Put your hat on, its freezing out minus ten, youll catch a cold.
Mary held out the knitted hat the very one, blue with a bobble, that Valerie herself had chosen out in John Lewis just a month ago.
Youre not my mum, all right?
The shout cut through the silence of the hallway. With a flare of anger, Valerie hurled the hat to the floor, as if it burned her hands.
Val, I just
And you never will be! Do you hear me? Never!
The front door slammed behind Valerie. The glass in the frames trembled and a rush of cold air swept through the hallway.
Mary just stood there, rooted in place. The hat lay at her feet, crumpled and discarded. Hot, angry tears threatened to choke her. She bit her lip, tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. Not now. Dont cry.
Half a year ago, shed imagined a rather different life. Cosy Sunday roasts. Heart-to-hearts over tea. Maybe trips to the seaside together. Simon had spoken so beautifully about his daughter clever, gifted, just a little withdrawn since her mother had passed away. She needs time, hed told Mary. Shell come round.
But time passed, and Valerie remained closed off.
From her first day stepping into this flat not as a visitor, but as a wife, Valerie was on the defensive. Every attempt at closeness was met with a wall of ice. Offer to help with homework I can do it myself. Suggest a walk in the park Im busy. Compliment her new haircut only a withering stare and silence.
I have a mum, Valerie pronounced on their second morning together.
They were at breakfast; Simon, running late for work, was gulping down his coffee.
I had a mum, and always will. You dont count here.
Simon coughed on his toast at that. Mumbled something about getting along. Mary smiled so tightly her lips ached and stayed silent.
After that, things only got worse.
Valerie made sure not to raise her voice in front of her father. Her methods became more subtle. She would walk past Mary as if she were invisible. Reply with clipped, barely civil words. Leave any room as soon as Mary entered.
Dad used to be so different, Valerie let slip one evening at dinner. Before you, he was normal. We used to talk. Now
She trailed off, prodding her peas around. Simon paled. Mary put down her fork, her appetite gone.
Simon darted between them, trapped. Each night hed join Mary in the bedroom their bedroom, although Mary never quite managed to call it her own and tell her to hang in there.
Shes struggling. Shes just a child. Give it some time.
And then hed go to Valerie, asking her to be kinder.
Marys good. Shes doing her best. Try to accept her.
Mary would hear these arguments through the wall. Simons voice, weary, defeated. Valeries replies, short and barbed.
The strain showed in the crease between Simons brows, growing ever deeper. In the way he flinched each time Valerie and Mary were together. In the exhaustion clouding his face, the dark circles under his eyes.
But he would not or could not take a side.
Mary picked the hat off the floor, brushed it clean, and hung it back on its peg. She wandered into the sitting room and, as always, stopped in her tracks.
Photographs. Dozens in frames: on shelves, on the mantelpiece, on the windowsill. A fair-haired woman, always smiling gently. That same woman with a little Valerie in her arms. With Simon young, carefree, altogether different from now. Wedding pictures. Holiday snaps. Christmas mornings.
Elaine. The first wife. The late wife.
Her things still filled the cupboards. Dresses, woolly jumpers, scarves neatly folded, lavender sachets tucked in between. Her make-up arranged on a shelf in the bathroom. Her slippers pink, fluffy sat beside the front door.
As if shed just popped out to Waitrose and would be back any minute.
Mum made this better, Valerie would announce at dinner.
Mum never used to do it like that.
Mum wouldnt have liked this.
Each comparison was a blow to the gut. Mary smiled, nodded, forced down her resentment between mouthfuls. At night shed lie awake, asking herself: how could you compete with a memory? With the idolised picture of a woman who only became more perfect with each passing year?
Simon, Mary saw, loved Elaine still. Hed gaze at her photos with such longing it broke Marys heart. When Valerie spoke of her mum, an unfamiliar, shuttered look settled on Simons face.
Who was Mary to him really? A way to avoid loneliness? Someone to cook his meals and sort his laundry? Just someone who happened to be there when he needed company?
In the quiet hours, with Simon already snoring soundly, Mary would study the ceiling of this unfamiliar house. She knew then with a cold certainty that their marriage was crumbling. That Simon had married her without making peace with his past. That Valerie would always refuse her.
And that perhaps she herself had made the biggest mistake of her life.
The idea crystallised clearly some night between three and four, while Mary lay wide awake, listening to Simons steady breathing. He always slept so easily a turn towards the wall, and he was gone in minutes. She was left with the whispered shadows, the wash of streetlights, and Elaines photo on the dresser, which Simon had never put away.
Enough.
The decision didnt come with drama. It was just there: simple, cold truth. This was a fight she couldnt win. You couldnt battle memories, couldnt replace the one who would always be a saint in their home.
She sat up in bed. Simon didnt stir.
Three days later, she filed the petition. Alone. No solicitor, no warning. She just walked into the Registry Office with her passport and marriage certificate, filled in the forms, and signed her name. The woman behind the desk gave her a brief look of sympathy probably saw ten like her every day.
Mary
Simon discovered the paperwork that evening. He froze in the kitchen, pale, letter in hand.
What does this mean?
Its all there. Mary kept washing up. Ive filed for divorce.
Why? How? We never even
What is there to discuss, Simon?
She turned off the tap, dried her hands, and faced him.
Im tired of living in a mausoleum. Of always being second best. Of catching the way you look at her photos. Of hearing your daughter tell me Im nothing.
Vals just a child, she doesnt understand
She understands plenty. And so do you, only youre afraid to admit it.
Simon stepped closer, gripped her shoulders gently, as if she might break.
Mary, lets talk. Ill fix it. Ill talk to Val, take the pictures down, well start over
You love her.
Not a question, but a fact. Mary looked straight into his eyes, and found her answer before he spoke.
Deep down, you still love Elaine. So what am I to you? A stand-in? Someone to cook and clean?
Thats not fair
Then say you dont love her. Say youve moved on. Go on, Simon.
Silence.
His hands slipped from her shoulders. He took a step back, face ashen, seeming suddenly a decade older.
Mary nodded. She hadnt expected anything else.
Valerie was in her room, door just barely ajar unintentionally or not, who could tell? But as Mary passed, Valerie looked up from her phone and smiled. Just a twitch of her lips, a hint of satisfaction.
Shed won.
The following hours passed in a daze, an empty routine. Wardrobe. Hangars. Suitcase. The dress Simon had given her for their anniversary, all of three months ago a lifetime, now. Perfume hed dithered over for ages in Boots, sampling scent after scent. A half-read book theyd started together.
Mary packed with care, smoothing every wrinkle. Not thinking. Not reliving. Just packing.
The evening dragged on. She sat on the bed by her cases two of them, all that remained of her attempt at family life.
She left at eight that night.
Shed booked a cab, hauled her suitcases downstairs herself the lift was silent as ever, and not a door creaked open in the building. She left Simons keys on the hall table.
The driver helped her load her things, and the car pulled away. Mary didnt look back.
The city was hushed and unfamiliar, the lamps glowing in the dusk, strangers rushing towards the Underground. Somewhere behind her, the flat waited, packed full of ghosts and photographs. Simon, his heart anchored to a past love. Valerie, fiercely loyal to her mother.
Mary watched the city slip by and breathed. For the first time in half a year she felt truly free.
Loneliness was frightening. But the idea of forever living in the shadows of a memory frightened her more. She was starting again, from scratch. No marriage, no family, no fantasies.
But, at least, she was finally done with comparing herself to the perfect woman who no longer existed.
And as the streets of London faded behind her, Mary realised that to find peace in the present, you must first let go of the past. Only by burying old ghosts do we find the courage to truly live.
