Emily lies in the cooling water, unable to summon the strength to get out of the bath. Ive needed to leave for ages, she repeats for the thousandth time, half apologising, half convincing someone. She knows a few messages have arrived on her phone, but she wont open themshe knows what shell see.
Her story with James has always been a series of reversals. They meet at the Glastonbury Festival, and she invites him back to her flat for the night, not planning to see him again. The next morning she spots him waiting on the doorstep with a bunch of daisychains, and she realises shes already fallen.
She spends a year on a research placement in Cambridge while James stays behind, sending her long letters. When her flight back to Manchester is delayed by five hours, James meets her at the airport, pale from nerves and fatigue, clutching another bouquet of daisies. In that moment she knows she wants children with him.
She returns to work five months after giving birth, while James looks after their toddler because he cant find a job. Every half hour he calls, asking where things are and whether shell be home soon. At the office her colleagues smile at the sight of a man with a baby, but Emily doesnt smile backshes too busy after work, cradling her little girl, cooking, washing, tidying, and then working again at night.
She borrows money to buy her daughter a bike, to repair the roof on the cottage they received as a wedding gift, and to pay off the car loan on the small hatchback James uses to do occasional deliveries while he looks for permanent work. Emily is a junior research associate on a modest salary; she never seems to get aheadperhaps she lacks talent, perhaps she simply never has the time.
Years pass. She has a second child and returns to work after six months, this time leaving her son with his grandmother. By now James has found a patchy job driving children to nursery, has borrowed more money for a new winter coat for his son, pays for swimming lessons for his daughter, makes soups, and changes the water in the vases of daisies.
James drifts between odd jobs, watching TV, and mostly drinking. When, in the ninth year of their marriage, he ends up in hospital with appendicitis, the doctor gently suggests they admit him to a rehab clinic. It seems his blood contains more alcohol than red cells.
Emily rehearses a speech on the way home, We need to live apart, and Lets get a divorce, a hundred times. She begins to find his scent, his touch, his very presence repulsive. The cottage roof rots again, but she no longer wants to fix it. They stop going to the cottage. The daisies wilt quickly because she forgets to change their water.
She falls in love with another man and cheats on James. She cant blame Jameshe still looks at her with the same eyes he had in the airport, as if fearing shell never return. But she craves entirely different eyes. Emily tells herself it means nothing, yet it means one thing: shes needed to leave for a long time. Not for the loverhes married too.
One day Emily catches herself wondering how many years shed get before parole if she committed murder. Thats the final straw. She packs the children and suitcases and moves in with her mother. James weeps constantly, begging, Dont go. Emily stays silent, tears streaming down her face, feeling lighter than ever before.
Rising at last from the cool water, Emily slips on a fluffy bathrobe and pulls her phone from her pocket. Sooner or later shell have to read the messages. After a dozen textsI love you, Come back, Call me, Dont leaveJames finally writes, Then Ill go. Its the last message.
