The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Twenty Four

Her eyes widen a fraction. As though she's a little surprised but not that surprised. Not when she takes a moment to consider it. "Oh Ellie," she tilts her head, apologetic, "I'm so sorry to hear that. What made you decide this? Was it a mutual decision?"

"Well, after he found me half-naked with the artist I commissioned to do the piece of art for his birthday, I think we both realised it was best if we went our separate ways."

Now she's surprised. Esther's mouth practically drops open in shock. "You're having an affair?"

I nod. "Well, I mean I was."

And it was an affair.  Oh, how I long for it to have been something more than that. But the fact is, even though I am in love with Aidan, it didn't change what it was at its core, what we'd created between us, what we'd partaken in. An adulterous affair.

As I look at her I think that as well as being surprised, Esther looks a little annoyed that I hadn't told her.  That I hadn't ascribed a colour to my adultery during one of our sessions together. White. That would have been the colour of my time with Aidan if she'd asked me. Bizarre. My adulterous affair was purest cleanest white.

"I had planned to discuss it with you at our next meeting, and well, here I am."

She nods and writes something down. "And how is Oliver coping?" She asks as she brings her head up.

"Well, he doesn't hate me as much as he should. And since I don't love him as much as I should, it seems we're destined to always be at cross purposes," I smile sadly, trying desperately not to pick at the skin around my thumb. It had only stopped stinging yesterday.

"The man you were sleeping with. The artist. This is over now? You said, 'was'."

I nod. "I think he might hate me more than my husband does. But I'm going there after this. To try and salvage something." Anything.  I'm also going to beg his forgiveness. To tell him I'm in love with him. The look he gave me as he left me that day has haunted my every waking moment and I need to replace it with another. I don't say any of this aloud. I refuse to tell Esther any of this before speaking to Aidan. For one I think she'd give me an even greater look of pity than she's giving me now.

Esther is too human to be a psychiatrist I've always thought. She's a normal, down to earth woman and her emotions always show far too easily across her face. Though it is one of the reasons I always liked her.

"I told Oliver everything, too.  About the baby," I say as I let out a breath. Esther nods and her eyes go sad, her mouth softening into a melancholic smile.

"How did he react?"

"He accused me of hating him. Which of course I told him wasn't true. Though I don't know if he really believed me. We stayed up all night drinking Bourbon and just talking. About us, about life, about death even. It was the most we'd ever talked. He admitted sleeping with a woman back in London a year ago that he worked with. Whilst I was pregnant. He said the guilt had almost eaten him up inside. He says because of it he also felt guilty when the baby died. I don't blame him for it, for the cheating, I probably wouldn't have blamed him at the time either. I've never given myself over to him the way I should have, and I think he always felt that. He needs the kind of woman who wants him fiercely. He needs a woman to worship and idolise him, and feel lucky to have him. I never did."

Esther stares at me a long time and then closes her pad and rests it on the arm of her chair along with her pen.

"You've always had a remarkable self-awareness, Eloise," she says. "I've never met a woman who analyses herself quite so deeply or quite so harshly as you do." She smiles but the tone of her voice doesn't make it sound like a compliment. "You assume yourself to be the person you think you are when for the most part we are who others perceive us to be. How others see us is normally what defines us best —a blessing really because, for the most part, we are incapable of being fully objective about our own flaws and weaknesses. As well as seeing our own strengths." She sits forward in the chair and clasps her long-fingered hands in front on her lap. "I guess what I'm saying is: don't be so harsh on yourself. Your fears about Oliver despising you for not wanting the child you'd both created was a fallacy. I think maybe part of you always thought less of him for not caring that you never loved him the way he loved you. Therefore you could never truly see him as your equal. Maybe what you need is the kind of person who thinks the very same as you do about love. A person who believes themselves incapable or unworthy of it, so you can both find some middle ground where you accept each other and yourselves. Though I wouldn't want to do the couples therapy on that one I should add," she smiles. "Or maybe, and here's where I shoot myself in the foot, but maybe there's nothing wrong with you at all. Maybe you and Oliver just weren't compatible. Maybe you weren't ready to have a child with him because you always sensed your marriage wasn't going to last. You knew it was temporary. We all make mistakes Eloise. We are human beings. Flawed but unique."