**Diary Entry**
He left everything to his wife in the divorce—including his mother.
“He turned up at my door with just a backpack,” Anna’s voice trembled as she confided in her friend, sitting in their cramped rented flat in Manchester. “Everything he owned, he gave to his family. And every month, like clockwork, he pays child support. But I… I don’t know how we’re meant to survive like this.”
Ten years ago, Anna—just nineteen, a university student—fell for Alex. He was thirty-four, married. The age gap didn’t matter. Their passion eclipsed everything: Alex left his wife and children for her. They’re still together now, living in Manchester, unmarried, but their happiness is clouded by the weight of the past, dragging them under.
When Alex walked out, his sons were six and nine. Now they’re teenagers, but back then, they were just boys who needed their father. He gave his ex-wife, Emma, everything: the house, the car, the savings. But along with it, she inherited his mother, Margaret—a burden she never asked for.
Their story began in Emma’s tiny one-bed flat, left to her by her grandmother. When the boys were born, space ran out. Margaret, newly retired, offered a solution. She had a modest flat in Liverpool. She sold it, Emma sold hers, and together they bought a spacious three-bedroom house—with Margaret as much an owner as her son and daughter-in-law.
It made sense at the time. Margaret would help with the boys, and she wouldn’t have to live alone. For a while, it worked. She babysat, cooked, while Emma returned to work quickly after maternity leave. Money was enough for holidays, a decent car, a comfortable home. They argued, like any family, but they were happy. Margaret was a second mother to the boys, and a steady presence for Emma.
Then came Anna.
Alex fell for her like a schoolboy and left without a backward glance. He walked away, leaving Emma with the house—and his mother. Margaret stayed. Where else could she go? At first, they clung together for the children’s sake, sharing chores, keeping the peace. But without Alex as the glue, everything fell apart.
The house, once warm, turned cold. Emma, barely forty, raised two teenagers alone. Margaret, with her achy knees and weary eyes, kept to her room. They barely spoke, avoiding each other. The woman who had once laughed over tea with her mother-in-law now saw only a stranger—a reminder of betrayal. Every glance, every creak of the floorboards, reminded them this was no longer a home, just a battleground.
Emma begged Alex to help arrange a split. Margaret pleaded for her own place. But Alex, now juggling rent with Anna and child support, could do nothing. “I’m doing all I can,” he’d say, spreading his hands. “Child support’s paid. What more do you want?”
Anna listened, guilt gnawing at her. She knew she’d torn his family apart—yet she couldn’t fix it. It hurt to watch Alex torn between duty and their new life.
Meanwhile, in that Manchester house, the quiet war dragged on. Emma, exhausted from work and raising the boys, saw Margaret as a relic of the past. Margaret, lonely and frail, felt like a burden but had nowhere to go. The boys, caught between silent grudges, withdrew, wondering why home no longer felt like home.
They lived under one roof, each in their own solitude. What was once laughter and the smell of Sunday roasts had faded into a ghost of what they’d had. Emma dreamed of freedom. Margaret, just some peace. And Alex, chasing love, had left only wreckage behind. And none of them knew how to find their way back.
