What If

‘I’m happily married, aren’t I?’

Gil, short for Gilbert was what anyone would consider ‘a good catch.’ His legal star was definitely on the upward trajectory, and the horrors were the two apples of Chloe’s eye. She mightn’t be the proverbial ‘helicopter mum’, but whoever coined the phrase ‘proud mum’ surely had her in mind, while the occasional drawing enjoyed a short life on most fridges Chloe actually hung her children’s artwork on walls, got the best pieces framed and wore paper chains and sellotape inner bracelets as fashion statements. Even one of the judges had commented on the latter during a courtcase. Chloe had met Gilbert fighting on opposing sides in a wrongful dismissal case. Gracious in defeat he’d invited her to dinner.

Six months later they married, with her family’s blessing.

‘Saved from the shelf’, they’d no doubt thought after her parting with the man they knew to still be the love of her life.

Now, beamed into her lounge by the medium of televised news he arose like the proverbial ghost, Not Of Christmas Past but of two crazy beautiful years starting when they’d met at uni over a pile of fallen textbooks. A pile Chloe had dropped onto another student’s foot. He’d exacted payback in the form of coffee, Her shout naturally, from which point she and Dean Stratton had become an item. Solid, stuck like glue, in each other’s pockets according to their friends. At the time she’d been second year Law, while he was second to last year Med.

”Meet Dean Stratton future Cardilogist.”, he’d told her by way of introduction, Which she matched with “Chloe Samms Legal Beagle,”

’In a movie to rival The Notebook’ she mused now, ‘Who would play me? Rachel McAdams? Anne Hathaway? I rather fancy Rose McIvor myself.’ As for Dean he was his own leading man. Even the hottest Hollywood hunk didn’t come close to holding a candle,

She hadn’t even realised he was back in New Zealand, yet there he was. Her first love up on the screen while the announcer said ‘Reknown New Zealand Cardilogist Dean Stratton received the Order Of New Zealand for services to medicine. While beside him the wife who‘d been the ideal fit stood with their two children smiling with rightful pride at this latest achievement,

What if it was me standing there in that Euro designer number? The wife a orthopaedic specialist had been able to make compromise work for her, For Chloe that wouldn’t have been possible. She’d known it from the start, when Dean graduated with Honours and multiple job offers. Three had been international. He’d accepted a position at a prestigious U,S hospital, and both families had expected wedding bells. Instead Chloe’d driven him to the airport, released him to fly (because real love did that) and filled the vaccum with friends, experiences and career moves, She chose to specialise in Employment Law, helping workers like her parents.

‘I would’ve ended up the loser if we’d married,’

Not being in medicine her compromise would’ve meant following in his wake, and all that student loan money gone to waste. She remembered one particular exchange.

“Don’t let that stop you Chloe, In a few years time I’ll be able to pay both of our loans off.”

“In a few years time I can pay off my own thank you,”

Like she was helpless, in need of a Sir Galahad figure. Or that this was just about money. “I want to graduate from here, then spend a couple of years gaining local experience.”

“With international experience you’d be on a fast track.”

”That’s not what I want, but meanwhile there’s an office door in a certain American hospital just waiting for your name to go up,’

She left unsaid, ‘and there’s a woman who’s going to be your perfect match.’

Chloe had been right. A year later he’d married an up and coming orthopaedic surgeon. They flew his family out for the wedding. Two years later she met Gil, He ticked all the boxes with her own, and her own legal star began its ascent. Until now when she successfully combined motherhood with litigation. It helped being married into the same profession, which made Gil her own idea fit and yet what if?

it felt disloyal even thinking along such lines. Yet his face right there in front of her brought it all back. Those days as student lovers, hot nights enmeshed, days running together that in between study they’d filled with food, music, art, books and laughter, Tears, fights and the intensity if making up. Meeting each other’s families and running the proverbial gauntlet. ‘How did we pack so much into just 24 months?’ They’d even managed a few short breaks, in Fiji, Melbourne and even Bali.

Except real life isn’t a chick flick, and even love can’t always deliver in real terms. If she’d married Dean she would’ve ended up as the trophy wife of a very successful man. Dean had worked in several U.S. states, followed by Canada, Dubai. Switzerland, Paris and Melbourne, He’d been head hunted back to New Zealand and after just one year named in the Queens Birthday Honours List. Married into the profession his wife Gloria had managed to find complimentary positions, Until from Canada onwards they’d become a package deal, To acquire one you took on both. She couldn’t imagine many prestigious hospitals agreeing to take on a complimentary in-house lawyer.

Yet for all of her own advantages Chloe knew she would never completely escape the past. Nor the memories it invoked.

”Muuuuum.”

She was jolted out of her musings by the shrill cry of her youngest calling from upstairs. While from the kitchen in mid meal prep Gil called out, “Do you want me to see to that?”

At this time of an evening Dean and Gloria would probably not even be home. She imagined a heavy reliance on Nannies and Au Pairs.

“No thanks I’ve got this, Anyway since when were you Mum?”

”Cheeky.”

That expression, echoing back from those student lover days, He’d always referred to her as being cheeky and in that same, familiar way.

Then turning towards the stairs she focused on her waiting children. “Coming, ready or not.”

They were the here and now, the ones who mattered. While over her shoulder making ready to feed them was the man who’d always have her back. It was time to retire the what if’s at least for now.