The man stared, bewildered. “And where d’you think you’re going at this hour? Why’ve you got the kids up?”
“We’re leaving you,” she said, her voice steady.
That night, Edward came home earlier than usual—just past half-twelve. He was about to change and turn in when he caught his wife hurriedly bundling their sleepy youngest into a coat. Their son stood beside her, scowling. Edward couldn’t make sense of it.
“Hold on. What’s all this? Dragging the kids out in the dead of night?” His voice was sharp, irritation rising.
“We’re going. I won’t live like this anymore,” Emily replied, meeting his gaze. Once, not so long ago, she’d looked at those eyes with adoration. Now all she saw was anger, contempt, ice.
“Suit yourself!” Edward bellowed, blind to how his shouting frightened the children. “Who’d want you with baggage like that? Bloody idiot!”
“We’ll see,” Emily said, turning away and stepping out the door.
The first year of marriage had been a dream. Edward doted on her—attentive, charming, handsome, self-assured. All her friends envied her. Only her mother had whispered, “Oh, you’ll suffer with that pretty face.” But Emily had waved it off, certain that *their* love would be different.
Then the fights started. Unexplained absences, resentment simmering. Then she learned—he had a mistress. Her world crumbled, but she stayed. For the children, for the façade. Another pregnancy, another child. Then came the “business trips,” the hollow excuses, the distance. Emily knew. But she said nothing—not because she was blind, but because she was afraid. Where could she go? How would she manage alone?
She smelled perfume on his shirts, heard wrong names slip out—once, he’d even called her “Lily.” But she swallowed it. She moved through life like clockwork: mornings, school runs, shifts at the supermarket till. A pittance of a wage, a tiny flat, no help. But she carried on—because she had to.
Then one evening, a bouquet appeared on her counter.
“For you,” said the customer, cheeks pink. “Just… wanted to see you smile.” Andrew. A regular who always bought the same things—bread, sausages, coffee.
“Andrew,” he said later. “Shift over? Let me walk you home.”
She refused. Then again. And again. Emily couldn’t believe anyone would care about a woman with two children. Her own husband had vanished without a call for a year. Yet this stranger—he asked. He listened. He *noticed*.
One day, she snapped.
“I have *two kids*!”
“Brilliant,” he grinned. “That’s a full-house weekend at the zoo, then.”
She was stunned. He taught her son chess, took her daughter sledging. Rushed out for medicine when they fell ill. Emily tried to push him away, but he only smiled.
“Think I’d let a woman like you slip through? Marry me?”
Five years on, Emily is Mrs. Andrews. They have four children—two together, two from before. And the neighbors all say how much the little ones look like him.
“They really are starting to take after you,” she murmurs at night.
“Course they are,” he whispers back. “I love them. They’re part of you. So they’re part of me.”
