Anna decided to try living together, but reality shattered her dreams.
Anna was always a woman beloved by those around her, but fate had it that she remained alone. In her youth, she devoted herself to books and knowledge, treasures her parents, especially her mother, cherished. She grew up in a small town outside of Oxford, surrounded by silence and the pages of old novels, far from the hubbub and worldly passions.
One day, a man entered her life—tall, well-off, with a charming smile. He courted her with fervor, and marriage seemed as inevitable as dawn following night. But fate dealt a cruel blow: her father’s sudden passing and her mother’s grave illness shattered all plans. Anna stayed to care for her ailing mother, while her fiancé, unable to withstand the trials, faded from her life like a ghost, leaving only a bitter residue of betrayal.
Years later, after her mother’s passing, Anna suddenly felt an acute longing for the warmth of another person. She watched as her friends found freedom after divorces, spreading their wings, yet in her heart, there still smoldered a longing for closeness, for someone to share her solitude. Then, chance brought her together with a widower named George. He was a kindred spirit—fond of 19th-century literature, often quoting Dickens and Austen, and their fireside conversations sparked a romance. Despite her friends’ warnings—”Why bother at your age? Live for yourself!”—Anna and George decided on marriage, believing that love could conquer all.
But reality proved cold and unforgiving. Their life together turned out to be a daily ordeal rather than a blissful union. George, with his habit of leaving things everywhere and living in chaos, became a real nightmare for Anna. Her world, where everything was in its place, where every book stood neatly on the shelf, and every cup had its spot, crumbled under the onslaught of his disorder. Every day turned into a battle for patience, an attempt to find any sliver of harmony in the chaos.
She tried speaking to him, opening her heart, pleading with him to share the responsibility for their shared home. But her words fell into the void—George remained deaf to her pleas and her pain. After yet another incident, when she found her favorite books carelessly piled in a corner and the kitchen filled with dirty dishes, Anna couldn’t take it anymore. Tears choked her as she said, “I want to leave. To reclaim my peace.” She longed for that quiet, solitary life where no one intruded into her world, where she was the master of her fate.
However, George, citing his affairs, asked for time to “sort things out.” He stayed in her home, only exacerbating her suffering. Every step he took, every sound of his presence, cut into her heart like a knife. Nine months—this was the length of that agony, that marriage which had become a cage for her. Finally, the divorce was finalized, and Anna claimed her freedom.
Returning to her solitude, she felt her lungs fill with air and her spirit with a long-lost joy. The walls of her tiny flat once again became her refuge, her fortress. She sat with a cup of tea, gazing at the autumn rain through the window, and for the first time in a long while, she smiled—genuinely, from the heart. The freedom she had reclaimed was worth more than any illusions of happiness together. Anna realized: her life belonged to her alone, and she would no longer allow anyone to disturb that fragile, yet so precious, peace.
