Emergency: A Marriage Worth Keeping

‘Sitting in a solicitor’s office, working out my options.’

The silence dragged on, Isla immersed in her own thoughts and Karin waiting for her client to elaborate further. Usually an expert at summing up people, to Karin there was something about Isla Ramirez that didn’t add up. When she’d walked nervously into her office two weeks ago Karin had been positive that after the initial brief consultation she’d never see her again. Sure almost that the rather fragile-looking blonde with the perfectly manicured nails and Pilate-toned thighs had arrived at the solicitor’s office on the back of a marital row. The affection in her voice when she’d spoken about her husband hadn’t fitted the usual mould of a woman about to leave her husband, and when Karin had actually gone through the procedures for a divorce, she had been sure that Isla Ramirez would be out of her office never to be seen again, yet here she was two weeks later, a touch thinner, a touch more exhausted perhaps, but with a steely determination Karin had missed at their last meeting.

It was Karin who eventually broke the silence, picking up her pen and shuffling the pile of notices in front of her. ‘OK, so we’ll lodge your application citing irretrievable breakdown?’

The solicitor’s pen was poised over her notes and Isla knew she was waiting for her to respond. Clearing her throat, Isla attempted to say yes but had to settle instead for a hesitant nod, which Karin Jensen failed to notice.

‘That is what we agreed on?’ Karin checked, looking up when Isla still failed to answer.

She hadn’t exactly agreed on anything, Isla wanted to point out. She’d merely come in to discuss her options.

Again.

Admittedly, the first visit had been a rather pale affair, with herself mumbling questions, feeling as guilty as hell for even being there, and the solicitor determinedly not giving too much away during the utterly no-obligation, free consultation.

Karin had been much more animated on this visit. Now there was actually money on the table, now she’d seemingly passed from curious to determined, Karin was only too happy to discuss Isla’s options.

Only too happy to sum up nine years of marriage in two little words.

Two very apt little words, Isla reluctantly admitted, fiddling with her handbag and hoping Karin would offer her another glass of water.

Her marriage had definitely broken down.

And if Sav even had a hint she’d visited a solicitor, irretrievable was certainly a word that sprang to mind.

‘I don’t want to do anything just yet.’ Her voice was back and Isla deliberately ignored the frown flickering across the young woman’s face. ‘I’m going back to work tomorrow and once I’ve got a wage coming in and have found somewhere for the children and me to live—’

‘Hold it right there.’ Karin put up a very steady hand, a sharp contrast to Isla’s trembling ones fiddling nervously in her lap. ‘The last thing you do is go back to work. Salvador, I mean Sav, has an obligation to you and the children to keep you in the style to which you’re accustomed, and as for moving out…’ She shook her head very slowly, very deliberately and fixed her client with a steely glare. ‘It’s your husband that will be moving out of the family home.’

‘I don’t want it to be like that,’ Isla insisted. ‘I have no intention of kicking him out of his home. Sav has enough on his plate already, without looking for somewhere else to live. He’s an emergency consultant. He hasn’t got time to be—’

‘And you’re a mother to his twin sons,’ Karin broke in. ‘It makes more sense for Salv—Sav to move out than to traumatize the boys with a house move as well as a divorce.’

‘Perhaps,’ Isla sighed.

‘And the very last thing you should even be thinking about is returning to work. It’s up to Sav to support you, to keep you in a manner—’

‘And he will,’ Isla broke in. ‘I don’t doubt that for a moment. But I’m more than capable of working, I certainly don’t need to bleed him dry. I know that when he calms down he’ll do the right thing and provide for me and the children.’

‘Maybe he will.’ Karin shrugged but her voice hardened. ‘For a while perhaps, at least until the next Mrs Ramirez comes along.’

‘Sav’s not like that,’ Isla said—immediately and with conviction. ‘There’s no one else involved in this, and I really can’t see anyone else “coming along”—for either of us,’ she added, but even though Karin never turned as much as a hair, never said a single word, Isla could almost hear the Just you wait that hung in the air, and it infuriated her.

What would Karin Jensen know about them?

What would Karin Jensen know about the love that had been between them, the sheer magic they had shared, and if, even with all that love, this marriage couldn’t work, then there was no way on this earth she’d do it again and she knew, just knew, that Sav would feel the same.

‘I want this divorce to be as amicable as possible…’

‘There’s no such thing.’ Karin shook her head. ‘Not when there are children involved. How do you know that Sav isn’t going to apply for custody of the boys? How do you know that Sav isn’t going to want to be the primary carer?’

Isla felt the colour drain out of her cheeks.

‘As soon as these papers are served the first thing Sav’s going to do is get himself a solicitor and, believe me, Isla, once that happens you can leave the word amicable out of your vocabulary for a while. You need to come out of your corner fighting.’

‘But Sav hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Isla protested.

‘Then why are you here?’

She had a point, Isla reluctantly acknowledged. At every turn she’d defended Sav, at every opportunity she’d insisted how nice he was, what a wonderful father he was, what a great provider he’d been. But as much as it galled her to admit it, Karin had a point: if her marriage was so wonderful, why at two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon was she sitting in a solicitor’s office in the city, trying to find out how a seemingly happily married woman went about getting a divorce?

‘Because I can’t live with him any more.’ Tears she’d been determined not to shed in this meeting were threatening now, and Isla blinked them back, expecting an irritated sigh from the well-groomed businesswoman that sat on the other side of the table. But instead Karin pushed over a box of tissues and poured another cup of water from the cooler as Isla did her best to regain her composure. ‘Because nothing I do or say seems to make a difference. We just don’t talk…’

‘Since Casey died?’

This time Isla didn’t even try to blink back her tears, they were coming thick and fast just at the mention of her son’s name—a name she ached to hear, a name that was curiously absent in her household, a name that brought a warning look from Sav every time she ventured it.

‘I know he misses him. I know that he’s devastated at what happened, but he won’t talk to me about it. He won’t talk to me about anything any more. It’s like living with a stranger.’

‘Look, I’m not one to knock back business.’ Karin gave a dry smile but her eyes were kind. ‘But it sounds to me as if there’s still a lot of love there. Have you thought about counselling?’ She watched Isla screw up her nose.

‘Sav doesn’t believe in it.’

‘But he’s a doctor,’ Karin responded. ‘Surely—’

‘It’s a case of do as I say, not as I do with Sav. Sure, he recommends it for his patients, and no doubt he believes in its merits, but he’s too damn proud and stubborn to even contemplate that counselling might help him.’

‘Have you been to see anyone?’

Isla nodded. ‘I don’t think I’d be here otherwise,’ she said with simple honesty. ‘It definitely helped at first.’

‘But not now?’

Isla shook her head as Karin let out a tiny sigh. ‘I’ve gone as far as I can on my own with this. Things really have to change at home. Have to change,’ she reiterated. ‘And I just can’t see any other way.’

‘Talk to him again, Isla. Tell him how close he is to losing—’

‘I’ve been trying to for over a year now,’ Isla gulped, ‘and I get nowhere. If it was just about me, then perhaps I could take it. But it’s affecting the twins, I know it is. As much as we try to act normal in front of them, they can feel the tension between us. They’ve been through so much already.’

‘A divorce isn’t an easy option,’ Karin pointed out. ‘No matter how gently you tread, this will affect them.’

‘I know.’ Isla nodded, closing her eyes in dread, appalled that it had come to this, appalled at what she was instigating. ‘But I’ve given it a lot of thought.’ She gave a painful laugh, utterly void of humour. ‘In fact, it’s all I’ve thought about. I honestly believe that in the long term this will be for the best. A new start, a clean break for all of us. Not the torture of the boys watching their parents’ marriage slowly fall apart, the unspoken rule that they can never say their brother’s name in front of their father. They miss him as much as we do, and Sav’s silence on the subject isn’t helping. It’s making it worse, so much worse than it has to be. It’s like a cancer invading every cell of our lives.’ She blew her nose loudly into the tissues, her head spinning as she tried to process all Karin had said about the mechanics of a divorce. Trying and failing to contemplate a future, however bleak the present might be, without Sav.

‘Have you given any thought to a trial separation?’ Karin suggested. ‘Say, three months apart…’

‘Sav wouldn’t hear of it.’ Instantly Isla shook her head. ‘If he even knew that I was here, it would be all over bar the shouting. It’s all or nothing with Sav, and frankly I don’t think it would be fair on the children, leaving them in limbo for three months. If I go ahead with this, it has to be a clean break.’

‘OK,’ Karin said slowly. ‘Then why don’t we schedule another appointment?’ The solicitor’s voice was calm and even, such a contrast to the swirling, confusing mass of emotions Isla seemed to be constantly engulfed in these days. ‘Say, for a month’s time?’