I drifted away from my husband, James, and now he glimmers with a happiness that feels like sunrise over the Thames. In the dreamlogic of this night, he keeps proving that I was the one who held his wings, preventing him from soaring in an ordinary life.
No one has ever bruised me more than my former husband. For three months we have not crossed paths. The last glimpse of him came when I took my little daughter Poppy over the weekend to his flat in Brixton. Twelve weeks have passed, and his world has reshaped itself.
For years I whispered that he should shed a few pounds, but his ears were sealed with the clatter of chips and fizzy pop. He grew heavier, sank into the couch, and it seemed impossible to coax him outside, let alone into a gym. Now, in the surreal flicker of the dream, there is a yoga mat stretched across the most conspicuous wall of his modest flat. His hair is cut in a tidy new style, his clothes suddenly neat, as if a invisible hand had tidied his life. I once could not teach him to load the washing machine or press the start button; now he somehow knows how to manage everything on his own.
We talked I had heard enough. He declared that I had belittled him throughout our marriage, that his foolishness was my fault, and that now he was no longer that fool. He told me that I and the baby were no longer part of his plans. He has slipped into a new relationship, a bright garden of contentment, and he tends to his body, his character, his earnings with the devotion of a gardener pruning roses. That revelation struck me hardest. He had never lifted a finger for me or for his daughter, yet he transformed for the new woman as if she were the sun.
People say you should give as much as you wish to receive, but my husband was never one to answer in kind. I loved him, respected him, and only occasionally offered a comment, because he never believed anything needed changing. And I never received anything from him
Even after we split, his focus remained on himself, not on the daughter he had not seen for ages. I wish, in the shifting mist of this dream, that he had once stood in my shoes, tried, and earned, in return, the care I had always asked for. But who can say
