Always Back to Her

Author Walton MerrittReading 8 minViews 2

Again, to her

Are you off to her again?

Lucy asked the question already knowing the answer. David nodded, not meeting her gaze. He pulled on his jacket, checked his pocketskeys, phone, walletall there. Ready to go.

Lucy waited. For a word. Even just sorry or I wont be long. But David simply opened the door and left. The lock clicked quietly, almost politely. As if apologising for its owner.

Lucy moved to the window. The street below was lit by dull lamplight, and she easily spotted his familiar figure. David walked quickly, determined, like someone who knows exactly where hes meant to be. With her. With Emily. With their seven-year-old Sophie.

Lucy pressed her forehead against the cold glass.

She knew. She knew from the start exactly what she was signing up for. When she met David, he was still technically married. Just a stamp on a certificate, a shared house, a child. But he didnt live with Emily anymorehe rented a room and only visited for the sake of his daughter.

She cheated, David said back then. I couldnt forgive it. I filed for divorce.

And Lucy believed him. God, how easily she believed him. Because she wanted to. Because she loved himstupidly, desperately, like she was seventeen again. Coffee dates, long phone calls, the first kiss in the rain outside her flat. David looked at her like she was the only woman in the world.

The divorce. Their wedding. A new flat, plans together, talking about the future.
Then it began.

Firstthe phone calls. Dave, Sophie needs some medicine, quickly, shes ill. Dave, the taps leaking, I dont know what to do. Dave, Sophies upset, she wants to see you, come now.

David always went. Every time.

Lucy tried to understand. A child is sacred. The daughter wasnt at fault for her parents splitting up. Of course, he had to be there, had to help, had to be involved.

Sometimes, David listened to her, tried to set boundaries with his ex-wife.
But Emily always switched tactics.

Dont come round at the weekend. Sophie doesnt want to see you.
Dont ring, you just upset her.
She asked why her dad left us. I didnt know what to say.
And David caved. Every time. Whenever he tried to refuse yet another random requestEmily hit where it hurt. Soon Sophie started repeating her mothers words: You dont love us. You chose someone else. I dont want to see you.

A seven-year-old didnt come up with that on her own.

David returned from these visits broken, guilty, hollow-eyed. And then hed rush over again at the next callanything to keep his daughter from turning away, from looking at him with that cold, distant stare.

Lucy understood. She truly did.

But she was tired.

Davids figure vanished round the corner. Lucy backed away from the window, absently rubbed her foreheada pinkish mark left behind by the glass.
The empty flat pressed in.

It was nearly midnight when she heard the key turn.
Lucy sat at the kitchen table, a cold mug of tea in front of her. She hadnt touched itjust watched a dark film spread over the surface. Three hours. Three hours waiting, listening to every noise on the stairs.

David slipped in quietly, shrugged off his jacket, hung it by the door. He moved like someone hoping to drift in unnoticed.

What happened this time?

Lucy was surprised at how calm she sounded. Shed rehearsed that line for three hours, and now all emotion was burned out.

David paused for a moment.

The boiler broke. Needed fixing.

Lucy slowly raised her eyes. He stood at the kitchen threshold, uncertain about coming in. His gaze slid past her to the black window behind.

You dont know how to fix a boiler.
I called a plumber.
And you had to wait there? Lucy pushed the mug aside. Couldn’t you arrange it from here? Over the phone?

David frowned, folded his arms. The silence thickened, sticky and grim.

Maybe you still love her?

He finally looked at her. Sharply, angrily, wounded.

What are you talking about? I do everything for my daughter. For Sophie! What does Emily have to do with it?

He stepped into the kitchen, and Lucy instinctively drew her chair back.

You knew what you were getting into. You knew Id have to go there. You knew I had a child. What now? Youll make a scene every time I go to see my daughter?

Her throat tightened. Lucy wanted to reply sharply, proudly, but instead her eyes stung and the first tear slipped down her cheek.

I thought she stumbled, swallowed hard. I thought youd at least pretend to love me. At least act like it.
Lucy, please…
I’m tired! her voice cracked, startling her with its rawness. Tired of being not even second place! Third! Behind your ex, her whims, broken boilers at midnight!

David hit his palm against the doorframe.

What do you want from me? To abandon my daughter? Not go to her?
I want you to choose me. Just once. Just once say no! Not to meto her! To Emily!
Im done with your drama!

David snatched his coat from the peg.

Where are you going?

The door slammed in reply.

Lucy stood alone in the kitchen, tea dripping onto the linoleum as her ears rang with the echo. She grabbed her phone, dialled his number. Ring, ring, ring. Person unavailable.

Again. And again.

Silence.

Lucy slowly sank into her chair, clutching the phone to her chest. Where had he gone? To her? Again to her? Or just wandering the city streets, angry and wounded?
She didnt know. Not knowing hurt even more.

The night dragged endlessly.

Lucy sat on the bed, her phone in handscreen flickering off, then on again. Dial his number, listen to beeps, hang up. Type a message: Where are you? Then another: Please reply. And another: Im scared. Sendand watch the little grey tick appear under each one. Not delivered. Or delivered but unread. What did it matter?

By four a.m., Lucy stopped crying. The tears had simply run out, leaving a painful, ringing emptiness inside. She got up, turned on the bedroom light, and opened the wardrobe.

Enough.

Shed had enough.

The suitcase was on the top shelf, dusty, missing a tag from some old holiday. Lucy dragged it onto the bed and started packing. Jumpers, jeans, underwear. Not sorting, not caringjust shoved everything in reach inside. If he didnt careneither would she. Let him come home to an empty flat. Let him call and text, messages she wouldnt ever read.

Let him feel it.

By six in the morning, Lucy stood in the hallway. Two suitcases, a shoulder bag, jacket buttoned hastilyone side longer than the other. She looked at the keyring in her hand. She should take off her key, leave it on the table.

Her fingers refused to cooperate.

Lucy tugged at the ring, tried to wedge her nail under, but the key didnt budge, her hands shook, and her eyes started stinginghow could there still be more tears…

For heavens sake!

The keys dropped, clattering onto the tiles. Lucy stared at them a second or two, then sank onto the suitcase, hugging herself and sobbing deeplyloud, ungraceful, with hiccups and painful breaths, like a child whos smashed their mums best vase and thinks the world has ended.
She didnt hear the door open.

Lucy…

David knelt in front of her, right there on the cold hallway floor, smelling of smoke and Londons nighttime air.

Lucy, Im sorry. Please, please forgive me.

She raised her face. Tear-streaked, swollen, mascara blurred in dark streaks. David gently took her hands in his own.

I went to my mums. All night. She gave me such a telling-off he twisted a half smile. Knocked some sense into me, really.

Lucy was silent. Just looked at himnot knowing whether to believe or not.

Ill take Emily to court. Ill demand a proper schedule for seeing Sophie. All official, through the authorities, as it should be. And she wont be able wont be able to mess us about, get between me and Sophie.

His fingers tightened around Lucys hands.

I choose you, Lucy. Do you hear me? You. Youre my family.

Something flickered inside her chesta tiny, stubborn sprig of hope shed tried to dig out all night.

Really?
Really.

Lucy closed her eyes. She would believe David. Just one last time. After that whatever comes.

The Key in His Hand Rain drummed monotonously against the window of Michael’s flat, like a metronome ticking toward the end. He sat hunched on the edge of a sagging single bed, as if trying to shrink, to become invisible to his own fate. His large hands, once strong and skilled from years at the factory, now lay helplessly in his lap. Every so often, his fingers clenched, a futile attempt to grasp something intangible. He stared not just at the wall, but at the faded wallpaper as if reading a map of his hopeless routes: from NHS clinic to private diagnostic centre. His gaze was washed out, like an old black-and-white film stuck on the same frame. Another doctor, another patronising “Well, what do you expect at your age?” He didn’t get angry. Anger requires energy and he had none left. Only weariness remained. The pain in his back was more than a symptom — it had become his entire landscape, a backdrop for every movement and thought, a white noise of helplessness drowning out everything else. He did everything prescribed: took the pills, rubbed in creams, lay on cold physiotherapy tables, feeling like a broken machine left in a junkyard. All the while he simply waited. Passively, almost religiously, he waited for someone — the state, an ingenious doctor, or a clever professor — to finally throw him a lifeline as he slowly sank into the quicksand. He peered at the horizon of his life but saw only the grey drizzle outside. Michael’s willpower, once enough to solve any problem at the factory or home, was now reduced to a single function: endure, and hope for a miracle. Family… He’d had one, but it evaporated, suddenly and completely. Time slipped by unnoticed. First his daughter left — clever Katie, off to London for a better life. He didn’t begrudge her. “Dad, I’ll help you as soon as I’ve settled,” she promised over the phone. It didn’t matter. Then his wife was gone too. Not just to the shops — forever. Rachel was consumed quickly by a merciless cancer, discovered too late. Michael was left with his aching back and a silent reproach at still being alive. She, his rock, his spark, his Rach, faded in three months. He cared for her as best he could. Until her cough grew ragged and her eyes lost that escaping twinkle. The last thing she said, clutching his hand in the hospital, was “Hang in there, Mike…” He didn’t. He broke completely. Katie called, urged him to come live in her rented flat, coaxing him. But what for? He’d only be a burden. Besides, she had no plans to move back. Now only Rachel’s younger sister, Val, visited him. Once a week, like clockwork, bringing soup in a container, pasta with a homemade fish cake, and another packet of painkillers. “How are you, Mike?” she’d ask, taking off her coat. He nodded: “Alright.” They’d sit in silence as Val tidied his bedsit — as if making order in his things could tidy up his life. Then she’d leave behind a trace of unfamiliar perfume and the faint, physical sense of a duty discharged. He was grateful. And endlessly lonely. Not just physically alone — it was a cell built from his own helplessness, grief, and quiet resentment toward an unfair world. One particularly bleak evening, his wandering gaze landed on a key lying on the well-trodden carpet. He must have dropped it coming home from the surgery. Just a key. Nothing special. A lump of metal. He stared at it, as if it were remarkable, not simply a key. It lay there. Silent. Waiting. He remembered his grandfather, vividly, as if someone had snapped on the light in a dark room. Grandad Peter, with an empty sleeve tucked into his belt, would sit on a stool and, with one hand and a broken fork, tie his shoe laces. Slowly, deliberately, with a quiet victorious snort when it worked out. “Watch, Mikey,” he’d say, eyes twinkling with triumph over adversity. “There’s always a tool nearby. It might look like junk, but it’s an ally if you see it right.” As a boy, Michael thought that was just old man’s cheerful nonsense, a bedtime story for comfort. Grandad was a hero, and heroes could do anything. Michael was just ordinary, and his battle with pain and loneliness left no room for cutlery tricks. Now, looking at the key, that long-lost memory was no longer a comforting parable, but a reproach. Grandad hadn’t waited for help. He took what he had — a broken fork — and won. Not over pain, not over loss, but over helplessness. What had Michael taken? Nothing but bitter, passive waiting at the threshold of someone else’s charity. The thought jolted him. Right now, that simple key — that bit of metal ringing with his grandad’s words — seemed an unspoken command. He stood up — with the usual groan, ashamed even in an empty room. He shuffled two steps, reached down, joints cracking like shattered glass. Picked up the key. Tried to straighten — and the familiar white-hot knife of pain stabbed his back. He froze, gritting his teeth, until it eased. But this time, instead of collapsing back on the bed, he moved, cautious but determined, to the wall. He didn’t analyse. He just followed the urge. Turned his back to the wall. Pressed the flat end of the key against the wallpaper at the sorest spot. And gently, carefully, pushed his weight onto it. He wasn’t trying to “massage” or “treat” anything. This was no medical technique. It was just pressure. Blunt, deep, almost rude: pain pressed into pain, reality pressed into reality. He found a spot where the pressure didn’t bring a new spasm, but a strange, muffled relief — like something inside unclenched by a millimetre. He adjusted the key up, then down. Leaned again. Repeated. Every movement was slow, exploratory, listening to his body’s reply. It wasn’t therapy. It was a negotiation — and the key, not some fancy device, was the instrument. It was silly. He knew a key wasn’t a cure. But the next night, when pain surged again, he repeated the process. And again. He found points where pressure brought relief, as if he parted the crushing vice from within. Later, he used the doorframe for gentle stretching. The glass of water on the nightstand reminded him — drink, just drink. Water was free. Michael stopped waiting, hands folded. He used what he had: a key, a doorframe, the floor for easy stretches, and his own stubbornness. He started a notebook — not of pain, but of “key victories”: “Today managed to stand at the stove five minutes longer.” On the windowsill, he set three empty baked bean tins, planning to toss them. Instead, he filled them with soil from the patch outside his block. Stuck a few onion sets in each. Not a garden, but three little pots of life to tend. A month later, at his check-up, the doctor, scrutinising the new scans, raised an eyebrow. — There are changes. Have you been doing exercises? — Yes, Michael answered simply. — Using things to hand. He didn’t mention the key. The doctor wouldn’t understand. But Michael knew. Salvation didn’t sail in on a rescue ship. It lay on the carpet all along, as he stared at the wall, waiting for someone to turn the light on in his life. One Wednesday, when Val came with soup, she froze on the doorstep. There, in the windowsill tins, young green shoots flourished. The room smelled not of stale air and medicine, but something else, something hopeful. “You… what is this?” she managed, looking at him, steady on his feet by the window. Michael, carefully watering his seedlings, turned and said, “A garden.” Then, after a pause, “Would you like some for your soup? Homegrown, fresh.” That evening, she stayed longer than usual. They had tea, and instead of health complaints, he described the stairs in the building — how he now managed one flight a day. Salvation hadn’t come in the form of Doctor Dolittle with a magic elixir. It came as a key, a doorframe, a tin, and an ordinary set of stairs. It hadn’t banished pain, or loss, or age. It just placed tools in his hands — not to win the war, but to fight his small, daily battles. And it turns out, when you stop waiting for a golden staircase from heaven and notice the plain old concrete one beneath you, climbing it—slowly, surely, step by step—is life itself. And on the windowsill, in three tin cans, the juiciest green onions grew. The finest garden in the world.

“I Don’t Want a Paralysed Child!” – the Daughter-in-Law Declared and Walked Out… But She Had No Idea What Would Happen Next… In a quiet English village, there lived an old man known to everyone as Dennis. After work in his garden, he’d sit on his bench, recalling days gone by for the local youngsters who gathered to listen. Dennis had long ago lost his wife, Claudia, whose heart was too weak but who risked everything to have a child for him. When she passed, Dennis raised their son alone, taking pride in his devotion that made the village women envy, not mock, Claudia. After his son, now grown, moved away and started a family, Dennis was left alone with memories and dreams of adopting a pedigree dog—perhaps a purebred British sheepdog. He cherished the rare visits and photographs from his son’s family, longing to meet his granddaughter. One day, the village noticed Dennis was far gloomier than usual. He’d received a telegram: his son had died in a tragic car accident, leaving his granddaughter gravely injured in hospital. His daughter-in-law never answered his calls or letters. Desperate, Dennis prepared to travel to the city, but on the eve of his trip, a car pulled up and his daughter-in-law barged into his home, dumping the paralyzed girl on his sofa. “She’s completely paralysed—I don’t want a child like this. I’ll find a new husband and have a healthy baby!” she said, slamming the door as she left. Now, Dennis and his granddaughter were left alone, the girl stricken and silent. The doctors had given up hope, but Dennis refused. He travelled weekly to a distant herbalist, hoping local remedies might help. More than a year passed with little change until, one night, local teens burst into the house and threatened the helpless girl. With quick thinking, Dennis called for his faithful dog—Mick, a massive sheepdog with a fierce loyalty, who drove the intruders out of the house and chased them through the village, pants torn and spirits crushed. That night, the miracle happened. The shock, the excitement, and perhaps the healing herbs worked their magic—the girl sat up in bed and called out for Mick. Little by little, she began to recover. She started speaking, then walking, filling the house with laughter and conversation. Dennis later discovered the dog was his son’s, cast out by the heartless daughter-in-law. But Dennis welcomed Mick into the family, feeling fortune had smiled on them again. So they lived on in their English village—Dennis, his granddaughter, and loyal Mick the sheepdog— never hearing from the girl’s mother again, but together, finally mending.

My Late Husband’s Father Walked Me Down the Aisle I never imagined I’d wear a white dress again. After losing my husband, my world became a string of grey days where the only things that mattered were breathing and caring for our baby girl—just eight months old. Yet his parents refused to let me fall apart. They took me in as their own. Literally. They told me I was their daughter now, and their granddaughter would always be their granddaughter. That wouldn’t change, even if he was gone. Five years later, his mum arrived with that telltale smile I’d come to recognize—the one that meant she was plotting something. “Love, I want you to meet someone,” she said, stirring her coffee in my kitchen. “Please, don’t,” I replied, though deep down I was glad she still saw me as family. “He’s my nephew. An engineer, divorced, no kids. And… he cooks.” “He cooks?” I asked, as if that was the most important thing. He turned out exactly as she described—patient with my daughter, gentle with my grief, and yes, a better cook than me. At first it felt strange—he was, after all, related to my late husband by marriage. But his dad put my mind at ease. “He’d want you to be happy. And this man is good.” A year later, he knelt before my daughter and me in the same park where I used to walk with my husband. “Will the three of us get married?” he asked, looking mostly at her. My daughter, now six, looked at him seriously. “Will I still get to see Grandma and Grandad?” “Every Sunday,” he promised. And so we said yes. On our wedding day, as I was getting ready, his mum came into the room in tears. “I’m so happy for you. And I know he is, too.” “Thank you for never letting me go,” I whispered, hugging her tight. When the moment came to walk down the aisle, I knew exactly who would be by my side. When his father appeared at the door in his suit, eyes brimming with tears, my heart both clenched and lifted. “Ready, love?” he asked, offering me his arm. “Ready, Dad,” I answered. Because that was the truth. As we walked, I heard whispers—someone wondered aloud if that was my first husband’s father. He leaned in and whispered, “Let them talk. If I have to, I’ll walk you down the aisle a second time.” I laughed through my tears. When we reached the groom, his father didn’t just place my hand in his—he hugged us both. “You’re both my children,” he announced for all to hear. “And for the gossips: there’s nothing strange about this. This is love.” The ceremony was quiet and true. My daughter carried the rings. His mother wept in the front row. And when we were declared a family, I felt a warm breeze, as if someone was blessing us. At the reception, his father raised a toast. He spoke about the families we choose, about love that never ends, and that I will always be his daughter-in-law—even though now he has two sons-in-law: one in heaven and one beside me. Later, I watched him dancing and making my daughter laugh, while his wife snapped photos with grandmotherly pride. Today, when people ask why my late husband’s father walked me down the aisle, I just smile and say, “He was never my ex-father-in-law. He’s my dad.” What would you have done in my place?