Wedding Night

“I can’t … I have to stop.…”
    I emit a fourth yelp, which sounds a bit more like a sob. It feels as if something is looming up inside me, something unstoppableand violent and loud. The last time I felt like this, I was giving birth.
    “You need somewhere private,” says Lorcan swiftly. “You’re going to have a meltdown. Where shall we go?”
    “I’ve checked out of my room,” I mutter, between gasps. “They should have a crying room. Like a smoking room.”
    “I’ve got it.” Lorcan grabs my arm and leads me through the tables to the swimming-pool area. “Steam room.” He doesn’t wait for a reply but opens the glass door and pushes me inside.
    The atmosphere is so thick, I have to grope for a seat. The air is dense with vapor and there’s a soft, herby scent.
    “Cry,” says Lorcan through the misty air. “No one’s watching. No one can hear, Fliss. Cry.”
    “Can’t.” I swallow hard. Everything in me is resisting. The odd yelp still escapes, but I can’t surrender.
    “Then tell me. Daniel’s moving to L.A.,” he prompts.
    “Yes. He won’t see Noah anymore, and he doesn’t even
care
.” A shudder overcomes me. “He didn’t even tell me.”
    “I thought you wanted him out of your life? That’s what you said.”
    “I did,” I say, momentarily confused. “I do. I think I do. But this is so final. It’s such a rejection of us both.” Something is rising up in me again. Something churning and powerful. I think it could be grief. “It means it’s over. Our family’s oooover.” And now the churning is threatening to consume me. “Our whole family is ooooover.…”
    “Come here, Fliss,” says Lorcan quietly, and proffers a shoulder. Immediately, I recoil.
    “I can’t
cry
on you,” I say, my voice jerky. “Look away.”
    “Of course you can cry on me.” He laughs. “We’ve had sex, remember.”
    “That was sex. This is
far
more embarrassing.” I gulp. “Look away. Go away.”
    “I’m not looking anywhere,” he says steadily. “And I’m not going anywhere. Come on.”
    “I can’t,” I say desperately.
    “Come
on
, you stupid woman.” He holds out his suited arm, pearlescent with steam. And finally, gratefully, I descend on it in a volcano of sobs.
    We’re there for a while—me shuddering and sobbing and coughing, and Lorcan rubbing my back. For some reason I keep remembering Noah’s delivery. It was an emergency C-section and I was terrified, but, all the way through, Daniel was beside me in green scrubs, holding my hand. I never doubted him then. Back then I never doubted anything for a minute. And that makes me want to cry all over again.
    At last I look up and push my hair back off my sweaty face. I can feel that my nose is swollen and my eyes are puffy. I haven’t cried like that since I was about ten, probably.
    “I’m sorry—” I begin, but Lorcan holds up a hand.
    “No. No apologies.”
    “But your suit!” I begin to become aware of exactly what we’re doing here. We’re sitting in a steam room, both fully dressed.
    “Every divorce has casualties,” says Lorcan calmly. “Think of my suit as one of the casualties of yours. Besides which,” he adds, “steam is good for suits.”
    “At least our skin will be clean,” I say.
    “There you go. Loads of pluses.”
    A concealed mechanism in the corner is puffing fresh steam into the tiny chamber, and the air is becoming more opaque. I pull up my feet onto the mosaic-tiled bench and hug myknees tight, feeling as though the steam is a protective barrier. It’s intimate in here. But it’s private too.
    “When I got married, I knew life wouldn’t be perfect,” I say into the mist. “I didn’t expect a rose garden. And then, when I got divorced, I didn’t expect a rose garden there either. But I hoped I might at least get … I don’t know. A patio.”
    “A patio?”
    “You know. A little terrace. Something small with a few plants to tend. Something with a tiny bit of optimism and love. But what I have is a post-nuclear war zone.”
    “That’s good.” Lorcan gives a little laugh.
    “What do you have? Not a rose garden?”
    “It’s kind of alien territory,” he says after a pause. “Like a moonscape.”
    Our eyes meet through the murky atmosphere and we don’t need to say any more. We get it.
    The steam is still puffing and wreathing around us. It feels healing. It feels as though it’s lifting troublesome thoughts up away with it, leaving behind a kind of