For Better for Worse

A small grimace touched his mouth. ?

?Dare I say it was because I wanted to protect you? Because I didn’t want you to worry… ? But no, of course, I’m not strong enough to do that, am I? I’m the weak, dependent one; you’re the strong decision-maker.’

As she heard the bitterness in his voice, Zoe flinched. He was never going to stop blaming her, was he? No matter what he might claim outwardly, inwardly he resented what she had done.

‘You don’t have to stay, you know,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I can manage without you.’

Even as she said the words, she knew suddenly and painfully how false they were. As he stared at her in the silence, she could feel the panic and fear building up inside her. She longed to reach out to him and to beg him to hold her, to wrap his arms around her and tell her that she was safe… that he loved her… that he would always love her and that nothing else mattered.

But it wasn’t love she could see in his eyes, it was anger, and she shrank back from it as he leaned across the bed and told her savagely, ‘Can you? Well, I’m damn sure that I can’t manage without you, and if that makes me weak and dependent, another burden for you to carry, then I’m sorry, but…’

He saw her face, saw the tears pouring down her cheeks and made a small fierce sound in his throat before reaching out for her and holding her.

‘Zoe, Zoe… what’s happening to us? I love you so much and I don’t want to lose you.’

As she clung to him, Zoe heard herself saying something she had once believed it would be impossible for her ever to say.

‘I’m afraid, Ben,’ she told him, shivering intensely. ‘I’m so afraid. What are we going to do… what will happen?’

She tensed as Ben started to kiss her. They had made love since she had told him about her pregnancy, but not with the abandonment and intensity she could sense in him now.

‘Don’t shut me out, Zoe,’ she could hear him telling her as he held her, smoothing his hands over her stomach, bringing her closer to him. ‘Don’t shut me out.’

Later, exhausted and serenely, almost snugly content, she lay in his arms, sleepily aware of the weight of his hand where it lay possessively against her stomach.

Tonight, for the first time since she had become aware of her pregnancy, they had shared their old intimacy and closeness; tonight she had been fiercely conscious of her love for him, and his for her, sharply aware of all that she would lose if she lost him. But it wasn’t just herself and her own needs she had to think of now.

Bleakly she wondered how long it would be before Ben started to betray the resentment he must feel. Tonight the shock of losing the hotel had brought them close together, but that closeness wouldn’t last long; it couldn’t…

In the darkness Ben touched her gently.

‘Don’t worry,’ he told her softly. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

Don’t worry? How could she do anything else? How could they bring a baby up in this small, cramped flat? Ben didn’t even have a proper job… just this temporary work. It was all very well for Ben to say that he could understand dive’s decision…

It was only later the next day at work that Zoe realised that she had said nothing to Ben about his disappointment. She had known how much this venture had meant to him, how anxious he had been about it right from the start, how reluctant to believe in it. She had laughed at him then, teasing him for his pessimism.

Her shift finished at four and she was home for just after six. Ben opened the front door for her, and the sight of him standing there formally dressed in his suit and white shirt, a shirt he must have had to iron for himself, sent a small shock of fear icing through her.

‘Ben…?’

She said his name questioningly, suddenly so afraid that her breath was a sharp pain in her lungs, suddenly seeing him with a new clarity. Last night they had truly been lovers, but now, today…

She looked at his suit again and then glanced nervously into his face, half afraid of what she might see there.

‘I’ve been to see Clive,’ he told her quietly.

Clive… Hope rose inside her.

‘What’s happened? Has he changed his mind about the hotel? Has he—?’

Immediately Ben shook his head. ‘No, it was nothing like that. You weren’t listening to me properly, Zoe. I said that I went to see him, not that Clive asked to see me.

‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. It’s obvious that things can’t continue as they are.’

A sickness invaded her stomach which had nothing to do with her pregnancy.

Here it was… what she had feared all along. He was going to tell her that he couldn’t stay; that he resented the burden of the fatherhood she had forced upon him.