The Husband’s Secret

life.
    It was Liam, she thought. The moment Tess walked out the door with Liam, Will finally understood what he was sacrificing. If there was no child involved, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. He loved Tess, presumably he did, but right now he was in love with Felicity, and everyone knew which was the more powerful feeling. It wasn’t a fair fight. It was why marriages fell apart. It was why, if you valued your marriage, you kept a barricade around yourself and your feelings and your thoughts. You didn’t let your eyes linger. You didn’t stay for the second drink. You kept the flirting safe. You just didn’t go there. At some point Will had made a choice to look at Felicity with the eyes of a single man. That was the moment he had betrayed Tess.
    ‘Obviously I’m not asking for your forgiveness,’ said Felicity.
    Yes, you are , thought Tess. But you’re not getting it .
    ‘Because I could have done it,’ said Felicity. ‘I want you to know that. For some reason it’s really important to me that you know that I was serious. I felt terrible, but not so terrible that I couldn’t have done it. I could have lived with myself.’
    Tess stared at her, appalled.
    ‘I just want to be totally honest with you,’ said Felicity.
    ‘Thanks, I guess.’
    Felicity dropped her eyes first. ‘Anyway. I thought the best thing would be for me to just leave the country, to get as far away as possible. So you and Will can work things out. He wanted to talk to you first, but I thought it would make more sense if –’
    ‘So where is he now?’ said Tess. There was a strident note to her voice. Felicity’s knowledge of Will’s whereabouts and plans was infuriating. ‘Is he in Sydney? Did you fly up together?’
    ‘Well, yes, we did, but –’ began Felicity.
    ‘That must have been very traumatic for you both. Your last moments together. Did you hold hands on the plane?’
    The flicker in Felicity’s eyes was indisputable.
    ‘You did, didn’t you?’ said Tess. She could just imagine it. The agony . The star-crossed lovers clinging to each other, wondering if they should keep on running, fly to Paris!, or do the right thing, the boring thing. Tess was the boring thing.
    ‘I don’t want him,’ she told Felicity. She couldn’t stand her role as the stodgy, wronged wife. She wanted Felicity to know that there was nothing stodgy about Tess O’Leary. ‘You can have him. Keep him! I’ve been sleeping with Connor Whitby.’
    Felicity’s mouth dropped. ‘Seriously?’
    ‘Seriously.’
    Felicity exhaled. ‘Well, Tess, that’s – I don’t know.’ She looked around the room for inspiration and returned her gaze to Tess. ‘Three days ago you said you would not have Liam growing up with divorced parents. You said, you wanted your husband back. You made me feel like the worst person in the world. And now you tell me that you’ve just jumped straight into an affair with an ex-boyfriend, while Will and I, we never even – God !’ She thumped her fist on the side of Tess’s bed, her colour high, her eyes shining with fury.
    The injustice, and perhaps the justice, of Felicity’s words took Tess’s breath away.
    ‘Don’t be so pious.’ She shoved Felicity’s skinny thigh as hard as she could, childishly, like a kid on a bus. It felt strangely good. She did it again, harder. ‘You are the worst person in the world. Do you think I would have even looked at Connor if you and Will hadn’t made your announcement?’
    ‘You didn’t muck about though, did you? Bloody hell, stop hitting me!’
    Tess gave her one final shove and sat back. She had never felt such an overwhelming desire to hit someone before. She had certainly never given in to it. It seemed that all theniceties that made her a socially acceptable grown-up had been stripped away. Last week she was a school mum and a professional. Now she was having sex in hallways and hitting her cousin. What next?
    She took a deep, shaky breath. In the heat of the moment, they called it. She had never realised just how hot the heat of the moment could get.
    ‘Anyway,’ said Felicity. ‘Will wants to work things out, and I’m leaving the country. So do whatever you want to do.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Tess. ‘Thanks very much. Thanks for everything.’ She could feel the anger almost physically draining from her body, leaving her limp and detached.
    There was silence for a moment.
    ‘He wants another baby,’ said Felicity.
    ‘Don’t tell me