LIKE A BIRD TO THE CALL
Girls, you should marry once and for all. Stay with your beloved for life, right to the end. Dont go flitting about the world forever searching for a soulmateyoull end up a bitten apple no one wants, I would tell my friends. Married men are strictly off-limits. Dont even think you can have a little fling and walk away unscathed. Itll only drag you both into miseryand sly happiness will never find you.
My parents were together for fifty years, a living, breathing model of loyalty for me. From a young age, I vowed to guard my own destiny even more fiercely than my own eyes. That was my conviction as I sat chatting with my friends at the age of twenty, wisdom firmly planted in my mind by my grandmother, whose word I trusted implicitly.
My friends would all laugh in unison.
Oh, dont be ridiculous, Claire. Lets see what you say when you fall head over heels for a married man!
What I never told the girls was that my own mother gave birth to my older sister long before she ever married. It was a disgrace that left a mark on her whole village. Five years later, I was bornthis time as a legitimate child, after my father fell desperately in love with my mother and swept her away, hand in hand, through life. They eventually left their village to escape the gossip. From that, I decided early on: no children out of wedlock, no entanglements with men who werent truly mine.
But life, as always, had its own story in mind
My sister, Emily, and I never really saw eye to eye. Shes always felt that our parents favoured me, and her jealousy grew year by year. We had our own unspoken contestwho could win more of Mum and Dads love? Silly, but it coloured our childhood.
I met Edward at a local dance. He was a cadet, I a nurse. Sparks flew on the spot, and within a month we were married. My happiness overflowedI trailed after Edward like a bird to a call.
After he finished training, we moved to his assigned base, miles from my childhood home. Very soon, the arguments and misunderstandings began. I had no one to turn tomy mother was in another country, my friends far away.
Our little Anna was born as the country entered one of its most unstable decades. Edward left the army and soon fell into heavy drinking. At first, I tried to comfort and reassure him, believing things would eventually settle down.
Edward would listen with half an ear:
I know what youre saying, Claire, but I just cant stop. One drink and the worries disappear.
Then, he started disappearing himselfsometimes for days, sometimes for weeks. Once, he returned home after a whole month away, dumping a briefcase bulging with pounds on the kitchen table.
Whered you get all that? I asked, certain something was off.
Whats it matter, Claire? Use it. Ill bring more yet, he boasted.
Fearing trouble, I hid the case untouched.
He vanished againthis time for half a year. When he showed up, he was gaunt, hollow-eyed, a shadow of himself.
Claire, take off your gold bangles. I owe money to some dangerous people, he said, staring coldly at me.
These bangles were a gift from my parents. I wont part with them! I shouted. What on earth is going on, Edward? You have a family!
Stop whining! Things have gotten complicated… Will you help me, love? He came closer, and I, shaken, fetched the hidden briefcase from the kitchen.
Take your treasure. Anna and I will get by.
He checked the contents.
Did you take any?
Not a penny. That moneys not for us.
It wont cover my debts anyway, he sighed. Ill think of something.
He gave me a wild, passionate nightI clung to him, loved him, always forgave him. The next morning, he packed to leave again.
How long this time, Edward? I asked, desperately searching his eyes.
I dont know, Claire. Just wait, he said, kissed me briefly, and walked out the door.
And I did wait. A year. Then another.
At the hospital where I worked, a doctor began to court me. Jonathan was married, which held me back, but so did something more elusivea feeling of being stuck between heaven and earth. I was still married, but hadnt seen my husband in two years. Not a word, not a card, not a call from Edward.
Christmas approached. Glittering trees, oranges and tangerines in every shop window and a hum of festivity all around. Then the doorbell rang. On the doorstep stood Edward.
I hurled myself into his arms, kissing him fervently.
Finally! Where have you been?
Hold on, Claire. Enough with the kisses He hesitated, shuffling his feet. We need to get divorced. I have a son nowI wont let him grow up fatherless.
My whole world spun. The last ember of my love smothered beneath years of ash, but I barely showed a flicker.
Fine, Edward. They say you cant gather spilled water back into the jug. After the holidays, well sort it out. Life turned inside out
Want to see Anna? Shes at a friends. If you wait, Ill bring her. Shell be fatherless too, I stung him.
Sorry, no time. Ill hug Anna another day, he said, and left.
But another day never came. He never saw Anna again. Our final meeting mattered to no one; family become strangers.
Jonathan the doctor, sensing my loneliness, swept me into a dizzying romance. By then, I didnt care that my love was marriedthe lines had faded. Jonathan knew how to woo. I melted under his attention and for three years, we were lovers. Eventually, he proposed.
No, Jonathan. We cant build happiness on the tears of your wife or little girl. Our paths diverge, I choked, barely able to speak past the lump in my throat.
I managed to end our torment, but had to transfer to another hospital, determined to put him out of sight and mind.
Then I met Davidmy true fate.
He was raising a son alone, his ex-wife having started a new family and left the boy with him. I met David where he was a patient at my new hospital. He wooed me with his wit, putting me at ease, until laughter gave way to affection and, finally, love.
His boy, Ben, was seven; Anna, now eight. David and I, brought together under lucky stars, managed beautifully. The children grew alongside us, filling our home with noise and purpose. We made every decision together and kept no secrets. I was fortunate in my second marriage and cherished David with all my heart. He was my light.
Now, after thirty years together, I wouldnt change a thing.
Not long ago, Edward tracked down my mother. Ive never met a woman like Claire, he saidHe visited her, older and slower, tracing faded photos with trembling hands. They spoke at the kitchen table where he and I once shared breakfast in the early days. He wanted to know about me, about Anna. My mother, as stoic as ever, offered him tea and guarded truths.
When she told me about his visit, I felt no angeronly a distant ache, like a childhood scar pressed through wool. The branches of our lives had stretched far from each other. I thought of Anna, grown now, making her way in the world, wiser than I ever was at her age, and Ben, a young man we watched fumble his way to confidence.
That night, I stood at the window as stars glimmered above the gentle snoring of my husband and the purring of our old cat. Life, I realized, was a series of goodbyes and hellos, beginnings stitched to endings. Little did I know at twenty, clutching my grandmothers wisdom, that happiness lives not in promises or stubborn loyalty, but in opening oneself again and again to the unexpected. It arrives quietly, sometimes through a back door, sometimes as quiet laughter at the very end of a long, hard day.
The next morning, I watched David spreading marmalade on toast, sunlight painting gold across his hair. I couldnt help smiling, thinking how far Id flown from the warnings I once so fiercely preached.
Im glad you waited for me, he said, catching my gaze, the same spark in his eyes as decades before.
And I, I whispered, am glad I stopped waiting for anyone else.
At the edge of memory, a bird sangclear, stubborn, and sweet. And this time, I simply listened, thankful for all the calls that led me home.
