Put your hat on, its freezing out there. Youll catch a cold.
Claire held out the woolly hat that same navy one with the bobble, the one Alice had chosen herself just a month before at John Lewis.
Youre not my mother! Alright?
Her words pierced the silence in the hallway. Alice flung the hat to the floor with the kind of rage youd reserve for a venomous thing.
Alice, I only…
And you never will be! Got it? Never!
The front door slammed. The panes in the old wooden frame rattled, and a wave of cold crept in from the shared landing.
I stood there in the hallway, just standing. The hat lay by my feet, sad and crumpled and pointless. Tears stung, angry and hot, rising up so quickly I had to bite down on my lip and crane my neck to stare at the ceiling. Dont cry. Not now.
Six months ago, Id imagined something entirely different. Cosy family dinners. Heart-to-hearts over tea. Maybe the odd weekend trip to the Cotswolds. Tom had spoken so wonderfully about his daughter bright and talented, just a touch withdrawn after losing her mum. She just needs time, hed assured me. Shell come round.
Time went on. Alice never did.
From my very first day stepping inside this flat not as a guest but as a wife, Alice built walls around herself. Every effort I made hit a frost as sharp as January. Offer to help with her homework I can do it myself. Invite for a walk in the park Im busy. Compliment her new haircut a long, scornful glare, then silence.
I have a mother, Alice announced on our second day living together.
We all sat at the breakfast table. Tom, rushing and stressed about being late for work, gulped at his English breakfast tea.
I had one. I always will. Youre no one to me.
Tom choked on his toast and muttered something placatory. I smiled, lips stiff with the effort, and said nothing.
Things only got worse after that.
Alice clever child stopped her outbursts in front of her dad. She chose subtler weapons. She walked past me as if I truly was invisible. Her replies became tight, terse, barely a word. Shed leave as soon as I entered the lounge.
Dad wasnt like this before, she tossed out over dinner once. Before you, we actually used to talk. Now…
She trailed off and stared at her shepherds pie. Tom turned pale; the fork froze in my hand.
Tom paced between us like some cornered animal. Every evening, hed come to ourno, his bedroom and quietly beg me for patience.
Shes just a girl. Shes grieving. Give her time.
Then hed speak to Alice, willing her to soften.
Claires lovely. Shes trying her best. Just try for me, will you?
I could overhear these talks through the wall. Tom: tired, voice frayed at the edges. Alices answers: cold, sharp, darting.
Tom was miserable. More wrinkles, a deeper crease between his brows each week. Hed flinch whenever Alice and I were in the same room. The dark circles under his eyes were permanent now.
But hed never choose a side. Or maybe just didnt dare.
I picked up the hat. Dusted it absent-mindedly and hung it back up. Then wandered to the living room and, as always, froze on the threshold.
The photos dozens of them in every style of frame imaginable. On shelves, walls, the windowsill. A fair-haired woman with a gentle smile. The same lady holding baby Alice. With Tom looking so much younger, happy, nothing like the man hed become. Wedding photos. Holidays. Christmas mornings.
Katherine. The first wife. The late wife.
Her clothes still hung in the wardrobes. Dresses, cardigans, scarves all neatly pressed, lavender pouches between the folds. Her moisturiser and lipstick kept their spot in the bathroom, untouched. Her pink fluffy slippers stood exactly where shed left them. As if shed just nipped out to the Sainsburys and would be back any moment.
Mum made this so much better, Alice would say over dinner.
Mum would never do that.
Mum wouldnt like this.
Each comparison a punch to the stomach. Id smile, nod, chew and swallow my pride alongside supper. But alone at night, sleepless, the same thought returned: How do you compete with a ghost? With the burnished memory of a woman who grew more perfect every year?
Tom wasnt over Katherine. Id known it for a while. The way hed look at her photos with that deep, private ache. How hed listen to Alice recounting mum stories, and his face would close up entirely.
What was I to him? A hopeful step forward? A stopgap? Or just another pair of hands to cook dinner and fold laundry?
In the late hours, as Tom drifted off easily beside me always turning his back and falling asleep within moments Id lay there, eyes fixed on the unfamiliar ceiling of a home that never felt like mine. By now, I saw it sharply: this marriage was coming apart. Tom had married me with his past unburied. Alice would never accept me.
And, it dawned on me, Id made the gravest mistake of my life.
The realisation struck clear as crystal, always between three and four in the bleak early morning, as I listened to Tom breathing. He slept right through, always had I stayed awake, alone with my thoughts and the faint golden light from the streetlamp outside, staring at Katherines photo on the chest of drawers that Tom never bothered to put away.
Enough.
The courage arrived gently, almost quietly. A sudden, cold calm: this wasnt a battle I could win. You cant replace a memory. Theres no space for another woman in a family built on devotion to a sainted past.
I sat up in bed. Tom didnt even stir.
Three days later, I filed the divorce papers. Alone. No lawyer. No warning. I walked into the registry office with my passport and marriage certificate, filled in the form in neat English script, and signed. The woman behind the counter gave me a professional look of sympathy you could tell she saw people like me every day.
Claire
Tom found the papers that evening. He stood in the kitchen holding the slip, pale, defeated.
Whats this supposed to mean?
Its what it says. I kept washing up. Ive filed for divorce.
But why? How? We havent even talked
What is there to talk about, Tom?
I turned off the tap, dried my hands on the tea towel, and faced him.
Im tired of living in a museum. Tired of being second best. Tired of seeing the way you look at her pictures. Tired of being told by your daughter that I dont count.
Alices just a child, she doesnt get it…
Alice understands exactly what shes doing. And so do you. Youre just too scared to say it.
Tom moved toward me. He put his hands on my shoulders gently, like I might shatter.
Claire, lets talk. Ill fix this. Ill speak to Alice, take down the photos, well make a fresh start…
You love her.
Not a question. A fact. I looked Tom in the eye and saw his answer long before he tried to form words.
You still love Katherine. So what am I to you? A substitute? A companion? Somebody to keep the flat running?
Thats not fair…
Then say you dont love her. Say youve moved on. Go on, Tom.
He said nothing.
Tom let go and stepped back. His face, grey and weary, looked a decade older in the space of a minute.
I nodded. I never expected anything else.
Alice sat in her room, bedroom door propped open accident or purpose, who knew. She glanced up from her phone as I walked past. And she smiled barely, just a twitch of the lips, but triumphant all the same.
Shed got what she wanted.
The hours that followed felt mechanical. Wardrobe. Hangers. Suitcase. That dress Tom gave me for our anniversary three months ago, which already felt like another life. The perfume he spent half an hour choosing at Boots, sniffing different bottles. The book wed started reading together but never finished.
I packed my things carefully, smoothing each fold. Dont think. Dont remember. Just pack.
The evening dragged endlessly. I sat on the bed beside my suitcases. Two suitcases thats all that was left of my attempt at family.
I left at eight oclock sharp.
Booked a taxi in advance, carried the cases down myself the old lift barely made a sound, and not a single neighbour poked out of a door. I left my keys on the hallway table.
The cabbie helped with the luggage, and the car pulled away. I didnt look back.
London slipped past in the dark, empty and indifferent. The lamps glowed on, a few people hurried off towards the Tube. Behind me, that flat remained, full of ghosts and photographs. Tom, lost in a love that wouldnt fade. Alice, so fiercely loyal to her mothers memory.
As we drove, I stared out the window and breathed. For the first time in half a year at last, I breathed.
The loneliness frightened me. But the thought of living in someone elses shadow frightened me more.
This would be a new beginning. A blank page. No husband, no family, no comforting lies. But at least at least no more living in permanent comparison with an idealised woman who wasnt even there anymore.
