Play On (Play On 1)

I was still attracted to my husband. So that was something. But it got churned up in all my other feelings, or non-feelings rather, and it made me pull out of his arms. “Sorry, can’t.”

As I walked into our small, open-plan sitting room/kitchen, I felt him following me.

“I wish tae fuck I knew what was going on yer head,” he bit out impatiently. “But I never do.”

Not wanting an argument before work, I looked over my shoulder at him as I shoved my feet into my comfortable black shoes and teased, “I thought that’s what you liked about me.”

Hurt flickered in his dark eyes before he hid it from me. “It was sexy at first. Now it’s a bad joke.”

Guilt flared across my chest in an ache, and I got defensive. “You knew who I was when you married me, Jim.”

“Aye.” He nodded, turning angry. “I just thought after three years of fucking marriage, ye’d let me in once in a while.”

I thought of last night and the way I’d let him in on our couch. I looked at it pointedly.

If anything, it made him angrier, although there was heat in his eyes too. “Oh aye, baby, ye’ll let me fuck ye anyway I want … but God forbid I try tae cuddle ye.”

We stared at each other like two opponents, wishing and wondering why we had to have this same conversation every few weeks. It felt like we’d been doing this battle for at least a year.

“Is this about college?” he snapped.

My guilt momentarily faded and was replaced by frustration. I grabbed my purse and strode toward the door. “I haven’t got time for this.”

“Well, make time.” He was fast, suddenly towering over me, his hand pressed against our front door.

“What do you want me to say?”

Jim suddenly gentled and reached out to cup my cheek. “Baby, ye know we don’t have the money for it. Tae get into school here, ye’d have tae pay for open university tae get the qualifications ye need … and ye don’t even know what ye want tae do with yer life.”

“I know I don’t want to be stacking shelves in a supermarket.” I hadn’t left the US to be right back where I’d started!

Guilt tightened his features. “Look, I’m working hard, and in a few years, I might even make gaffer. It’ll be more money, and you might not even have to work at all. We’ll have kids by then, and ye can be here with them.”

The thought made me shudder inside. “I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you. Especially since it’s not about you making more money, Jim. It’s about me making more money, doing something with my life that I’m proud of, and right now, I’m not qualified to do anything.”

“I don’t look at it like ye’er putting pressure on me. I want tae give ye a good life, so ye dinnae have tae worry about working. We’re a team.”

He never heard me. As much as I tried to make him listen, he never really heard me. But I didn’t want to argue about it. “I know that.”

He looked at me warily. “Do ye?”

Two weeks later we were back to normal, sticking our heads in the sand and pretending our marriage was fine. But our marriage wasn’t fine. It was littered with broken promises.

On our wedding day, I’d promised to love and cherish my husband, believing that I did and I would.

And when he’d asked me to marry him, Jim promised that with him, I’d do and have everything I wanted. That wasn’t true. Edinburgh was expensive, and although education wasn’t as expensive as back home, it was still out of our financial reach. There were ways, but it would mean struggling along for a bit. It was possible, though. Of course, it was. But Jim didn’t support the idea, and without his support, I couldn’t do it.

I don’t know if it was childish resentment, or if the sad fact was all I’d ever felt for my husband was naïve infatuation, but one morning I woke up and realized I’d broken my promise to love him. I did love Jim … but I wasn’t in love with him. I’d married my friend, not my best friend, and as it turned out, there was a pretty damn big difference.

In truth, I knew we were heading for a collision but the thought scared me almost as much as the idea of this being my life forever. Sometimes it felt like I’d swapped countries, not situations, but that wasn’t true. At least with Jim, I had a supportive family and a group of friends who made me smile.

Despite being shocked and wary of me when I’d first arrived in Edinburgh, Jim’s mother, Angie, and his older sister, Seonaid, came to care for me. They had little choice, I suppose because, for those first few months, we lived in their cramped three-bedroom house in Sighthill. Sighthill, I discovered, was about twenty minutes west, outside of the city center.

I didn’t care for the area where Jim grew up. It was the city center that I fell in love with. It was hard not to. There was the amazing architecture, of course—the neoclassical and Georgian buildings in New Town were gorgeous. When I first walked around New Town, I could imagine myself in Regency dresses, acting out a Jane Austen novel.

Then there was the castle. Edinburgh Castle sat on an extinct volcano between Old and New Town, a mammoth king perched upon his throne, watching over his kingdom. More than anything, I would’ve loved a home with a view of that majestic building, but Jim and I would have to quadruple our annual income and then some to afford a place anywhere with a view like that.

Edinburgh was beautiful. Scotland was beautiful. It was everything I’d imagined and more.

Old Town was charming as well, but in a different way to New Town. The university was there, and of course, that held my interest. And my longing.

There was also the Royal Mile, a Reformation-era street with cobbled roads and dark, atmospheric alleyways.

The city was more than its looks. New Town was where the money was, with beautiful apartments, lawyers, accountants, and psychiatrists, high-end shopping malls, cocktail bars, five-star restaurants, and luxury boutique hotels. It was aspirational, and appealed to that secret part of me that wondered what life would be like if money were no obstacle.

Old Town was more complex. It was casual, down-to-earth, arty, pretentious, fun-loving, serious, quirky, and staid. It bustled with students, and I think maybe that was why it was a jumble of every vibe you could think of. And I loved it because it meant no matter who you were, there was a place for you there.

As for Leith, an area down by the Shore, I liked it too. It was down by the waterfront, a mishmash of money and not so much money. Luxury apartments were built by the water, there were Michelin-star restaurants, cosmetic surgery clinics, and the Royal Yacht Britannia. But there were also pubs that didn’t look like they’d seen a good scrub in a while, and a mall with stores for people with lower to middle incomes. I’d gotten a job at a supermarket in Leith, and Jim made okay money at his construction job. Although we were saving most of our money to buy a house, and it was a push on our income to do so, Jim wanted a nice place for me and rented us a one-bedroom apartment a mere fifteen-minute walk from the shore, and my job at the supermarket.

Soon after we moved in, Seonaid got a place a block from us. Until I saw his sister’s name in writing, I thought it was spelled Seona because it was pronounced see-oh-nah. Apparently, there was a mild controversy around her name, as most people thought it should be pronounced “Shona.” She left school at sixteen, and under advisement from her mom, deliberately softened her accent so it sounded more anglicized, and started working in a hair salon. She’d worked her butt off to eventually get a job in this fancy hair salon in New Town. She was making what Jim and I made combined and could afford a nice place on her own. I liked having her near as she’d become my closest friend here.

Any free time we had, we usually spent with Roddy and Seonaid. Sometimes we were joined by Seonaid’s friends and guys Jim and Roddy worked construction with. But more often than not, if it was an impromptu pub visit, it was just the four of us.

Just as it was a Sunday a few weeks after Jim and I had argued about the future. Again.

We’d met up with Seonaid and Roddy at Leith’s Landing, a pub right on the shore. On a sunny day, we loved sitting outside by the water. But I’d come to find that sunny days were almost a rarity in Scotland, and if I missed anything more than I missed my family, it was the Indiana summers.