The Home for Broken Hearts (21 page)

Item five—flirting with every single woman ever encountered, even my mother.

Item eleven—always mentally undressing other women, even unattractive ones, even my mother, and being really obvious about it.

Item sixteen—openly watching porn when my favorite TV shows are on.

Item twenty-one—spending more money on lap dances than on my birthday present.

“Oh my.” Ellen looked from the list to Sabine. “He really does that?”

“Yes, he’s a member of a gentlemen’s club, the yearly subscription is hundreds of euros, never mind what he pays for lap dances while he is in there. And yet what did I get for my birthday? A juicer.” Sabine pressed her lips into a tight knot and crossed her arms. “True, I asked for a juicer, but a little something more—something he chose himself would have meant a lot.”

“So it’s the fact that the strippers cost more than your birthday present that upsets you, not the actual strippers themselves?”

Sabine shrugged. “Men will be men. For my odious husband, going to a strip club at the end of a night out is like an Englishman going for a curry.”

“Really?” Ellen wondered what heinous crime Sabine’s husband could have committed for her to hate him quite so vocally, if it wasn’t his going to strip clubs.

“So finally the red list.” Sabine’s expression dropped, pain etched across her face, and Ellen braced herself. “There is only one thing on this list.” She pushed it over so that Ellen could
read it.

Item one—writing love letters to another woman.

“Writing… you mean you found out he was having an affair?” Ellen gasped.

“Yes.” Sabine nodded sadly. “Not a sexual one—a sexual one I could have understood, perhaps even forgiven. No, it was much worse than that. He has always stayed in touch with his childhood sweetheart, I knew that. But then a few months ago I found these letters from her, so passionate, so full of love and regret that they could never be together. So I looked on his laptop; he thought he’d hidden them, but he never was very good at keeping a secret. I found copies of all of his letters in his accounts folders. Telling her how he would always love her, how if things had been different, if they had taken a chance when they had the chance. He was so tender, so romantic—he is never like that with me.” Sabine pressed her palm to her chest. “Honestly, Ellen, if I had come home to find him in bed with another woman, it would have hurt less. Now I know that I am second choice, that he settled for me because he can’t have her. How do I get over that?”

Ellen looked at the words printed meekly on the page before her. A simple collection of letters that when organized in this one particular way became so brutal.

Ellen felt another tiny rent in her heart as she realized again just what she had lost. Nick had been her first choice and she had been his; their marriage had been rare and fortunate indeed.

“Sabine, I honestly don’t know. All I can say is that he does seem to be trying; I mean if you meant so little to him, then why would he try to save your marriage at all?”

“She is a Catholic. She will not divorce her husband,” Sabine said wanly. “If she were free, would he still be trying to save our marriage or would he be running into her arms?”

Ellen didn’t have an answer for that. “What did he write on his list?” she asked instead.

Sabine’s laugh was hollow. “There are three items on his list in total. One of them is that I do not laugh enough. Laugh enough! I would laugh if only he were ever funny. But there is nothing funny about this.”

“No, there isn’t,” Ellen agreed. There was Allegra, encouraging her to go out in the world again, even to take a lover, as if such a thing might be possible—and yet here was Sabine, living proof that men like her late husband were very rare indeed. She was lucky to have had a man who respected and loved her as much as he did, perhaps luckier than she knew. No one would ever care about her like that again.

“That I should be more spontaneous, but I don’t like to be spontaneous. Not without thinking about it first.” Ellen thought that Sabine was joking, but she managed to stifle her laugh when she saw that the other woman was deadly serious.

“That I care too much for appearances. Would he want me if I were fat, or gray, or never took any care with my hair or clothes?” Sabine unconsciously gestured at Ellen, who determined not to be offended, because after all she never thought twice about the way she looked.

“So what do you think? Do you think that these lists will help us reconcile?”

Ellen glanced at the clock; it was twelve minutes past six.

“I have to be honest, Sabine. I’m not really an expert on relationships, I’ve only had one important one—but if the list of things you don’t like about your husband is this long and if one of the things on it includes him being in love with another woman—I don’t really see how you could ever get over that. I know that I couldn’t.”

Sabine’s face crumpled and she buried her face in her hands, as if she had just heard the bad news for the first time.

“But what do I know?” Ellen added hastily, putting a hand on Sabine’s shoulder. “I am probably completely wrong—only
you know what your marriage means to you and him.”

“You are right, of course.” Sabine sobbed. “Of course I can’t take him back, what honor or pride would I have left if I did, knowing he was always thinking of another woman? It’s just that I love him, Ellen. I love the evil, disgusting pig. I love him, I always have, and he’s ripped that all to shreds.”

Ellen wrapped her arms around Sabine and let her sob into her neck, keeping her eye on the clock. In twenty seconds she would officially start panicking again.

Just then the front door slammed shut and Ellen heard voices in the hall. Charlie’s and someone else’s… Hannah’s. For a few seconds she was flooded with relief, an emotion that in turn drowned in her fear-fueled anger.

Ellen withdrew her arm from Sabine, who stood up and went to the sink to splash water on her face, piling her list back into her bag as she went, clearly keen not to be caught crying.

“Hi, Mum,” Charlie said happily as he slammed open the door, adding to the dent in the plaster that he’d been working on for some months even though Ellen repeatedly begged him to be more careful. “You’ll never guess what, it’s really cool. Aunt Hannah’s brought me a PlayStation 3 and a load of games!”

“Charlie—it’s past six. Where have you been?” Ellen asked, her voice low and tight, the terror she had been fighting to repress suddenly galvanizing into a heavy lump in her chest.

“With me, Ellie,” Hannah informed her brightly. “Thought to myself what a beautiful afternoon, too good to waste in an office, so I left work a bit early, picked up Charles from school, and we went to the West End for a bit of shopping. After all, what’s the point of having money if you don’t use it. Don’t mind, do you?”

“Don’t mind?” Ellen found that she was shaking again, shocked to her core by exactly how frightened she had been at not knowing exactly where Charlie was, thinking of him
out there alone in the world. Her cheeks flushed and her voice trembled. “You take my son off for nearly three hours, buying him expensive presents without asking me, without even letting me know where he is! Hannah, I’ve been worried sick!”

Hannah blinked at her, rubbed the end of her nose, and laughed. “Ellie, don’t be so ridiculous.”

“I am not, I am not, I am
not
ridiculous!” Ellen shouted, advancing on her sister with each word, until they were just a few inches apart. Hannah stared at her, her confusion reading as if she were mildly amused by Ellen’s outburst, which just served to aggravate Ellen even further. “Don’t you get it, Hannah? You might be Charlie’s aunt, but you don’t get to just take him! You don’t get to take him places, buy him things he doesn’t need without asking me first. I am his mother, not you!”

“But—” Hannah looked perplexed.

“I told her you’d said it was okay, all right?” Charlie shouted, stepping between his aunt and his mother, shielding Hannah from her older sister. “I told her I’d phoned you and that you didn’t mind because I
knew
that if she asked you, you’d say no because you just want me to be stuck here in the house all day like you are and to
never
go anywhere and to
never
have any fun at all. And I turned my phone off so that you couldn’t spoil everything like you
always
do. And anyway
everyone
else has got a PlayStation except for me and if Aunt Hannah wants to buy me one then I don’t see why she should have to ask
you
and at least she does take me out, at least she will go places with me, which is more than you ever do!”

“Charlie.” It was Sabine who spoke, her voice calm and level. “You are unfair to speak to Ellen like that, she was only worried about you.”

“And you can shut up—it’s none of your fucking business!” Charlie yelled at Sabine.

“Charlie Woods, go to your room right now!” Ellen
thundered, shocked by the volume of her own voice, which was seldom, if ever, raised. Needing no further prompting, Charlie picked up the bag his console was in and made to leave. “And you can leave that there, for a start,” Ellen told him.

“What?” Charlie whirled around, his eyes burning. “It’s mine. I’m setting it up upstairs.”

“No, no you are not.” For those few seconds, Ellen concentrated every ounce of her anger, panic, and anxiety on him and realized that she was glad when she saw him shrink a little under her glare. “You are leaving it in its bag with its receipt until I decide what to do with it.”

“Or what?” Charlie challenged. “Going to take it back to the shop, are you?” Ellen felt her brief moment of power dwindle away. “No, didn’t think so. Fine, do what you like with it. I don’t give a toss.” He kicked the bag halfway across the kitchen floor, its journey stopped with a thud by one of the kitchen cupboards, and slammed viciously up the stairs.

Ellen turned to Hannah, who stood fidgeting with the strap on her bag; her eyes were bright, and a nervous half smile was fixed on her lips, as if she didn’t quite understand what was going on. “Don’t you see at all what you’ve done?” Ellen asked.

“Honestly, Ellen, Charles shouldn’t have lied to me about calling you, but really, what’s the big deal if I buy him something every now and then. God knows his life is so depressing, he deserves a treat or two. And I thought what with… well, it being nearly a year since the accident, it would be good for him to have something to take his mind off of things. And you know how much he’s wanted one of those. I really didn’t think it would do any harm.”

Ellen shook her head. It was as if her sister lived in her own impervious little bubble, immune to the effect she had on the lives of those around her.

“Hannah, perhaps you should go,” Sabine said quietly, but if she was attempting to defuse the situation, it was too late.

“How dare you,” Ellen growled at her sister. “Charlie and I
have been through hell together over the last year and we’re not back yet. Don’t you think I know how hard it’s been on him? It’s been hard on me, too. But I’m his mother, and I’m the one doing my very best to keep things together for him. You know how hard it is for me to make ends meet and you swanning around playing the big ‘I am’ doesn’t help! It’s almost like you’re trying to make him like you more than me!” Ellen’s revelation escaped her lips before she could stop it. Was that why she was so angry? Was it pure jealousy, seeing Hannah spend the kind of time with Charlie that she didn’t seem capable of doing herself?

“Well, that wouldn’t be hard,” Hannah mumbled under her breath, rolling her eyes like an insolent teen, which blotted out all of Ellen’s other thoughts.

“I’ve had enough of this, Hannah. I don’t want you round here or Charlie for a while. Yes—yes it is the anniversary of Nick’s death soon, it’s going to be hard enough for Charlie and me without you trying to stir things up. So can you please just leave us alone to get through it—after all,
we’re
the ones who loved him,
we’re
the ones who lost him. You—you have nothing at all to do with what we are going through.”

“Oh, you selfish, self-centered bitch.” Hannah’s laugh was shallow, rubbing disjointedly against the insult. “You really do think the whole world revolves around you and this fucking house, don’t you? You love to play the martyr, don’t you? To have everyone beating a path to your door to tell you how marvelously you’re managing, how terrible it is for
you.
Well, what about me, Ellen?”

“You?”
Ellen exclaimed. “What about you, Hannah? I’m his widow, I was his wife. You… you were his sister-in-law, who, frankly, he could hardly stand to be around. What the hell are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about?” Hannah paused, running her tongue nervously over her lips. “I’m talking about you wanting to keep Charlie locked up here like some little doll
that only you get to play with, about you not sharing him, not letting him have any kind of life because you don’t want one.
That’s
… that is what I’m talking about.” As she spoke, Hannah’s face had transformed into an ugly, vicious mask, her finger jabbing into Ellen’s face.

“You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone you love—you have no idea what it’s like to love anyone apart from yourself,” Ellen accused.

“I have no idea? I have no idea—well, that is a laugh. If you knew—”

“Hello, all!” Matt walked in through the kitchen door, very glad to be home, immediately realizing that he’d walked into the middle of something. He froze on the spot. “All right?” he questioned weakly.

“Hannah, come on.” Sabine stepped in, putting a hand on Hannah’s arm and taking the opportunity to lead her to the front door. “Let’s go down the road and have a drink, you and I. I have some work questions for you.”

“Yes, let’s—let’s go for a drink, let’s have some fun like normal people,” Hannah shot over her shoulder as Sabine led her away.

Slowly Matt put his bag down on the table.

“Fuck—what was that all about? You two looked like you were about to rip chunks out of each other,” Matt said as Ellen sank into her chair and found that she was trembling.