I was nineteen when a fellow called Jonathan, whom Id been seeing for about a year, asked me to marry him. Naturally, I knew it was rather soon, and that marrying would mean saying goodbye to nights out laughing in pubs or taking long walks with my friends in the city. But Jonathan struck me as such a solid and caring man. Worried Id never meet anyone better, I said yes and became his wife.
We moved into his parents home, a sprawling, ivy-draped house just outside Oxford. My own parents lived in the countryside too, so it felt familiar, and they gave us the upstairs to ourselves. To be fair, Jonathans parents werent short of money, and at the time, Jonathan himself was earning well, which meant I could keep studying at university without worry.
Two years passed before our daughter was born. Jonathan was over the moon. Then, as if conjured by some unseen hand, trouble found us. Jonathan lost his job. His parents offered him a position at the family business, but Jonathan, ever the stubborn one, insisted hed make his own way. It was a friend who finally suggested he go abroad for work. Jonathan agreed almost immediately.
We decided he would be gone just a yearto save a bit, maybe buy something of our own. But after getting a taste for earning big, Jonathan came back after a year only to announce hed be leaving again, this time for two years. He wanted to buy us a place of our own in town, so we wouldnt need to lean on his parents anymore. Admirable, I suppose, but what about me? What about our daughter? Jonathan promised hed return to visit a couple of times a year. And so he did. That was how life slipped out of our handsfive years vanished while I waited, heart hollower with each season.
I was so starved for a companion, I could barely think straight. Then, one strange, cloudy evening, a man a little older than myself sent me a message on one of those social sites, his words like flower petals tossed in a breezetelling me I was beautiful, that I was wanted. I hadnt heard anything like that from Jonathan in years. We wrote for a month, then met at a little tea shop with wilting roses in the windows. Everything hazed over. I betrayed my husband, but I felt alive, so I met him again, and again.
Fate, as if with a wicked sense of humour, brought Jonathan home at last, claiming he was finished with life abroad. He brought gifts, crooned sweet promises, bought me a flat in London. My guilt blazed, and I confessedwhat Id done, and how it wasnt only once. What happened after?
Jonathan cast me out. I thought about running to my lover, but he immediately backed away, muttering about work and useless obligations. It was clearId only ever been a distraction. Jonathan filed for divorce; now my daughter and I are camped at my mothers, while Jonathan threatens to take her from me. I am lost in shame, wondering why I couldnt have simply waited for my husband, how I could have betrayed what we had Just like a dream that slips into a nightmare, impossible to make sense of but impossible to forget.
