For Better for Worse

It didn’t matter how often he told her that it was not anger he felt that she had not chosen to discuss her plans with him, but unhappiness because she had not trusted him enough to confide in him—and she sensed that, no matter how often she reiterated that she had wanted to protect him, he did not fully believe her—increasingly she was tense and irritable with him, anxiously watching for every small sign that he regretted his decision to stay with her… with them.

He might not say it, but inwardly she was sure that he blamed her for making the wrong decision; that he wished she had gone ahead with the termination.

Three nights ago, when he had not returned home until the early hours of the morning, having been gone since five the previous morning, she had accused him of wanting to avoid being with her, regretting his commitment to her.

‘Zoe, I’m working extra hours because we need the money,’ he had told her wearily. ‘When the baby comes…’

‘When the baby comes we’ll be in the hotel,’ she had snapped at him. ‘There’s no need to turn yourself into a martyr, you know, Ben,’ she had added bitingly.

‘No,’ he had agreed quietly. ‘One of us doing that is more than enough.’

He had apologised later when he’d found her crying in the bathroom, urging her not to get upset, but to think of the baby…

She had laughed then with half-hysterical bitterness, tempted to say what must be in both their minds: that from his point of view it would be a merciful release if something did go wrong and, like Sharon, she lost her child; but somehow she had bitten the words back, not for Ben’s sake, but for the baby’s, not wanting to tempt fate even in the smallest way.

Was it true that babies experienced some kind of awareness of their mother’s emotions while they were in the womb? Would hers know that initially she hadn’t wanted it?

It amazed and appalled her now that she could ever have felt like that. Looking back, it was like looking at another Zoe… another life.

She had changed, her mother had told her, and she had sounded as though she regretted that change, but Zoe didn’t. She had been too selfish… too light-hearted, too prone to skim the surface of life. Now she felt different.

Every day she exercised, gently, not for her sake but for the baby’s. Books, articles, features on pregnancy and childbirth absorbed her; she was determined only to eat and do those things which most benefited her child… she was determined to make it up to it for the irreparable harm she had so nearly done it.

Since their quarrel the other night, Ben had seemed to become very quiet and withdrawn, but stubbornly Zoe was refusing to respond to the way he was behaving. She had to put her baby first now. Ben was an adult… it was ridiculous of him to claim that he needed to work all these extra hours when they both knew that, once they were in the hotel, they would be much better off financially. Since they would be living in it, it shouldn’t be too difficult for her to combine her work with looking after the baby, although Ben would have to find someone else to front the restaurant, since she would not be able to leave the baby alone in the evenings.

She frowned, remembering an article she had been halfway through the previous evening before her mother had telephoned to ask if she could call round.

Irritably she started to hunt for the magazine. Her mother had amazed her with her casual approach to the baby’s arrival. Of course, if she hadn’t been so taken up with this new career of hers… No wonder her father was feeling a little bit left out and resentful—and her mother had the gall to accuse her of neglecting Ben!

She made a small sound of satisfaction as she saw the magazine under a pile of junk mail on top of the cupboard.

As she reached up for it, she dislodged the whole pile and had to kneel down on the floor to pick up the flood of papers.

Most of it was for throwing out anyway, she acknowledged, as she retrieved the magazine and then set about picking up everything else.

There was a letter in among the brochures, and she frowned as she realised it was from Clive.

Ben hadn’t said anything about his writing to them. She gave a tiny shrug and was just about to pick it up and put it back on the cupboard when something made her stop and read it.

She did so quickly, and then more slowly, the pins and needles in her legs ignored as the contents of the letter sank in.

They were not going to be able to go ahead with the hotel after all, Clive had written. The problems with the planning permission could not be overcome and, as he had explained to Ben at their last meeting, he was also having second thoughts about the wisdom of getting involved in such a costly enterprise when it was becoming increasingly obvious that many similar ventures were not succeeding.

Zoe sat back on her heels and stared blankly at the wall, a terrible surge of anger and fear engulfing her.

How dared Ben not tell her about this? There was not going to be any hotel… there was not going to be any secure income… any healthy country garden… there was not going to be any anything.

How dared Ben not tell her about this? How dared he simply push the letter to one side and ignore it?

* * *

It was gone two o’clock in the morning when he finally came home. He was working in a restaurant that specialised in entertaining parties and which consequently stayed open late. The tips were good, he had told her wearily when she had complained that he was working too late.

Zoe watched him walk into the bedroom, hardening her heart as she saw the weary way he moved, throwing off his jacket and running his hand through his hair; he looked older tonight, his shoulders hunched and rounded.

‘Zoe!’ She heard the tension in his voice when he realised that she was still awake.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about Clive’s letter?’ she challenged him before he could say anything else.