I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t remember what I had said to Natalie when I was in college. For goodness’ sake, that was years ago.
“Did you know that she ended up in hospital? That she had a nervous breakdown and needed extensive therapy just to be able to go back and finish her degree?”
I did not know that.
“No,” Mrs. Deane spat out. “You were too busy making money, weren’t you? Becoming a big fancy businessman! Well, I hope your money keeps you warm at night and wipes your bum when you’re old and lonely! You used to be an arsehole back then and now you’re just a rich arsehole. Just another rich arsehole!” With that she stepped back into the house and slammed the door in my face.
I was completely shocked.
I had always thought Mrs. Deane liked me. We’d always gotten on in the past. But the woman who had just shouted at me had been a lunatic. Completely insane. Off her rocker. I could have gotten in my car right there, driven back to the city and written off the entire Deane family as unhinged. Mentally unstable. I could have turned my back on all of this as an unfortunate mistake on my part, hiring an ex-girlfriend and expecting all of us to get along when clearly, it wasn’t possible. I was a master at rationalizing any situation and turning it to my advantage. Mrs. Deane had acted like a madwoman and her daughter obviously took after her, completely insane. It worked, the narrative fit, and I could make myself believe it.
Almost.
But not, quite.
I walked slowly to my car.
I cared about Natalie, and I wanted to see her again. I didn’t want to tell myself some story about how she was crazy, and I was better off without her. Because I wasn’t. And Natalie wasn’t unbalanced. I thought of what her mother had said to me. I tried to think back to those years in college. But my recollections were spotty and vague. Even the memories of Natalie were hazy. We’d been together and it had been good. We’d been together, gone out and as far as I knew, we’d been happy. Then, yes, there was the pregnancy thing. Did she tell me she wasn’t pregnant? I couldn’t recall how I found that out, possibly through some friends. I had avoided her, of course, it was simpler. But what I’d said during that argument, on the afternoon it had ended, I really could not remember. I’d been angry and disappointed, that much was obvious to me, even now. I felt it was unfair that her mother blamed me for things I had said when I was distressed too.
I could not believe that Natalie had been that shaken by our break-up. I was older than her by a few years, more experienced. It had always been college romance to me. Her pregnancy announcement had shaken me, and I’d felt trapped. This very situation had happened to friends of mine, people I knew from the neighborhood. Young guys full of potential, only one baby bottle and a diaper away from a degree or an internship in Silicon Valley. Stories told over too many beers in a local bar. It was never going to be me.
I thought about Mrs. Deane calling me “just another rich arsehole”. I was used to people criticizing me, blaming me, even calling me names. I had once retrenched an entire department after deciding a particular project was not panning out as it should. There had been tears and recriminations then, all of which I’d been able to shrug off. No problem.
But this was different.
Mrs. Deane was not a business acquaintance or a client. She wasn’t a colleague or an employee. She was a human being, someone from my personal life. I got to my car, unlocked the door, and sat down in the driver’s seat. I tried to think what to do next. I thought again of Skye. How after she’d had the baby, she was so unhappy. Married life wasn’t what she’d thought it would be and motherhood was a nightmare. I was never home and when I was, I didn’t want to do anything. When she told me about the affair, I was disgusted but she had cried out, “You don’t even know what it means to be a husband! Or even a decent human being.”
She’d called me an arsehole, essentially.
I had blamed Skye completely for the breakdown of our marriage. The adultery had been grounds for a divorce, her pill dependency had come in handy for the custody agreement. I was furious with Skye for betraying me and I wanted to make her pay. She had known what the deal was with us, I had promised her a good life and that is what I gave her. Skye was used to money, though, she came from that kind of family. She wanted more. She wanted me to take more of an interest in her, in her life, in our life. She was always tired, stressed, thinking the baby wasn’t gaining enough weight or crying too much or sleeping too little. It drove me crazy, this incessant talk about the baby.
I sat in the car and thought about Natalie, about what her mother had said.
If it was true about the breakdown and the hospitalization, then Natalie’s behavior was more understandable. I would have to apologize, promise never to treat her badly. I would say anything, I realized, as long as she was willing to give me another chance. No matter how upset she was, I knew I could win Natalie over.
And I’ve always been great under pressure.