“Why not?” He took a forkful of fluffy omelet. “Neither of us has had an affair, we don’t hate each other, we don’t have any issues being in the same room. We’ll still be able to meet up at family gatherings and it won’t be awkward. Not much will change.”
Was he serious?
“Everything will change. We’re their parents, Nick! They see us as a unit. And maybe family gatherings will be amicable for a while, but in time you’ll meet someone. Then you’ll be bringing someone else and we’ll have to take turns and—”
He put his fork down. “Maybe you’ll be the one who meets someone.”
Where? How? She almost asked the questions aloud and then realized how sad they made her sound. She needed to build a new life. One that didn’t have Nick in it. She needed to join a choir, or learn Italian, or something. Anything.
After the wedding, she promised herself. After the wedding, she’d pull herself together. First she’d spruce up the house, then put it on the market and find somewhere smaller.
The idea of selling Honeysuckle Cottage made her feel physically ill. All the best parts of her life had happened here. Nick. Katie. Rosie. She still remembered the day they’d moved in. Nick, ducking his head to avoid the low beams. Fixing a gate across the stairs so that Rosie didn’t tumble down them. And hours spent in the garden, shaping it into the tranquil haven it was now.
There had been tough times, but the place was full of laughter and memories. All those things would be erased when someone else moved in. They’d see a dent in the wall and think it needed fixing. They wouldn’t smile, remembering that was where Rosie had ridden her bike into the wall on that Christmas morning when it had been raining too hard to go outdoors.
A new story would be written into these walls.
But that wasn’t her immediate concern.
“Hear me out.” She tipped her omelet onto a plate and grabbed a fork. “Whether it turns out to be a mistake or not, this is Rosie’s big day. This is all about her and Dan. A celebration. What do you think it will do to the mood if we announce our divorce at the same time?”
“If we do it today, then it won’t be at the same time. She’ll have had time to get over it.”
“This isn’t flu, Nick. You don’t ‘get over it.’ A divorce changes the landscape of our family. We all have to find a new way to be together. To fit. It’s going to be a massive adjustment.” Saying it aloud somehow made it all the more depressing. “And today she is going to choose her wedding dress. It wouldn’t be appropriate to spoil her day.”
“Divorce is part of life. Life happens. Wasn’t that the point you were making earlier?”
“It doesn’t have to happen before what is supposed to be one of the happiest days of our daughter’s life.” She forced down a mouthful of her breakfast and then put her plate down.
“So what are you suggesting?”
“That we act as if nothing has changed.”
“You—” He broke off, bemused. “You want us to attend this wedding together as a couple? Pretending everything is fine?”
“Yes. We present a united front. There will be plenty of time to share our less-than-happy news once the wedding bells have stopped ringing and the snow has melted.”
“To be clear about this, you’re suggesting we ‘act’ married?”
“Well, technically we are married, Nick, so it shouldn’t be much of a challenge to pretend for one week.”
His gaze was steady. “You want us to travel together, share a hotel room—”
“Whatever it takes.” She wasn’t going to offer to relinquish the bed. Nick could sleep anywhere, whether it was a tent in a desert or the hard floor of a hotel room. Maggie could barely doze off if she was lying on a feather-filled mattress, so she didn’t need to make things harder for herself. “It will be easy enough to keep up the pretense. It’s not as if we argue all the time or anything.”
He pushed his plate away. “It doesn’t feel right to lie to them.”
“We’re not lying. We’re withholding our news. We haven’t told them we’ve been living apart for a while. What difference does it make to wait a few more weeks?”
“We haven’t told them because we agreed it was better done face-to-face when we’re all together.”
“You seriously think the right time to announce a divorce