‘We need to talk!’

‘We moeten praten,’ is a semi-autobiographical story about desperate sorrow and loss, about being abandoned and being deceived; in short, a story about a marriage that is doomed to fail. It is also a story about picking oneself up, starting over, making mistakes and committing errors, falling down and ultimately about healing. Anyone who has ever suffered from a broken heart due to lost love will be able to recognize themselves in the story and draw comfort from it. Because although no two separations are the same, the struggles and the sorrow are indeed universal.

Just when I start to doze off, his ‘I already looked at an apartment before the vacation’ statement jolts back into my memory and I am wide awake again. Hugo Aardeman looking for an apartment to find himself? It doesn’t fit and it doesn’t make sense. Hugo Aardeman can’t even spend an evening alone at home, let alone live alone! And Hugo Aardeman is not the kind of man to do something without a reason because everything he does is precisely for a reason. A wave of panic drives me out of bed and back downstairs. When I open the living room door, I hear a phone softly vibrating to let me know a message has come in. And indeed, I see the light on the kitchen island in the open kitchen just go out. My hand trembles as I reach for it.

‘So nice that you’re home again. See you later in your little shop. Longing…’ it says on the screen. I can’t read more without opening the message. His ‘little shop’, that’s his nickname for his art gallery. Involuntarily, my hands go to my head and then the emotions take over. They drive me straight up the stairs back to the bedroom where I turn on the big light, yank the duvet and kick the box of the box spring. He wakes up startled and asks what I’m doing.

‘What am I doing? You mean what YOU are doing! Ice cold turning my whole life upside down and then going to sleep as if nothing is wrong? And then lying to me too!’

His trembling nostrils reveal that he is not pleased with this – Hugo Aardeman does not let anyone lecture him! – and he becomes irritated.

‘Just act normal, damn it Britt,’ he barks. I yank at his arm. He sits on the edge of the bed.

‘Is there someone else?’ I spit the words in his face. Only on the third time does he say what I already know – a cold ‘yes’. No more than two letters. It takes effort for me to breathe in and I feel dizzy.

‘Do I know her?’ I don’t even recognize my own voice, it sounds so shrill. ‘I need to know who it is!’ I try to poke him but he grabs my wrist.

I hear him say that he really isn’t going to say that and I know that he indeed really won’t. I stand right in front of him, wanting to hit him. Instead, I crouch down in front of him and try to grab his hands. He pulls them back with a quick, sharp jerk. I want him to look at me. He turns his head away. I want him to hold me. I want this not to be true. And then the tears come and there are so many that breathing becomes even harder. When I finally get some air, it screams from within. I know I’m being hysterical, but I can’t help it. And then I plop down on his lap and he says ‘don’t do that’. I feel ashamed and get up again. I look down at the floor where the piece of herringbone parquet next to his side of the bed is slightly popping up. I step on it to push it back into place, even though I know it’s pointless because I’ve tried that so many times before. With a sigh, he runs his hand through his hair. Do I see that right? I reach for his hand to be sure, but even the imprint where the ring was has already faded.

‘How long have you not been wearing that wedding ring? Where is it?’

‘Don’t do that,’ he says again.

‘How long ago did you take that thing off? Didn’t she want you to?’ I can’t stop anymore. ‘A married man finds them until then, but a ring on his finger is a bit too much for her?’

Chrissy’s voice brings me somewhat back to my senses. I screamed her awake. From her room next to ours, I hear her asking why I’m talking so loudly. I go to her.

‘What’s going on?’ she asks. She tries to rub the sleep from her eyes. I say that we had a fight, dad and I. That it’s because of the trip and the fuss and that she should go back to sleep. For a moment, I lie down next to her as I often do. Then I hear the stairs creaking under Hugo’s weight.

‘Are you going to sleep well again?’ I give her a kiss. She turns over and is already gone.

When I come downstairs, Hugo is standing in front of the mantelpiece in the living room. His back slightly hunched away from me. He looks at the photo of Chrissy taken just after her first ballet performance. A little girl in a pink ballet outfit and a cute tutu. She smiles shyly at the camera.

‘She’s so sweet here.’ He says it softly to himself in a hoarse voice. I step a little closer and place my hand on the cool marble of the mantelpiece. Hugo clears his throat as if he’s about to say something, but nothing comes out. When he turns to me, I think his eyes are moist, but maybe I just want to see that very much.

‘I don’t know,’ he says.

‘What don’t you know?’ See, I think. A nasty dream. It was just a nasty dream. ‘What do you want Hugo?’ My voice has its normal tone back. For the first time, he really looks at me.

‘I don’t know,’ he says again. Then he looks away from me again and walks towards the kitchen. When he later leaves the room and walks up the stairs again, his phone is no longer on the kitchen island. It is now Sunday morning just before six.

I rummage through the mail that our helper has neatly stacked and flip through the newspapers without letting a single letter sink in. Then I dive into unpacking the luggage and turn on the washing machine. By half past six, I can’t take it anymore and I call my parents.

‘With mom.’ At the sound of her voice, I break down. She lets me go for a moment. She doesn’t ask why I’m awake so early. She doesn’t ask how the trip was, whether we’ve unpacked, or whether we slept well. She doesn’t ask anything she normally would.

‘Is something wrong?’ That’s her only question. I sob a yes. ‘So it’s true!’ she then says.

‘When you were on vacation, I dreamed that you told me Hugo wanted a divorce. The dream was so vivid that it stuck with me. Frame by frame, word for word, it haunted me.’

I hear her swallow. I tell my story in fits and starts.

‘The lu… The lout!’, she says. She has never said out loud that she doesn’t think highly of Hugo. Although I have always known exactly how she feels about him.

By Britt Bottelier