The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Fifty
Without Benjamin, the remainder of Fia’s week is made up of work, roommates, exercise. She even goes for a few too many late-night drinks on Thursday with an old friend – the one sane person from a book club she quit years ago. In other words, all the elements that made up her existence before Benjamin are present and correct. She makes damn sure that they are. She is, objectively speaking, living a fun and fast-paced life in the city that never sleeps.
She’s not sure, then, why things seem to feel so empty.
On Friday afternoon, Maeve phones to talk bridesmaids’ dresses, venues, save-the-dates, and it takes everything Fia has to dampen down the irritation that rises within her. They’re on the tip of her tongue – a dozen caustic comments that she could brush off as witticisms but that would puncture, somehow. They would steal little pieces of Maeve’s joy, in ways she’d be unable to quite express but would surely feel.
Why, Fia keeps asking herself, is she tempted by this, the worst kind of bitchiness?
It’s not that she’s envious of the idea of a wedding, per se, or even of the idea of a marriage. She’s certainly not envious of Maeve having met and matched with Conor Quigley specifically. She’s never found him to be exactly spectacular. But then, that is likely as it should be. If she found her little sister’s boyfriend – now fiancé – to be spectacular, that would probably be a different, much worse, sort of problem. Conor is definitely nice, and he and Maeve definitely seem to do a lot of nice things together, albeit mostly at Maeve’s instigation.
Maybe that’s what it comes down to, in the end.
The simplicity of Maeve’s happiness. It’s as clear as a bell, even from three thousand miles away, down a phone line. She has a steady job, a fixed sense of home. And to boot, she is, for whatever reason, in love with this guy who loves her back. She is heading into her future, sure and contented about the shape of it.
That’s the thing that Maeve has and that Fia feels further away from than ever.
Of course, her little sister can’t remotely be blamed for the emergence of such a gap between them. Fia desperately, desperately doesn’t want to blame her. So, she stays on the phone, trying to enjoy the privacy that’s been restored to her little office at ZOLA, debating the merits of cake pops over the traditional fruit option. Lottery tickets, Fia agrees, are a fun idea for favours. And all the while, she reminds herself: Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. It is never rude or selfish.
Who said that stuff was just for spouses?
She thinks again about going back to Ireland – not just for Maeve’s wedding, but generally. As things have panned out, that might end up more an imperative than a choice. She still hasn’t heard from Celia about what she plans to do next.
If Fia gets the boot from ZOLA’s New York office, would the Dublin branch take her back? Maybe not. Damien McNulty’s enthusiasm could fade fast, once he knows he has a man-eater on his hands. However, at least she has the freestanding right to work on her own side of the pond. She could find a job in another law firm – or, potentially, in some other place altogether? That notion doesn’t seem to excite her, though; all the fantasy-career options she’s ever thrown out over drinks feel quite different in the cold light of day.
As it turns out, maybe she is a little bit attached to the idea of herself as a high-powered lawyer. Maybe there is a little bit of her identity, her sense of self, bound up in this job. Maybe she does like the way others seem to view her, because of it. Certainly, the thought of losing all that, in one fell swoop, makes her feel utterly at sea.
Who knows, though. Maybe it would be good for her to have a change.
Maybe Ryan Sieman, she thinks idly, would be good for her. They could form a foursome with Maeve and Conor, go on weekend road trips to Kerry and have one another round for dinner.
It’s true that the excitement Ryan once brought into her life – for years, he really was such a welcome annual diversion – does seem to have faded a bit. It’s true that he’s never had much of a grip on her beyond their in-person encounters; she’s never thought much about him when they weren’t on the same land mass.
But is that really a problem?
As Fia runs and runs through the streets and avenues of Manhattan after work that Friday, faster and faster, the endorphins never seeming to kick in, she’s inclined to think that maybe it’s not.
She is perhaps entering the stage of life in which people begin (if they haven’t already) to take a more mature view of things. They find someone nice, suitable, like-minded. They enjoy the practical and emotional benefits of simply being part of a pair.
Or – maybe even better, even smarter – they think fuck it, and opt out of the whole horrific business, absolutely and totally. No apps, no friends-with-benefits, no bullshit weekends in cabins.
Fia, of all people, should surely be able to commit herself to one of these logical options. She should surely be able to create for herself a life in which she is never again going to end up – let’s say, for instance – sitting breathlessly on the front steps of somebody else’s home, feeling utterly hollow and inadequate.
And yet, Fia’s in precisely that position, the evening light fading over the Upper East Side, when another jogger slows to take her in. He looks down at her curiously, maybe a little worriedly, and she angles her face away. Seconds later, the guy is gone. If New Yorkers stopped for every young woman having a crisis on the street, they’d never get anywhere. Fia can hardly believe that she may be presenting, right now, like just such a young woman. Her breath is coming out ragged, no matter her furious attempts to suck in air. Her heart is pounding.
What is wrong with her? She’s sure she’s never felt anything like this in her life.
She makes herself walk back to her own apartment slowly, and when she gets in the front door, nobody’s home. Either Annie or Kavita has left her post on the kitchen table, though. There is the usual collection of circulars, plus one large brown envelope.
Fia feels her stomach clench merely at the sight of it. She rips it open, scanning the contents quickly, and then – it’s like she’s on autopilot – she walks into her bedroom, the document still clutched in her hand.
Out from under her bed comes a very particular box, and from that box comes a very particular leaflet.
Visit The Grand Canyon!it suggests, with that photograph of the helicopter hovering over the abyss. It’s retained its colour surprisingly well, after all this time. When Fia turns it over, the writing in pen has faded a bit, but it’s still readable, too.
What was it Benjamin jokingly called it, that first day in Susan Followill’s office? Their break-up clause.
August 15, 2016 – get divorced, it says, with two signatures scrawled below.
Fia takes the leaflet in both hands now, tearing it in two, then four, then six. She tears it until it can’t be torn any more, until all she can do is toss the shreds into the wastepaper bin.
Finally, finally, this task is off her to-do list. She glances down at her divorce decree once more, the document having fallen to the floor somewhere along the way, its black and white text staring back up at her.
And then – whether it’s relief, or exhaustion, or something else altogether – for the first time all summer, Fia bursts right into tears.