Starting Over

Chapter 25

Ellen looked down at the box, dreading to see what it contained. Nausea washed over her, Jan was hurt, and that surprised her. Had she done that? Used him? She picked up the box but refused to open it. She’d sworn that she’d never consider marriage again, not after Richard, now this. She turned the box in her fingers looking at the plush velvet the small silver catch that held it closed.

One man had asked her to marry him because it was convenient, now she had the same scenario again. She felt like Natalie Wood in Love with a Proper Stranger, she too wanted ‘bells and banjos’ to know this was true love, romance, hearts and flowers, not convenience, a hot Steve McQueen and a baby just wasn’t enough. Where was the professing of undying love, the hearts and flowers, the ‘I can’t live without you!’?

Sighing she walked back into the house. She could hear Jan coming down the stairs; he was wearing jeans and a thick sweater.

“Jan. I didn’t mean to hurt you....”

He looked at her, saw the box in her fingers and then lifted his eyes back to hers, “I’m not good enough. I never have been. That’s the truth isn’t it?”

She shook her head, “of course not, I have loved you for so long Jan....it’s just....”

“Just what? I don’t understand you. I want to marry you; I want this to be forever Ellen.”

She was silent, staring at him, waiting for something, anything that made this more that a sense of duty, more than an obligation to their baby. She wanted Steve McQueen and his bells and his banjo...that expression that this was his first choice, not his last.

“SO will you marry me?”

She could barely speak as the tears welled at the resentment in his voice, the anger, the pain.

“No.” She could barely believe she’d said the word, “I’m not a mother Jan, I’m a woman first, and I’ve almost married a man for the wrong reason once, I’m not doing it again.”

He was across the kitchen from her, his face dropped, “and THAT’s what it all comes down to. That bastard sucked you in, spat you out and now it’s all poor Ellen! You know me; you KNOW I’m not like that! Hell Ellen, I’ve said I was wrong, I should’ve said and done things differently in Spain, I was hiding from myself, but never from you. But this...” he gestured around them, then at the ring. “Do you honestly think that I would make a snap decision based on you being pregnant? The man who ignored family obligations and stresses for a year to ease his own guilt? No way Ellen. I came to England to find you with that ring, BEFORE the baby, BEFORE any obligation. Because I realised that life without you wasn’t a life I wanted! I just thought that the woman I fell in love with had more trust and more compassion than to throw it all back in my face!” He slapped a wad of cash on the work surface and grimaced, “more than enough for a flight and a taxi to the airport, I’ll get Louis to contact you about child support.”

Before she could respond he was out the door down to the garage and as she pulled herself together to chase after him, she heard the roar of the powerful motorbike he kept in downstairs and with a wheel spin she could tell the bike was moving. Rushing to the veranda she called after him, tears pouring down her face but with his helmet and the loud engine he would never hear her.

Ellen slumped onto the sofa. How had she got it so wrong? She was so busy being wronged that she hadn’t seen the change of direction, hadn’t even questioned why he’d come back in the first place. And now she’d driven him away, the only man she’d ever TRULY envisaged spending the rest of her life with.

She glanced up to the kitchen, the wad of cash glaring at her like a child poking its tongue out, gloating, and goading her. Standing up in anger she hit the pile with a gripped fist, Euro notes fluttering down like ironic confetti as she cried a little bit more.