen shook her head. ‘Gary should be here apologising to you and Colin too, but he’s left. Gone to the airport.’
‘I’m not surprised. He never could face conflict. Urgh, what a prick. What did I see in that man?’
‘It was the hair. The way he flicked his fringe,’ Eileen immediately regretted the light-hearted joke, but to her relief, Brenda chuckled and added, ‘And his music collection. I was a sucker for a bit of Simply Red.’
There was a pause as they both remembered nights in their old flat, singing at the top of their voices to ‘Holding Back The Years’.
Eileen was the first to speak. ‘You know, he still thought about you, even after we’d been married for years.’
Brenda’s eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Really? How do you know that?’
Eileen could quite happily have wrapped gaffer tape over her own mouth. She shouldn’t have said anything. Brenda might not take kindly to it. She might take it the wrong way and think it was a petty dig, but she was in too deep and there was no backing out now.
‘Because it was the last straw for us – the thing that finally made me call it quits and divorce him. He’d been having affairs for years and I’d overlooked them. Aiden was in college, so it was just Gary and I at home. I think I had it in my mind that when I could give him my full attention, he’d stop, but if anything, the staying out and seeing other women got worse. And then he opened a Facebook account. Aiden mentioned earlier that your daughter had contacted Gary on Facebook, and Gary said he no longer used the account – that’s because it was only set up all those years ago for one purpose. When I found out he’d opened it, I hacked in – he’d used a crap password – and saw that he’d written to a couple of women he’d known in the past, declaring his undying love for them. You were one of them.’
‘But I didn’t get a message…’ Brenda said, puzzled.
‘I know. He used your maiden name and sent it to someone called Brenda Fulton that didn’t have a photo on her profile. She wrote back saying he was a jerk and he should go try scam someone else.’
‘Noooooo. What a… what a…’ At first, Eileen thought Brenda was sobbing and then she realised that she was laughing, great big howling sobs of laughter that spread right across the table, booting the tension away until they were both creased over, wiping away tears.
‘I don’t know why I’m laughing,’ Brenda spluttered. ‘It’s utterly tragic.’
‘Me either. It caused my divorce,’ Eileen retorted, but the laughter kept coming until they both had no more left and fell into silence, a mood change that was as violent as it was unpredictable.
Eileen figured she’d outstayed her welcome. She didn’t want to make Brenda sad or cause another iota of anguish to her. She began to stand up, hoping that they could part amicably, some kind of line drawn under their heartache.
That’s when Branda said quietly, ‘I was pregnant. With Gary’s baby. Back then. I found out the day after I saw you two together.’
Eileen felt her legs give out beneath her and she slumped back down, the pain of the other woman’s words ripping a hole in her chest.
‘Oh, no, Brenda,’ she wailed, her mind whirring. Brenda had been pregnant, and that line could never be drawn now that she knew she’d deprived a child of its father for the last thirty years. That was more than a twenty-something mistake. That was lifelong pain, lifelong grudges, lifelong resentments, wounds that never healed. ‘So Zara…?’
‘No, Zara is Colin’s daughter. I lost the baby when I got back from Vegas.’
Eileen was still trying desperately not to cry. She had no right. None. ‘I don’t even have the words… I know you’ll never forgive me for that, and you shouldn’t. I’m sorry, Brenda. I deserve every ounce of blame that you put on me for that.’
She was shocked when Brenda shook her head. ‘I don’t blame you at all. I never have. I blamed me, because really, I knew what he was like. I blamed Gary, because he hurt me. But I’m a nurse, Eileen… I’ve come to terms with the fact that sometimes terrible things happen and it’s no one’s fault. It’s life. Death. It’s devastating and it will always make me sad, but hanging on to blame and anger would only have hurt me more, so I had to let it go. I’ll always be heartbroken that it happened, and wish it were different, but I don’t blame anyone. Besides, it showed me who Colin was. He was the decent man who was prepared to take care of us. That’s why we got married. Here. Before we even went home. We discovered I was pregnant and he said we could raise the baby together.’
‘So you got the good man,’ Eileen whispered, and much as that twisted a knife, she was glad. Brenda deserved that and she didn’t. It was only right. And that thought didn’t come from a place of self-pity or martyrdom, just the sad truth that karma had doled out the correct result. ‘You deserved him, deserved to have a happy life. I know I don’t get to give an opinion, but I’m glad that you got that.’
