Claire Fuller: 'How my ex-husband became one of my best friends'
, which has been shortlisted for the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction. She lives in England with her husband.aul video-calls me on Whatsapp from his hospital bed. It’s a couple of days after his open-heart surgery and he still sounds woozy, like he’s slightly drunk. He opens his pajama top and proudly shows me his scar. I’m surprised, firstly, that there’s no bandage on it and all the little black stitches holding his skin together are on view.
Our second child came along 18 months later – very much wanted, but unplanned. We moved out of the apartment and into a house, and I made a garden. I went back to work sooner than I had with my son and we muddled through the colic, the eczema, two sets of diapers. When we went out, we were either holding the handles of a stroller or our children’s hands; we no longer held each other’s. The business was a struggle; we either had too much work or not enough. Staff came and went.
In the evenings, after the kids were in bed, Paul and I no longer laughed, but we did still talk. We lit a fire and took up smoking again, huddling over the grate to blow the smoke up the chimney. We talked about what we wanted from life and what we should do. We cried often. We went to counseling and lasted one session because we were already saying all we had to say in front of the fire every night.
When we went out, we were either holding the handles of a stroller or our children’s hands; we no longer held each other’s.
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