The Soulmate A Novel

The other surprise is that there are so many things I don’t miss about being married to Gabe. The constant worry. A feeling that the ground could shift under me at any moment. The heightened state of awareness I lived in for years, thinking it was excitement rather than recognising it as anxiety.

I found her lying in her room with the curtains drawn and the lights off because ‘I want the outsides to be as dark as I feel on the inside’.

I was desperately lonely. The kind of loneliness that claws at your insides. I found it hard to concentrate

People always talk about love like it’s a magical thing, a gift from the gods, a sunbeam of euphoria from above! But it’s horrible, being in love. The vulnerability it exposes. The person it makes you. It sent me nutty for a while. Made me lose my edge.

I was certainly prepared for motherhood. I’d read the books about the first three months, the ‘wonder weeks’, the eat–play–sleep routine. Gabe and I took a class in Baby First Aid. I’d set up a nursery with everything I might need. I’d purchased bottles and formula in case breastfeeding didn’t work out. I was ready for anything. I assumed I’d excel at it. Maybe that was the problem? Motherhood wasn’t really something you could excel at. You did the same thing, day in and day out: feed, sleep, change. Hold her while she cries. Visitors came and went, and I acted the part of loving mother for all of them. I even performed it for Gabe. Yes, I feel so much love. It’s mind-blowing. What did I ever do without her? But the truth was, I found it hard to feel much of anything. To me, Freya was a prop in a pointless show I had to perform in, over and over, to no audience.

How many times have I been thrust into this kind of situation? Well, not exactly this kind, but a situation that felt impossible, like something I’d never get beyond. Each time felt acute and breathtaking and, without a doubt, like things couldn’t possibly get worse. But this time it was true.

The thing about marriage a lot of people don’t understand is that you don’t get everything. Some people get passion, others get security. Some get companionship. Children. Money. Wisdom. Status. Then there is trust and fidelity. They’re the two you hear most about. In general, couples will cite trust or fidelity as their non-negotiable. In a lot of cases, a partner will offer one in exchange for the other. But Gabe and I have always agreed on our non-negotiable. Loyalty. Gabe has certainly made me work for that one.

Falling in love with Gabe lasted an eternity. It felt like I’d never stop falling. There were a million little reasons to love him.

he responded as if I had said I was in training to go into space. He asked question after question, making me feel like the most fascinating person in the world

Max handed the tray back immediately, his expression a blend of remorse and attraction. How funny to think that someone actually needing their job could have such an effect. It was curious the way wealthy people found other people’s poverty thrilling; often it even morphed into a perverse sort of admiration. And our stocks rose even higher if we insisted our humble existences weren’t that bad. Some felt compelled to save us. And why not? Saving us was so easy. They could play God! Our gratitude was like a drug for them, particularly the men.

I’d never marry my soulmate. From what I could see, marrying your soulmate was reckless. A commitment like marriage was best treated like a contract, with a list of terms and conditions, and the potential to extricate yourself if the terms were breached. If I left love out of it, I would never end up the way my mother had, I reasoned.

Everyone in our small town knew what my father was up to, myself included. I was a child, but I wasn’t deaf. I heard people talking – my friends’ mothers, the supermarket cashier, the ladies at the hairdressers. People gossiping about my father’s behaviour as if it were entertainment. The worst part about it was that most people treated it as Mum’s shame – as if his behaviour was a reflection on her rather than him. Mum seemed to agree with them, because to my knowledge she never once confronted my father, and if anyone so much as implied that he was less than faithful (like her best friend Sue did once, as gently as she could), she cut them out of her life.

Death isn’t so bad when you settle into it. In fact, there’s something soothing about it; watching everything but having no bearing on any of it. Hurts from life come with you, but they don’t sting – like a mosquito bite that has lost its itch, you know it happened, but you don’t feel it anymore. I wish I’d known this when I buried my mother. It would have helped me a lot. All I wanted my whole life was for my mum not to hurt anymore. To have the happy ending she always dreamed of but never got.

It would be arrogant to say that our marriage is better than other marriages. Arrogant and, let’s face it, farcical, if you look at our history. But it is, quite simply, the truth. It’s the way Gabe looks at me, even when we’re in our tracksuits ambling around the garden, as if I’m the most beautiful, most interesting woman in the world. It’s the way he touches me – whether I’m un-showered, postpartum, saggy or soft – without hesitation, as if I’m a cherished gift. It’s the way he leaps to my defence, almost involuntarily, when he hears someone say something that could be perceived as critical of me. We’ve been through the fire, probably more than most couples. I think of our marriage as the reward for sticking it out.

There was something about the camaraderie of women good-naturedly slandering their husbands, each of them competing to have the worst.

when I wake. I enjoy three blessed seconds of calm before the horror of the previous evening collapses over me.

The moment of my death was distinct. There was no slowing down, no light at the end of the tunnel, no moment in which to choose. No decision to make at all. There was a crack, like glass breaking, painless and clean. By the time I realised what was happening, it was done. Nothing to fear in death, I realise. No pain or suffering, at least physically.

I’ve heard it said that the most difficult death to process is that of a loved one who is taken from you without warning. I agree that that is difficult. But I can now confirm that it is equally traumatic to be the one taken without warning. The whiplash of it. One minute you’re here and the next you’re gone – yanked from one world to the next as if torn with forceps from the womb. Except, instead of being placed into the arms of a loving mother, I’m alone.

Believing people can be ‘fixed’ is a dangerous idea; it encourages young women to stay in relationships with men who ‘just get a little too angry sometimes’.

he is a beautiful contradiction, as fragile as he is brave. What makes him a hero is also what compels him to run towards danger, and what threatens to break him.