Put your hat on, love. Its freezing outten below. Youll catch your death.
Margaret held out the knitted hatthe blue one with the big pom-pom, the one that Felicity had picked herself in the shops just last month.
Youre not my mum, all right?
The shout shattered the hallway quiet. Felicity hurled the hat at the tiles, as if it were a venomous snake.
Felicity, Im only trying to
And you never will be! Ever, you hear? Never!
The front door slammed so hard the glass in the panels rattled, sending a rush of bitter draft spinning through the terraced house.
Margaret stayed where she was, frozen between the umbrella stand and the shoe rack. The hat lay crumpled at her feet, ridiculous and unwanted. Tears burned at her throat; hot, sharp, unwelcome. She bit her lip, staring up at the hall light, blinking determinedly. Dont cry. Not now. Not again.
Six months back, shed imagined something completely different. Cosy Sunday roasts. Heart-to-hearts around the kitchen table. Days out to the New Forest, maybe. Tom had said such lovely things about his daughterclever, gifted, just wounded after losing her mum. Youve got to give her time, hed said. Shell come round.
The time kept flowing by. Felicity didnt thaw.
From the very day Margaret stepped over the thresholdnot as a guest, but as Toms new wifethe girl dug herself in behind invisible walls. Every attempt at closeness met cold, polite dismissal. Ill do my own homework, thanks. No, Ive got rehearsals after school. Your hair? Fine. A glance, a shrug, silence.
I already have a mum, Felicity declared on only their second breakfast together. Tom was running late, gulping tea and sweating over emails.
I had a mum. I always will. Youre nothing to me.
Tom had choked, blinking fast, trying to say something to smooth things over. Margaret had offered a smile so stiff it might have cracked, and focused on buttering her toast.
It only grew colder from there.
Felicity no longer raised her voice if her father was aroundthe coldness grew more cunning then. She would pass Margaret by without a flicker, answer through gritted teeth, leave any room the moment Margaret entered.
Dad used to be different, the girl sighed, once, stabbing her peas at dinner. We used to talk, before you came. Now…
She trailed off, busying herself with her plate. Tom grew grey at the temples. Margaret set down her forkshed lost her appetite entirely.
Tom tore himself ragged, caught between the two. At night hed slip into bedtheir bed, though Margaret had never managed to call it hersand beg her to hang on. Shes grieving, love. Give her time. Then hed go to Felicity, asking her to try. Margarets good. Shes doing her best. Give her a chance?
Margaret always heard these conversations, murmuring through the wall. Toms voice, frayed thin. Felicitys repliesshort, flinty, hostile.
He was coming apart. You could see it in the new creases chiselled between his brows, the way he flinched when Felicity and Margaret shared a room, the weary circles shadowing his eyes.
But he couldntor wouldntchoose a side.
Margaret stooped, picked up the hat, brushed it off, and set it back on the hook. She crossed into the lounge and halted as always…
The photographs. Dozens of them: filling the sideboard, dotting the wall, lining the window sill. A fair-haired woman smiling gently. The same woman holding baby Felicity. With Tomyoung and grinning, a stranger now. Wedding pictures. Seaside holidays. Christmases.
Helen. The first wife. The late wife.
Her things still filled the wardrobesdresses, jumpers, scarves, all neatly folded with lavender sachets tucked between. Her makeup sat untouched on the bathroom shelf. Her slipperspink and fluffystill waited at the threshold.
As if shed just popped out for a pint of milk, and might walk back in at any moment.
Mum made this better, Felicity would say at lunch.
Mum never did it this way.
Mum wouldnt have liked it.
Each comparisona blow to the ribs. Margaret would fake a smile, nod, swallow her feelings with the casserole. In the lonely hours, staring at the ceiling, shed wonder: How does one compete with a ghost? With a memory endlessly polished until it glowed?
Tom still loved Helen. Margaret had known for ages. She saw the longing in his eyes when he looked at Helens pictures. Every time Felicity told a Mum story, Toms whole expression would change, closing off, going elsewhere.
What did Margaret mean to him? An experiment in moving on? A plaster for a wound that never healed? Just someone who happened to be there at the right time?
While Tom snored gently, Margaret would lie awake, tracing shadow patterns on the unfamiliar ceiling of an unfamiliar house. She knewclear as daythat this marriage was falling apart. Tom had married her without properly mourning, and Felicity would never accept her.
And she herself, perhaps, had made the gravest mistake of all.
That realisation crystallised somewhere between three and four in the morning, another night with no sleep, listening to Toms breathing. He always drifted off in minutesface to the wall, gone in a blink. But she stayed with the shadows, with the ghostly torch-glow on Helens portrait atop the dresser.
Enough.
The decision came, chilling but calm. A bright, cold truth: you cant win this battle. You cant replace a memory. Cant stand in the shoes of a sainted woman, forever untouchable.
Margaret sat up in bed. Tom didnt stir.
Three days later, she filed for divorce. Aloneno solicitor, no explanation. Just her passport and the marriage lines at the registry, where she signed the form in a steady hand. The registrar only gave her a brief, professional look of pitysurely this scene played out daily.
Maggie…
Tom found the paperwork in the kitchen that evening; he stood frozen, ghost-pale, the page trembling in his fist.
Whats this about?
It says so right there, Margaret replied, scrubbing out a pan. Ive filed for divorce.
But why? We havent even talked about this!
What would be the point, Tom?
She switched off the tap, dried her hands, turned to face him.
Im tired, Tom. Tired of living in a mausoleum, being the other woman, watching you moon over Helens photo. Tired of Felicity acting like Im invisible.
Shes a childshe doesnt mean it!
She knows exactly what shes doing. And so do you. Youre just scared to admit it.
Tom stepped closer, gripping her shoulders gently, like she might shatter.
Mags, lets talk. Ill fix this. Ill talk to Felicity, take down the photos, well start again…
You still love her.
Not a questionjust a quiet fact. She looked into his eyes and found her answer before he could say a word.
Toms hands dropped. He stepped back. His face aged ten years in those silent seconds.
She nodded. What else had she expected?
Felicity was in her box room. The door stood half-ajaraccident or not, who knew? As Margaret walked past, the girl glanced up from her mobile and smiled. Only the tiniest curl at the corners of her mouth, but triumphant. She had won.
The next hours blurred into ritual. The wardrobe, the hangers, the battered suitcase. The dress from Tom, gifted for an anniversarythree months, an eternity ago. The perfume hed spent ages choosing, frowning at testers. The book theyd started reading together, left unfinished.
Methodically, Margaret folded each thing, smoothing out every crease. Dont think. Dont remember. Just pack.
The evening dragged. Margaret sat on the bed beside two packed suitcases. Twoher whole attempt at family life, zipped up. She left at eight oclock.
Shed pre-booked a minicab, hauled her bags herselflift perfectly silent, not a soul to see her off. She left the keys on the side table in the hall.
The driver helped with her luggage. The car purred away. Margaret didnt look back.
The city at night was strange and remote. Street lamps glowed orange, and scattered figures hurried for the tube. Somewhere behind her, the house remained, thick with the presence of photographs and memories. Tom, mourning what hed never truly lost; Felicity, fiercely worshipping a mother who could never return.
Margaret watched houses race by and breathed. For the first time in six monthsfree.
Loneliness was frightening. But living under a shadow frightened her more.
She was starting over. Blank sheet, new morning. No husband, no family, no lies.
But at leastno longer condemned to a lifelong contest with the untouchable memory of a perfect woman.
