for around a week. Maybe two. The absolute most would be three.”
“Try to make it two,” he said as Audrey nodded, reaching for a glass of wine to quell the butterflies of excitement that jumped inside her stomach as soon as those words left his mouth.
* * *
The excitement never went away. From April 14, when she received her aunt’s letter, to May 31, when she flew out to New York, she found herself either itching with excitement or terrified that something would get in the way, that Richard would change his mind.
He didn’t. He was as loving and distant and busy as he always was. Their relationship was as pleasant as it always was. What did I expect, she sometimes thought, in the middle of the night when she would wake up unable to sleep, worrying about whether she made the right choice, what her future might hold, whether she should be happier. Her parents, she realized, set an example that few could match. They loved each other with a fierce, all-consuming passion, even after years of marriage, even after Audrey came along, to the exclusion of all others, including Audrey. It was no surprise her father was diagnosed with heart disease shortly after her mother died, no surprise he deteriorated so very quickly once she had passed—neither of them wanted to carry on without the other.
The surprise, perhaps, was that her own marriage wasn’t like that of her parents. She knew this, of course, before she got married, that what she and Richard had wasn’t the same, but she thought that kind of devotion might grow, becoming stronger as the years went by. She hadn’t expected this lack of conversation, the way Richard would sit at the table and read the papers while she sat there quietly chewing, wishing he would talk to her, pay her attention.
He was so animated with his friends, when they went out for dinner with other couples, the life and soul of the party, but on their own, behind closed doors, he barely seemed to notice her.
I am lonely, she would think, those nights when she would tiptoe downstairs at three in the morning and make herself a cup of tea. I never dreamed I could be lonelier in my marriage than I ever was as a single girl.
Children would change that, she knew. Children would bring them closer together, give her a purpose. Richard wouldn’t allow her to work—none of his successful friends had working wives, all of them consumed with hairdresser visits, manicures, shopping, and children—so Audrey floated around the house all day, desperate for something to do.
She got a puppy, a Maltese, that she would take to the common and walk for hours and hours, looking at her watch wondering how it was time passed so slowly.
They needed a child. She had absolutely no idea why it hadn’t happened, and no idea what to do about it. She had a suspicion, based on nothing other than instinct, that it was Richard’s fault, but she could never say that out loud. He had questioned her fertility, though, countless times, and she was doing all the things she was supposed to be doing. She had even given up smoking, after hearing of one mother who got pregnant as soon as she quit. But it wasn’t their time, not yet. At least, that’s the line she would always use when people asked.
A child would stop the loneliness, she knew. Imagine her days being filled with waking the baby, warming a bottle, spoon-feeding the baby rice and wiping up around a high chair. Imagine pushing the baby in a pram up the High Street, stopping to peer in the windows of all the shops as she had seen other mothers do, chatting with other mothers as they pass, inviting them over to drink tea as their babies crawl around the living room.
Imagine Daddy coming home from work, his face lighting up as a toddler toddles to the front door to greet him. Imagine her own face, beaming with love as she watches Richard throw his daughter up in the air as she squeals in delight, catching her and swinging her round with joy, holding out an arm to embrace his wife, his eyes filled with love and pride.
Imagine a second child, a third. Imagine this house buzzing with children running up and down the stairs, children’s parties with entertainers, paper bowls of Twiglets and Smarties down the center of a trestle table set up