**The Heart Beats Again**
Emily gave birth to her daughter Lily without ever knowing who the father was. A slip before marriage, as they say.
There had been a young man courting her—handsome, charming, but never once mentioning marriage. Emily would proudly walk arm in arm with him past the pensioners perched on benches by the flats, their eyes following every passerby like sparrows after crumbs. He didn’t work, flitting through life like a butterfly. She fed him, housed him, laid out the red carpet for him—until the day he announced she bored him, that she didn’t appreciate him enough, and really, if she loved him, she could’ve taken him on holiday at least once.
She cried for a week, then burned every photo. A month of solitude later, she met James.
One morning, running late, Emily stood fidgeting at the bus stop when a taxi pulled up. The driver opened the door and offered her a lift. Without hesitation, she jumped in.
He was well-groomed, polite—the kind of man cared for by a woman’s hand, she thought. His mother’s, probably. James was everything the first one wasn’t. She gave him her number without thinking—the only time she ever took a free ride.
Their courtship was a whirlwind of flowers and tenderness. One spring day, strolling through the woods, Emily gathered snowdrops, laughing as James joined in. He placed his bouquet carefully in the backseat. “For his wife,” she guessed but didn’t dare ask. Better sweet delusion than bitter truth.
Then James’s wife showed up at her door with two children. “Here, darling—raise them. They adore their dad,” she said.
“I didn’t know,” Emily whispered. “I won’t break your family.”
That evening, she ended it.
Then came Oliver—a fleeting hurricane of passion. A Georgian who swept her off her feet at a friend’s birthday, filling her days with laughter and grand gestures. For a year, he carried her on clouds before vanishing back home, leaving her hollow.
Resigned to solitude, Emily made peace—until she discovered she was pregnant.
Lily arrived, bright-eyed and curly-haired like Oliver. Motherhood eclipsed heartache, though envy for married friends sometimes gnawed at her.
Years passed. Lily started school, clashing instantly with a boy named William—a “curly-headed fool,” he called her. Their feuds were legendary until Emily marched to his home, ready to confront his father.
Daniel answered, dishevelled but warm, apologising over homemade coffee. The scent stayed with her—rich, unforgettable. That night, she imagined herself tidying his cluttered flat, smoothing his son’s hair.
At the next parents’ evening, she confirmed Daniel was single. He walked them home in the December dark and, to her own surprise, she accepted his New Year’s invitation. Seven years alone had drained her of fairy-tale expectations.
Daniel adored her. They moved in, blending families, buying a house, raising Lily and William as siblings—until, unthinkably, the children fell in love.
At their wedding, Emily and Daniel gifted them a Paris honeymoon before escaping to Brighton themselves. A week of bliss—until Daniel vanished in calm waters, leaving no grave, only questions.
Grief nearly swallowed her. Years later, holding her grandchildren’s hands, sipping coffee that still smelled like him, she finally thanked fate for those twenty-five years.
Life ends. Love doesn’t.
