The Happiness of an Old Communal Flat
Waiting for her husband to come home from work, Sophie sat at the kitchen table, sipping chamomile tea unhurriedly. When she heard the key turn in the lock, she rose and stood in the doorway. David walked in, stern and silent.
“Hello,” she said first. “You’re late again. I had dinner ages agojust been waiting for you.”
“Hello,” he replied. “You didnt have to wait. Im not hungry, anyway. I wont be longjust grabbing a few things and leaving.” He didnt even take off his shoes, just strode past her and yanked a suitcase from the wardrobe.
Sophie froze, watching as he tossed random clothes inside. “David, whats going on?”
“Dont you get it? Im leaving you,” he said flatly, avoiding her eyes.
“Where?”
“For another woman.”
“Oh, let me guesssome young thing? Though youre hardly old yourself at forty,” she snapped, forcing herself to stay composed. *I wont cry. He wont see me break.* Out loud, she asked, “How longs this been going on?”
“Nearly a year,” he said coolly, then smirked at her shock. “If you didnt notice, thats your problem. I hid it well.”
“Youre leaving for good, then?” she pressed.
“Sophie, do you not understand? Listen carefullyIm leaving you for her. Were having a baby. You couldnt give me a child, but she can. Youve got a month to move out of *my* flat. Where you go is your business. She and I will live here with our son until she leaves her rented place.”
And just like that, he was gone. The flat felt suffocating, the silence deafening. She turned on the telly just to hear another voice. Twelve years together, and it took her a week to pull herself together.
Her parents had left her a cottage in the countryside, but the thought of living there alone was unbearable.
“I cant do it,” she thought. “No conveniences, no workIm thirty-five, not ready to bury myself in some village.” So she sold it. The neighbour, Margaret, had been waiting.
“Sophie, love! We were about to come looking for you!”
“Whats happened?”
“Well, my relatives want to buy your place. Theyre up from Cornwalljust need somewhere to tear down and rebuild. Wanted to be near us, see?”
“Margaret, thats perfect! Lets settle on a priceheres my number.”
The money was in her hands within days. Not much, given the state of the place, but enough for a tiny room in a shared flat. The kitchen was communal, two rooms already occupied, but she called it home.
Her neighbours seemed quiet, decent. Sophie barely saw themout at work from dawn till dusk. There, shed even started seeing a colleague, Thomas. Things seemed to be going welluntil he dropped the bombshell before Mothers Day.
“I need space. Im not sure about us anymore.”
“Take all the space you wantpreferably somewhere far away,” she shot back.
Fuming, she stormed home and raided the fridgeonly to find her ham missing.
“Who took my ham?” she shouted.
“Love, I tossed it two days ago,” Vera, the older neighbour, admitted. “It had gone greenreeked up the fridge. Didnt think youd risk it.”
“You had no right!” Sophie exploded. First her husband, then Thomas, now this? She ranted until Vera retreated, shaking.
“Vera, dont take it to heart,” murmured John, the bookish man in the corner chair. “Shes upset with someone else.”
“And what would *you* know?” Sophie snapped.
“Enough,” he said mildly.
“Oh, very wise! Why live in this dump if youre so clever?”
An hour later, shame washed over her. The ham *had* been old. She found Vera in the kitchen.
“Im sorry. Ive had a rotten time lately. John was right.”
Vera smiled. “Sit, love. Tea and cakell help. But you should apologise to John. He was a professor, you know. Had a lovely flat in townlost it all when his wife fell ill. Brain tumour. Sold everything for her treatment in Switzerland. She still passed, and he ended up here.”
Sophie nearly cried. The next evening, she knocked on Johns door, gift in hand.
“John, please forgive me.”
“What a lovely surprise. But Ill only accept if you join my birthday celebration.”
They set the table together, chatting. Sophie confessed her pasthow shed fallen for a married man at uni, lost the baby, and later couldnt conceive.
Then Veras son, Daniel, arrivedtall, smiling. Over dinner, he charmed them all with tales from his trucking days. Later, they walked through the snowy streets, talking for hours.
“Wait for me?” he asked before his next trip.
“Of course.”
A year later, they married. Sophie moved in with him, and baby Archie soon followed. When Daniels away, she stays in her old roomwhere Vera and John dote on their “grandson.”
Funny how life turns out.
