**Diary Entry**
My daughter married the man I loved… and now I’m carrying his father’s child.
Never did I imagine my life would turn into one of those melodramas I used to scoff at. Yet here I am, sitting on my bathroom floor at three in the morning, clutching a pregnancy test with two pink lines, while my daughter sleeps in the next room with the man I once believed would be mine.
It all began two years ago when I met James at the café where I work. He was a regular, always ordering the same black coffee, no sugar. He had one of those smiles that lights up a room and eyes that made you feel like you were the only person in the world.
“Do you always work the morning shift?” he asked one ordinary Tuesday.
“Nearly always,” I replied, feeling my cheeks warm. “I like the quiet of the early hours.”
“Me too,” he grinned. “Thats why I come here. Well, that and to see you.”
My heart raced like a schoolgirls. At forty-two, after a messy divorce, Id given up on ever feeling those butterflies again.
Weeks passed, and our conversations grew longer, more intimate. He spoke of his work as an architect, his dreams of travelling through Europe, how hed lost his mother the year before. I told him about my daughter Emily, my hopes of opening my own tearoom, my fears and quiet ambitions.
Then, one day, he finally asked:
“Margaret, would you like to have dinner with me on Friday?”
I didnt hesitate. That evening was perfectdinner at a cosy French bistro, a stroll through the park, talking until the early hours. For the first time in years, I felt alive, wanted, seen.
But the next day, when I told Emily about my date, everything changed.
“James who?” she asked, eyes wide.
“James Whitmore,” I repeated. “Why?”
Her face paled.
“Mum… hes my new boss. I started at his firm last week.”
My world tilted. Of all the people, of all the places…
“Hes amazing, Mum,” Emily went on, oblivious to my silence. “Brilliant, kind. And handsome, dont you think?”
The months that followed were agony. I watched Emily come home each day more smitten, gushing about James, how wonderful he was, how he made her feel. I smiled and nodded while my heart splintered.
James stopped coming to the café. Whatever had sparked between us was impossible now. Yet when our eyes met at Emilys engagement party six months later, I knew he felt it too.
“Margaret,” he murmured when we found ourselves alone in the kitchen, “Im so sorry.”
“Dont be,” I lied. “She loves you. Thats all that matters.”
“But I”
“Dont,” I cut him off. “Please.”
The wedding was torture. Watching them exchange vows, pledge forever, while I pretended to be happy for my daughterI wept that night like I hadnt in years.
But if I thought that was the worst of it, I was wrong.
I met Robert, Jamess father, at the reception. A distinguished man of fifty-five, a widower with a gentle smile and sad eyes. We talked about our children, how happy they looked, how strange it was to watch them build lives without us.
“Fancy a coffee tomorrow?” he asked as the night wound down. “Think we both could use the company.”
Robert understood my grief in a way no one else could. He, too, had lost someone he loved, though under different circumstances. Coffee turned into lunches, then dinners, then long talks that stretched into dawn.
We didnt mean to fall in love. We just wanted to fill the hollow spaces in our hearts. But comfort became something deeper, something realsomething neither of us expected.
“This is wrong,” I whispered one night, after our first time together.
“I know,” he said, stroking my hair. “But I cant let you go, Margaret. Youre the only good thing thats happened to me since I lost my wife.”
For eight months, we kept our secret. We met at his flat, far from prying eyes. It was messy, riskybut it was ours.
Until tonight. Until this positive test.
“Mum? You alright?” Emilys voice startles me through the bathroom door.
“Fine, love,” I manage, voice unsteady. “Just… not feeling well.”
“Want me to make you some tea?”
“No, go back to bed.”
Her footsteps fade, leaving me alone with my secret. In a few hours, Ill have to call Robert. Ill have to tell him were having a child. A child who will be half-sibling to his daughter-in-lawmy daughter.
How do I explain to Emily that her mother is pregnant with her father-in-laws baby? How do I admit Ive been lying all this time? How do I shatter her happiness with my own selfishness?
I catch my reflection in the mirrorred-rimmed eyes, hair a mess. I dont recognise the woman staring back. When did I become the villain of my own story?
My phone buzzes. A message from Robert: *”Cant sleep. Thinking of you. I love you.”*
I close my eyes, breathe deep. Tomorrow, our lives change forever. Tomorrow, Ill have to find words for the unspeakable.
But tonightjust for a few more hoursI can pretend. Pretend Im just a proud mother with a newlywed daughter, not a woman carrying the most impossible secret of her life.
I tuck the test into my bedside drawer, beside the other lies Ive collected these past months. Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow, Ill have to be brave.
Tonight, I just need to survive.
**Lesson learned:** Love doesnt follow rules. Sometimes it destroys before it rebuilds. And sometimes, the hardest truth to face is the one staring back in the mirror.
