She didn’t know what exactly he was talking about, here – not something you could fix. How he felt, or the mess of their marriage, or something else? After all, she had been reminded there was something more he wasn’t telling her – something he hadn’t even told Tycho, the apparent love of his life. Something he had married her to keep quiet.
God. It must be bad. Jemima hugged her knees to her chest, desperately swallowing down the temptation to cry again.
Maybe this was his attempt at a warning, trying to dissuade her from digging any deeper – maybe she ought to understand that he had only been trying to protect her feelings all along – but Jemima couldn’t help thinking this might not have felt so hellish without the added humiliation of realising what a fool she’d been for the nine months prior. That he had been living in one reality, mourning people he’d loved and things he’d lost, and she had been blundering though beside him, blind to every façade. She looked at him, grave and pleading. “I don’t know. Do you think it’s any better to find out that you’ve been living in some – some delusion?”
(Their marriage might have been a makeshift thing, but at least they had both known that part; that was different.) “And I’m sure I can’t fix anything, I know I’m a burden, believe me –” she said, breathing in deep, so as not to break down again and prove that she obviously couldn’t take the truth; that she was no better than a pawn to be moved about a board, or a child to be coddled and falsely comforted. “But if you know things and can’t even tell me... what have I got, Ford?”
If this was her life, and Jemima couldn’t help him at all? She must be useless indeed. Her husband couldn’t love her, but that he couldn’t confide in her, couldn’t rely on her or even be honest? Surely that was worse than anything else there was to unearth.
God. It must be bad. Jemima hugged her knees to her chest, desperately swallowing down the temptation to cry again.
Maybe this was his attempt at a warning, trying to dissuade her from digging any deeper – maybe she ought to understand that he had only been trying to protect her feelings all along – but Jemima couldn’t help thinking this might not have felt so hellish without the added humiliation of realising what a fool she’d been for the nine months prior. That he had been living in one reality, mourning people he’d loved and things he’d lost, and she had been blundering though beside him, blind to every façade. She looked at him, grave and pleading. “I don’t know. Do you think it’s any better to find out that you’ve been living in some – some delusion?”
(Their marriage might have been a makeshift thing, but at least they had both known that part; that was different.) “And I’m sure I can’t fix anything, I know I’m a burden, believe me –” she said, breathing in deep, so as not to break down again and prove that she obviously couldn’t take the truth; that she was no better than a pawn to be moved about a board, or a child to be coddled and falsely comforted. “But if you know things and can’t even tell me... what have I got, Ford?”
If this was her life, and Jemima couldn’t help him at all? She must be useless indeed. Her husband couldn’t love her, but that he couldn’t confide in her, couldn’t rely on her or even be honest? Surely that was worse than anything else there was to unearth.
