The Three Loves of Sebastian Cooper by Zoë Folbigg

Author:Zoë Folbigg [Folbigg, Zoë]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2022-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

Half an hour later, with eyes red and ruined, Clair came back downstairs. Seb was on the sofa with two cups of peppermint tea, one on a little table in front of the space he was saving for Clair, who had a calmer air about her now; as if galvanised by the sacredness of her four-year-old son’s cuddles as she lay with him while he fell back asleep. She was in no hurry to return to the treachery that awaited her in the kitchen; plus it wouldn’t do Seb any harm to make him stew.

‘Is he OK?’

Clair didn’t answer. Instead she guardedly tucked herself onto the sofa and stared at the steaming Cath Kidston mug in front of her, as she wondered how she was ever going to piece together her broken heart.

‘How long?’

Seb rubbed his eyes and pushed the heel of his hands up into his hair.

‘Only just recently…’

Clair gasped and started to cry again, as angry with herself as she was with Seb.

‘I should have trusted my instincts!’

Seb didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t help to tell her nothing would have changed. This was written.

‘I had a bad – bad – feeling about her!’ The curl in Clair’s lip revealed she had already searched, googled and obsessed about the woman her husband was about to sleep with: she had seen the dimples and the smile. The brown skin and white teeth. The carefree photos of someone who didn’t have children. The shimmer of her shoulders and the cool street-style poses in her expensive-looking clothes. She hoped the man in Havana was her boyfriend, they certainly made a cute couple. ‘Women know. I knew you were sneaking around.’

She clutched her mug to stop herself from swiping it off the table in front of her; of burning Seb’s black jeans and scalding his legs forever, so that every time she saw him naked there would be a reminder of his treachery. That he could do it to her too. But the fact that he actually wanted to leave the family was something Clair was struggling to comprehend.

‘I haven’t been sneaking around, honestly, Clair.’

‘Don’t use words like honestly, Seb.’

He was silenced.

‘So what happened in Vienna, then? Got cosy in your posh new hotel?’

Seb looked as if he might be sick again.

‘I genuinely haven’t lied to you once.’

Clair knew Seb so well, she knew that when he said genuinely, he was telling an exasperated truth.

‘Oh, right, only about your feelings, your comings and goings, the lie of the life you’ve been living. With me and the kids when all the time you wanted out!’ She inhaled a minty scent of tea and started to cry again.

‘Clair…’

‘How long have you wanted out? How long have you been looking at me and wishing I were her?’

‘Don’t.’

‘Twenty years! Everything I believed in for twenty years has just been pulled out from underneath my feet, for what?’

She looked at him, pleading for this to be a sick joke.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Are you really leaving us? Please, Seb…’

Seb looked at her and felt a tightening in his chest he knew would be nothing compared to the one in Clair’s.

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