Dark Mirrors by Siobhain Bunni

it gently swing in the light breeze from the open door, with its woven wicker shade stained by the years of vaporous flavours from many home-cooked meals, deepened in colour to a rich tan, Esmée considered the best way to answer this simple question. She thought about the first time she had figured out what Philip was up to. Amy was three months old and cutting her first tooth. She vividly remembered the argument, the controlled accusations of insanity and the convincing denials.
    “He’s been unfaithful to me, Mum,” she declared bluntly, laying her palms flat on the table. “Not once or even twice. I’m not exactly sure how many times. For all I know, for the past four years, and maybe before that, Philip has been shagging every woman in Dublin except me.” Her head dropped low in shame, waiting for her mum to react, and when she didn’t she added: “We don’t talk, we don’t laugh, we just exist, and I, well, I can’t do it any more.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Sure about what?”
    “Well, sure that he’s being . . .” But she couldn’t bring herself to say the word, “you know . . .” indicating through the movement of her eyes and brows the meaning of ‘you know’.
    “What? Sure about the affairs?” With targeted childishness, Esmée purposefully placed emphasis on the last word. “As sure as I know that pigs don’t fly.”
    “Have you talked to him about it?”
    “Of course I have, Mum – you don’t think I’ve just packed up house and home without trying to sort this out, do you?” She was beginning to lose both her patience and temper, trying hard to remember that her mum was only asking, that she knew no different and was checking to see that her impetuous daughter had, unlike during her many previous crises, checked all bases before reacting.
    As if to justify her actions and, she supposed, to help her mother understand, Esmée went through the sequence of events that led to her departure: the discussions, the arguments, the failed counselling and ultimately the icy wall of silence.
    “Each time he was so persuasive, Mum. He promised me time and time again that nothing was going on. He swore on Amy’s life, for God’s sake! And I believed him. I convinced myself that I was just being paranoid, told myself that it was all in my head. But little things just kept happening, little things that nagged at me – they just didn’t feel right: receipts for presents I never got, late nights at work, phone calls on his mobile in the evenings, his unexplained absences from work . . .” Esmée laughed bitterly while the words tripped forth.
    “And then, then one night he actually called me ‘Karen’ and I believed him when he apologised, telling me she was this new girl at work. I swallowed it, justifying it to myself by remembering how we used to call you ‘Teacher’ when we were kids! Remember? What a complete idiot!”
    As she spoke, recalling it and so reliving it, her mother sat and listened to the tale, taking it all in, trying to make rhyme and reason out of Philip’s actions.
    “It all sounds so obvious now, so clichéd . . . anyway . . .” Esmée continued in her matter-of-fact tone, lost in the narrative of the last four years of her ridiculous union to Philip, unaware of the pools that had once again built up in her sad blue eyes, “eventually we stopped making love – there wasn’t even sex any more, but I didn’t stop trying. I tried to encourage him, to instigate it. I made nice dinners, tried to dress nicely. I even overhauled my underwear drawer thinking I could bring him back, thinking if I made myself look good he’d notice me again, that he’d want me again.” Unconsciously she smeared her tears across her cheek and into her hair. Her voice shook and her chest heaved as the depth and reality of the story once again took a hold over her.
    “But I stopped in the end because it just wasn’t working and his constant rejection was killing me. You know,” she