The Confession

'Cool.'

Tara jumped up for another hug and then she was on her way out. Becky stopped her just as she was closing the door.

'You can leave the door open, darling,' said Becky. 'And ask your father to come up before he goes, would you?'

'Okay!'

Tara disappeared back downstairs. With the door open, Becky clearly heard the message being delivered. Bryan's response was relaxed and affirmative. You'd never guess that this was a man whose marriage was hanging by a thread. Becky got out of bed and put on a dressing gown. She heard Bryan coming up the stairs and went to stand in a part of the room where the bed would be between them. Her arms were tightly folded as he stepped in and stood by the door.

'Morning,' he said.

Becky gave him a nod, not quite trusting her voice to hit the right note. She coughed and said:

'Why did you tell our daughter that I was sleeping in here?'

'Well,' said Bryan, 'when we were having breakfast, she asked why you weren't coming down.'

'What did you say?'

'I told her to ask you. Which, of course, involved telling her that you were in the spare room.'

'Why didn't you just tell her that I was having a lie-in?'

'I didn't know that.'

'For fuck's sake, Bryan! Grow a brain!'

Bryan's jaw tightened. He quietly closed the door and spoke with a lowered voice.

'You and I have an agreement not to put words in each other's mouths,' he said. 'If Tara has a question about you, she asks you. If she has a question about me, she asks me. And if the other parent is not available, she has to wait.'

'Bryan, that's for important things!'

'Everything you say to a child is important.'

'Don't you get righteous with me! You're in no position to claim the moral high ground!'

'I'm not trying to!'

'That's a fucking lie! You love the fact that Tara trusts you and looks up to you! She still doesn't know what a piece of shit you are!'

Bryan looked at his wife, chewing over what he might say in response and deciding to say nothing. In the silence, they both heard the faint sound of Tara's voice calling from downstairs. Bryan cracked open the door and called out:

'What is it, Tara?'

'We have to go!'

Bryan checked the time on his phone and winced.

'Shit, she's right,' he said.

'Go on, then. Run away.'

'You know, Becky... you can be quite a piece of work yourself.'

'Yes, but the last time I looked, I didn't fuck any of my co-workers.'

She folded her arms and gave Bryan a look that said, 'Top that, arsehole!' Bryan gave a heavy sigh and left the room. Within a couple of minutes, he and Tara were gone and Becky was alone in a silent house.

***

Becky set up her laptop, work papers and a fully charged phone on the dining room table. She had showered, dressed and made herself a pot of extra strong coffee, yet after half an hour's activity she realised that she couldn't concentrate. Becky sat back and pressed her finger and thumb into her temples, wondering what to do.

She could go into the office--it was always easier to work with other people working around her. But the moment the thought popped into her mind, her body seemed to scream, 'Noooo!' Becky knew that if she went in, she wouldn't be able to stop herself telling somebody what happened and she didn't want to do that. She knew from previous experience that women would be inclined to take her side and although it was sorely tempting to have a good bitch session about Bryan--and men in general--some inner voice warned her that there was too much at stake to use this issue as an excuse for female bonding.

As Becky sat brooding over her coffee, she realised that she didn't have any really close friends. All the women she socialised with were either mothers of Tara's classmates or colleagues at work--the kind of people Becky would trust with her daughter or to keep a promise. But who could she trust to pour out the secret thoughts of her heart? Thoughts that even Becky herself could only sense but not articulate. The people she knew would tend to judge her or Bryan and try to insert their own opinions. The only person Becky trusted to really listen to her... was Bryan.

'God, what a fucking mess,' said Becky to herself.

'Are you just cursing?' said an inner voice. 'Or are you asking Him for help?'

Becky groaned inwardly. Her mother always hated it when her daughter took God's name in vain. It seemed that being thousands of miles away didn't stop the old woman from having her opinions.

'Okay, I was cursing,' said Becky silently in her head. 'But seriously, if you have something to say that might help, I'm all ears!'

'Well, I would remind you that the vow you took in that church was not to Bryan, but to God. You didn't promise Bryan to be the best wife you could be on the condition that he be the best husband. You promised God to be the best wife you could be... period.'

'So if Bryan cheats on me, I should still try to be a good wife?'

'Yes.'

'But that's crazy!'

'Becky, Bryan breaking his vow is between him and God. It's got nothing to do with you.'

'It's got everything to do with me!'

'Does it? So if Bryan starts neglecting Tara, you would feel justified in neglecting her too?'

'That's different!'

'Why is it different? The principles you apply to your relationship as parents clearly work for you and Bryan. Why do you think those same principles can't be applied to your relationship as husband and wife?'

'What principles are you talking about?'

'Well, isn't that what you need to figure out?'

Becky sat toying with her empty coffee cup, staring into space. Her heart was thumping and she had a sick taste in her mouth.

'Why are you afraid?' said the inner voice.

'I don't know,' said Becky to herself.

'Yes, you do.'

'Oh, shut up!'

'Why does this hurt you so much?'

'Because I love him!' howled Becky in her mind. 'I love him! And I don't love him because of the way he makes me feel or because he's a great father or because he ticks my boxes... I love him! And it pisses me off that I only know how much I love him because he cheated on me! I now have the right to divorce him without any blowback on me... and I don't want it!'

'Why not?'

'Because it's so unfair! If I had cheated on Bryan, he would have divorced me, no question! He would have said something like "I love you, Becky, but I can't live with myself as a cuckold" and that would have been it! He would have forgiven me and divorced me! So I feel very strongly that I should do the same to him. In fact, if I don't do the same to him, I feel like I'm letting myself down! Do you know what I mean?'

'Becky, these are valid concerns, and you absolutely need to get to the bottom of them.'

'But it's so painful! And scary!'

'I know, my darling. I know.'

'Mum?'

Becky looked up, half expecting her to be in the room. But of course, she wasn't. This was all going on inside her head. Realising she was alone with no-one to hold her, Becky burst into tears and bawled her eyes out.

***

Bryan's place of work was a huge modern building with large windows that let in a lot of natural light. There was a café area on the ground floor with self-service food and drink counters in one section and a seating area in the other. Bryan paid for his lunchtime tuna ciabatta and fizzy water and went to find a free table. He was just setting the tray down when his phone buzzed.

It was Becky.

Bryan took a deep breath and swiped the green spot.

'Hi there,' he said.

'Hello, Bryan. Are you able to talk?'

'I've just started lunchbreak.'

'Is that a no?'

'No, no, no... it's a yes. Yes, I can talk.'

'Good.'

Becky's voice was quiet and businesslike. There was no warmth, but nor was there the clipped manner of speaking she used to disguise her anger. Bryan could hear no emotion at all. It made him feel sick and he had to touch the table with his free hand to steady himself.

'I want to go away for the weekend,' she said. 'I need to be alone to think.'

'Okay,' said Bryan.

'Will you be all right looking after Tara?'

'Of course.'

'Good.'

There was a silence. Bryan cleared his throat and said:

'When do you want to go?'

'This evening,' said Becky. 'And I'll be back on Sunday evening.'

'Do you want me to pick Tara up from school?'

'No, I'll do that. I told her I would and I want to keep my word. Besides...'

Becky stopped. There was more silence and Bryan's imagination filled in the unspoken words: 'Besides... this might be the last time Tara sees me as part of a whole family.' He heard Becky clear her throat.

'All right, Bryan,' she said. 'That's all I wanted to ask. Thanks for helping out.'

'Becky, I'm her father! It's no--'

'Goodbye, Bryan.'

The phone went dead.

Bryan knew he had seconds before he burst out crying. Leaving the tray on the table, he walked swiftly to the men's toilets, slipping his phone into his pocket as he walked. Banging open the door, he saw one guy at a urinal, but thankfully all the cubicles were vacant. Bryan went into the end one next to the wall, slid shut the bolt and sat on the closed toilet seat.

Bryan had learned the art of silent weeping at school--it was a skill pretty much every boy had to learn. The few boys who failed had a miserable time, mocked by the big-of-mouth and shunned by the rest. The trick was to face downwards and open your mouth as wide as you could. That way, the sobs came out as silent gasps and you could cough to cover the really big ones. Also, your tears would fall directly onto the floor, so you wouldn't have the telltale track-marks on your face when you came out of the cubicle. Tears on the floor could be easily wiped up with a piece of toilet paper and flushed away so that no-one would even know you'd been crying.

Of course, Bryan's present colleagues were unlikely to tease him without mercy or call him a baby to his face. But still... he didn't want to talk about it. And the best way to avoid talking about an issue was for people to not even realise there was an issue to talk about.

That was how Bryan had kept his one-time fling with Siobhan from his wife all these years. If Becky had known Bryan had a secret, she would have had it out of him within thirty seconds. But Bryan decided early on to take his encounter with Siobhan to the grave and once he decided that, it simply went to the back of his mind. It helped that he and Becky had been heading for divorce when it happened. Becky had tried to be supportive during his conflict with Eric, but the more she understood what the financial consequences would be, the more scared she got. Bryan had experienced the sharp side of his wife when she felt insecure, but he was totally unprepared for how vicious she could get when she was terrified.

The way Becky had met Bryan and got married was like a movie love story, and now that love story was collapsing around her ears. Instead of finding her soulmate, Becky felt locked into a marriage with a man so crushed by his former friend's betrayal that he seemed to forget he had a wife and future to worry about. It was a horrible time for both of them and Becky found herself blaming Bryan for everything, accusing him of conning her into believing he was a real man.

It was after a particularly savage rant featuring the word 'loser' that Bryan fled the house one Friday evening. Driving the car on automatic pilot, he found himself arriving at the office, even though he'd given up his keys the week before. There was a light on in one of the windows and Bryan pressed the buzzer, hoping it would be Eric up there alone. But it wasn't Eric.

It was Siobhan.

Bryan hadn't intended to make love to her. They sat on the couch in Eric's office--a couch that used to be in his office--and Bryan poured out his heart to her. Siobhan was a great listener and she was genuinely shocked at the turn Bryan's life had taken. He started to cry and tried to stop, but Siobhan wouldn't let him. She held him and comforted him, telling him how great it felt that he trusted her to show his feelings. Before long, Bryan felt the woman's fingertips on the back of his neck and he found himself looking into her eyes.

'Don't look at me like that,' he said.

'Why not?'

'Because it makes me want to kiss you.'

'Bryan, I want you to kiss me. I'm dying for you to kiss me.'

So Bryan kissed her. The kissing was wonderful--he had always fancied Siobhan--and soon her hands were slipping under his clothes and onto his bare skin. Bryan was on top and he stopped kissing and looked down at her. She was smiling.

'Do you want to make love?' she said.

'Yes,' said Bryan heavily.

'I have one condition.'

'Okay?'

'If we do this,' said Siobhan, 'I don't want half measures. I want both of us to be naked and I want you to finish inside me. I'm on the pill, so you don't have to worry about getting me pregnant.'

'Siobhan...'

'I know that you love your wife, Bryan, and I don't care. I want this. To tell you the truth, I've wanted this for a very long time.'

Bryan gazed at the woman. He had never cheated in a relationship before, but he had fantasized about it and in his fantasies, he would want to say no but be unable to due to the strength of his sex drive. But the reality was different. Bryan saw very clearly that his sex drive was not uncontrollably strong. And in order to have sex, he and Siobhan would have to get up, strip off their clothes and then Siobhan would have to arrange herself on the couch in such a way that he could penetrate her. It struck him as both cold-blooded and undignified.

Yet the fact that Siobhan told him flat out that she wanted to make love to him... it meant a great deal to Bryan. He knew Siobhan. He liked Siobhan, both as a colleague and a friend. She was taking a huge risk by being this open with him, by risking his rejection. And she was absolutely not the kind of woman to take off her clothes and offer herself up to a loser. He was still a real man in her eyes and her desire for him made Bryan feel intensely masculine. He realised that what was strong was not his sex drive--it was his desire to say yes.

So he did.

And now, all these years later, sitting in a toilet cubicle leaning against the wall, Bryan thought about that moment and the two hours that followed. He got a hard-on thinking about it. In his only phone call to Siobhan after the event, she had described it as 'two of the best hours of my life' and Bryan felt the same way. She was open to meeting up again, but by this time Becky had told Bryan that she was pregnant with Tara. The news snapped Bryan out of his preoccupation with Eric and got him to focus his energies on the future.

Siobhan had understood. She wished Bryan luck and told him that she had no regrets. He loved her for that. Strange. He loved her for the way she accepted that he didn't love her. Sitting in the cubicle, Bryan realised that he had no regrets either. He had enjoyed fucking Siobhan in Eric's office, on the couch and once on his desk. His only real regret was getting caught. Still, if you gamble and lose, you have to pay the price. That's how the world works. Bryan wondered how high the price would be.

Bryan flushed the toilet and came out of the cubicle. He nodded to a couple of guys as he washed his hands, then he made his way back to the works café. The seating area was pretty busy and talk filled the air, but Bryan thought he could see the table he selected earlier and he made his way there. As he approached, he saw that it was still vacant.

But the tray with his lunch had gone.

***

After making the decision to take the weekend for herself, Becky found that she could concentrate again. She had a productive rest-of-the-day and picked up Tara on time. As she drove home with her daughter secured in the back seat, Becky decided to mention her impending time off.

'Mummy's going away for the weekend,' she said. 'So you'll have some time alone with Daddy!'

'Where are you going?' said Tara.

'I don't know yet.'

'Why do you have to go?'

'I just need a break, darling.'

'But why?'

Becky drew a breath in through her teeth. She didn't want Tara to think it had anything to do with her. There was a pedestrian crossing with mothers and kids waiting and Becky slowed the car to a stop.

'Sometimes a person needs time alone,' said Becky.

'Why?'

'Well, it gives you the space to think.'

'Can't you think with other people?'

'I suppose you can. But it's different when you're alone with your thoughts. It's difficult to explain.'

The road was now clear and Becky drove on. In the back seat, Tara's face scrunched up as her brain went to work.

'I don't like being alone,' she declared.

'Of course not, darling,' said Becky.

'I never, ever want to be alone!'

Becky glanced at her daughter's face via the rear-view mirror. The child's expression was more adamant than sad, as though she had decided something for herself. The feeling resonated with Becky and she found herself wondering: Was I the same when I was Tara's age? Did I make declarations like that? And how did my mother respond? Did she say things that I can't remember but that are rattling around my head to this day?

When Becky got home, she still had a few emails to answer, so Tara was allowed one hour of 'tablet time'. The two girls sat next to each other at the dining room table, both tapping away on electronic devices. Then Becky took Tara out to a nearby playground, pushing her on the swing and watching her on a climbing frame which resembled a giant beehive.

When they returned home, Bryan's car was in the driveway. Tara jumped up and down in excitement as Becky unlocked the front door. 'Daddy!' she screamed as she went running in, leaving Becky alone in the doorway. She heard the two of them in the kitchen-dining room as she hung up her coat, the same kind of banter as that morning. But unlike that morning, Becky felt no great warmth at the sound of father and daughter together. On the contrary, Becky resented the child's excitement at being with her father and thought that he didn't deserve the love he was getting.

Becky walked to the kitchen-dining room and saw Bryan and Tara sitting at the table together. Tara had been wearing her red anorak and now it was slung over the back of a chair. For some reason, this incensed Becky who immediately went to grab it.

'I'll hang this up, shall I?' she said coldly.

Bryan bit his lip and took his daughter's hand. Becky tilted her head like an owl watching a mouse and said in a clipped voice:

'You can make Tara's dinner, I take it?'

'Of course,' said Bryan.

'Good. Then I'll go and pack.'

Becky marched out of the now silent room, hung the red anorak up in the hall and ran up the stairs, two at a time. She had a roller-case stored in the wardrobe which she took out and opened up on the bed. She began opening drawers and choosing clothes. Within five minutes, there were tops, pants and skirts all over the covers.

Becky was just wondering whether to take two jumpers or three, when there was a quiet tap on the door. Becky turned and saw Bryan with Tara in his arms. The little girl had her face against his shoulder and her legs hung limp from the crook of his arm. She wasn't moving, but Becky could hear snivelling. Bryan held the child close and took a deep breath.

'I think the three of us need to sit down and talk,' he said.

Becky's first impulse was to scream, 'You created this situation, you fucker! You deal with it!' But the feeling passed and Becky nodded and cleared a space on the bed for them to sit. She gestured for Bryan to give Tara to her so she could sit the child on her lap and hold her. Bryan sat next to mother and daughter, his hand on the bed, one leg crossed over the other.