Please Forgive Me (25 page)

She turned to look at him. ‘Seth, up until two weeks ago I didn’t know if you were alive or dead because you didn’t have the decency to let me know where you were. Then when we bump into each other, and you find out I’m seeing someone else, you appear at my doorstep and tell me you want to start over. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I can’t see what you’re doing here?’

‘All I’m doing is –’

‘All you’re doing is the same thing you’ve always done which is mess me around! I’ve moved on. Why can’t you give me that at least?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean, why can’t you just let me be happy? Before, as soon as things got crazy, you took off and left me to deal with everything on my own. And now to add insult to injury you can’t even let me have closure.’

Seth was silent for a while and when he spoke again, his tone held none of his usual bravado. ‘By that you mean the divorce.’

‘Yes. This might be all another big game to you but it isn’t to me,’ she said, her tone wavering. ‘I’m thirty-three years old Seth, and I’ve got all this baggage from a first marriage. I don’t want to deal with it anymore and I’m tired of waiting around for it to be finished. I want to move on with my life. I need you to help me do that.’

‘You really want to go through with this?’

She looked at him, willing him to take her seriously. It was the only way she could ever truly rid herself of the pain he’d caused. ‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. What
-
did you really think I went to all that trouble to find you for nothing?’

Seth seemed unmoved. ‘So you can be free to marry the doc, I suppose.’

‘It hasn’t come to that, and I don’t know if it will,’ she said honestly. ‘Anyway, It doesn’t matter either way. For as long as I’m married to you, on paper or otherwise, I can’t move on. I want a clean slate Seth. And I can’t have that until you agree to let me go.’

His gaze held firm and for a brief moment, she thought he was about to agree. But then his expression darkened. ‘Well I’m sorry but it’s not that simple.’

‘What?’ she said, shocked.

‘This might surprise you but I have a lawyer too, and according to him, that no-fault divorce application your lawyer just filed isn’t valid.’

Alex’s thoughts whirled. ‘What are you talking about? Of course it’s valid. California law states I don’t have to prove you were unfaithful and we have no property, no children, no assets to dispute...’

‘Well that’s where you’re wrong,’ he replied, eyeing her triumphantly. ‘Actually, there is one asset we both share, and until we can come to agreement about that, the petition doesn’t stand.’

‘What asset…?’ But almost as soon as she said the words, Alex had figured it out. ‘The Mustang,’ she gasped.

‘Yep. So until we come to some kind of agreement about ownership, officially our assets
are
in dispute.’

No way. He was
not
getting her beloved car. Not after all the sweat and effort she’d put into it – well truthfully what they’d
both
put into it, but that wasn’t the point. Seth
knew
how much she adored that car – he wasn’t seriously thinking of taking it from her?

‘But you bought me that car for my birthday!’ she cried, maddened beyond belief. How the hell did he come up with this stuff? ‘So it’s mine.’

‘Actually, in the eyes of the law, it’s a shared asset by way of our marriage,’ he told her smugly. ‘So I guess we’ll have to try and come to some kind of agreement. Only problem is this could take some time…’

At that very moment, Alex didn’t think she had ever,
ever
in her entire life so badly wanted to murder someone.

My love,

I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from, but I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am.
 
You have to know that I would never do anything to hurt you, at least not intentionally, but I made a big mistake, a huge mistake this time.

I realise there’s no going back, and I’m not asking for that; I just wanted to let you to know how much I regret what happened, and how I wish from the bottom of my heart it never happened, or that I hadn’t caused it. But it did, and it’s all my fault, and I would do anything to have the chance to go back and undo it all.

But I can’t.

I know I don’t have any right to ask, but I hope you’re OK?

I really don’t know what else to say now. Just know that I never meant to hurt you, and I’m so very, very sorry.

Please forgive me.

Leonie sat by the windowsill, and tucked the letter into the envelope.

It was still driving her crazy trying to figure out what had happened with Nathan and Helena, and despite her and Alex’s best attempts, they now seemed to have hit a real dead end in trying to find either of them. Despite herself, she’d been reluctant to read through any more of the letters once Alex had suggested that they should leave well enough alone, but at the same time, it was hard it resist.

Was her friend right? she wondered now. Should they just stay out of this whole situation and give up trying to reunite the couple?

After all, Leonie knew better than most that there were some situations that just couldn’t be fixed, and some actions that couldn’t be undone. And for the umpteenth time since it all happened, she wished she’d had the presence of mind to foresee what was coming down the line for her and Adam.

Especially when things really began to crumble…

It was a late Thursday evening and Leonie was home later than usual, having decided to do a spot of late-night shopping in town.

Letting herself into the apartment, she was struck by how quiet things seemed. Although Adam was usually home from work well after her, she’d sent him a text earlier letting him know that she’d be a little bit later today, so he might need to start preparing dinner himself. But it seemed he hadn’t returned yet as the living room blinds were still down and Leonie figured she must have forgotten to open them before she left this morning.

‘Hi.’ The voice came so unexpectedly she almost jumped out of her skin.

‘Adam, yikes, you frightened the life of me!’ she said laughing, but almost immediately, realised that something wasn’t right. Adam was sitting rigid on the sofa and staring into the distance, the room practically in darkness.

‘Hey what’s wrong?’ she said, opening the blinds and flooding the room with early evening light. It was only then that she saw his face.

‘Adam?’ she asked again, worried now. He looked terrible, his expression was ashen and his bright blue eyes were devoid of their usual sparkle. My God, Leonie thought, stricken with terror, was he ill or something?

‘You didn’t hear?’ he replied, his tone flat and zombie-like.

‘Hear what?’ She stood rooted to the spot, afraid to move. ‘What’s going on Adam, you’re scaring me.’

‘It was all over the news this evening, I thought you’d have heard.’

At this, Leonie felt a jolt of relief. Well, whatever the problem was, it couldn’t be health-related. ‘To be honest, work was a bit mad today, I had lunch at my desk and afterwards I went shopping, so
-
’

‘It’s Microtel,’ he interjected, and then she heard the catch in his voice. ‘They’re gone.’

‘What do you mean, ‘gone’?’ she frowned. ‘Gone where? Adam you’re not making any sense.’

Adam’s tone was wooden and the words came slowly. ‘The company I’ve been with for the last seven years is going out of business. They called a meeting this morning to tell us that they’re going into liquidation.’ He turned to look at her, his face white. ‘It’s all over Lee. As of this morning, I’m officially unemployed.’

‘What?’ Leonie was flabbergasted. It was probably the last thing she’d expected. ‘But they can’t just do that, surely? What about a redundancy package, or least some more notice to give you time to find something else…’

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that. They have no obligation to do anything for us now. It’s over and that’s all there is to it.’

Leonie looked at him, trying to take in the implications of what he was saying. He’d worked at the Microtel plant for years and as far as they were both concerned, probably would for life. His current engineer’s position was a senior one and the pay was great. How had this happened?

‘I don’t get it...’

‘I didn’t either at first. But I’ve had all day to get used to it, and believe me, it’s happening. I’m out of a job.’

She sat down beside him on the sofa and put her arms around him. ‘Love, I’m so sorry. I wished you’d phoned to let me know –’

‘I was in shock Lee, we all were. You should have seen everyone’s faces at the meeting this morning. We were stunned. Sales were up, so as far as we knew Microtel was solid. We never saw it coming.’

‘I can’t understand it,’ she said. ‘If sales were up then why…?’

Adam ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t either. All I know is that for the first time in my life I have no job to go to. And it’s not a nice feeling.’

‘Oh Adam, don’t think like that, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Yes, this is an awful blow, a terrible blow, but we’ll get through it. You’ll find another job soon, I’m sure of it. You’re very well qualified, and have so much experience –’

‘Yeah, me and all the other engineers that were laid off this morning,’ he said bitterly.

Leonie bit her lip. So it mightn’t be that easy to find a position elsewhere that quickly, but at the moment there really was no point in Adam stressing about it. OK so the timing couldn’t be much worse, what with the mortgage on the new apartment and the expense of the wedding, but this was a just a set-back, a major set-back mind you, but just that nonetheless.

‘Please don’t let this get you down too much. Yes, it’s a big shock, but it shouldn’t be the end of the world either. We’ll be fine, I know we will.’ While her salary was nowhere near the level Adam’s had been, it would certainly tide them over for a couple of months at least. ‘We’ll just have to tighten our belts and cut down on a few things here and there until we get back on our feet, OK?’

Adam shook his head. ‘I’m sorry Lee, this isn’t the way things should be.’ He put his head in his hands ‘God, I feel like such a loser.’

‘Hey, you stop that right now,’ she scolded him. ‘None of this is your fault, it’s just one of those things, and there’s certainly no point torturing yourself about it. What you need to do now is take a bit of breather, let it all sink in and then come back fighting.’

‘I know.’ Adam looked up, his expression so full of self-doubt and uncertainty that Leonie’s heart went out to him. For as long as she’d known him he’d been so confident and sure of himself, and it was now hugely troubling seeing him vulnerable and afraid.

‘What’s done is done and we can’t change it,’ she told him as they talked about it some more over dinner. ‘What we
can
do is control how we react to it.’

‘I’m sorry for being such a wuss about all this,’ he said. ‘It’s just I’ve never really had to worry about money, or where it’s coming from. I’ve had a job since I left college and was so sure things would just keep going as normal.’

‘Maybe you were complacent, I suppose we both were. But try and look at the positives here. We’ve still got one good salary coming in, enough to cover the mortgage and our living expenses, for a while at least.’ She set down her fork. ‘But perhaps it might be no harm to consider postponing the wedding, at least for
-
’

‘No way,’ Adam interjected firmly, his mouth set in a hard line. ‘I don’t want that. It’s six months away
-
I’ll have another job by then, surely? I’ll make bloody sure I do anyway. No, it would kill me to have to do that to you.’

Leonie was heartened by his doggedness and determination, but at the same time they needed to be practical. ‘Well, as long as you know that I have no problem with it being delayed a little longer if needs be. The here and now is what matters.’

‘Thanks Lee,’ Adam said, reaching across the table for her hand, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Afterwards, they sifted through their most recent bank and credit card statements, trying to ascertain where they could make some cutbacks.

‘Well at least the car is sorted,’ Adam pointed out with some relief, having paid upfront for his Alpha Romeo two years before.

Leonie picked up their joint bank statement. ‘I suppose I should cancel my
Heat
subscription and stop buying so many books…’ The rest of her sentence trailed off as she realised something. ‘Adam, what about Andrea’s maintenance payments, and Suzanne’s pocket money?
 
We can hardly keep those up now, can we? Not when you’ve lost your job?’

Adam blanched. ‘Oh God, I haven’t even thought about that,’ he said stricken once again. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Well, you’ll have to discuss this with Andrea, but the way I see it, she can’t possibly expect us to keep paying out the same kind of money for maintenance, and Suzanne’s pocket money is a luxury we can no longer afford.’

Adam looked deeply ashamed and Leonie’s heart went out to him.

‘I guess we’ll all have to make some sacrifices, at least temporarily,’ she said trying to choose her words carefully. She hoped Adam agreed with her because there was no way – no
way
they could continue to support two households at the same level now.

‘I not really sure if we
can
stop her maintenance payments though,’ Adam pointed out. ‘What if she ends up taking me to court or something?’ He ran a hand through his hair, and Leonie could see that he was becoming more and more distraught by the minute.

‘Well I’m not suggesting we stop paying maintenance completely, but if you and I have to cut back because of this situation, then surely it’s only right that Andrea does too?’ she argued, trying to be reasonable.