Rahmats Unexpected Blessing
In that little town tucked at the edge of nowherelike a forgotten smudge on the maptime didnt move by clocks but by seasons. It froze in bitter winters, thawed with a squelch in springs muddy chaos, drowsed lazily through summer, and wept chilly autumn rains. And in that slow, syrupy flow of days, Lucys life seemed hopelessly stuck.
Lucy was thirty, and she felt like her whole existence was sinking into the quicksand of her own body. She weighed nineteen stone, and it wasnt just weightit was a fortress, built between her and the world. A fortress of flesh, exhaustion, and quiet despair. She suspected the root of it was inside hersome malfunction, an illness, a dodgy metabolismbut trekking to specialists in the city felt impossible: too far, too expensive, and utterly pointless.
She worked as a carer at the local council-run nursery, *Bluebell*. Her days smelled of baby powder, overcooked porridge, and perpetually damp floors. Her large, impossibly kind hands could soothe a crying toddler, tuck in a dozen cots, or mop up a puddle without making a child feel guilty. The kids adored her, drawn to her softness and quiet affection. But the wide-eyed admiration of three-year-olds was poor compensation for the loneliness waiting beyond the nursery gates.
Lucy lived in an old, eight-flat block left over from some bygone era. The place creaked like a haunted house at night and trembled at the first gust of wind. Two years ago, her muma quiet, worn-out woman whod buried all her dreams within those peeling wallshad passed away. Lucys dad was just a blur in her memory, a man whod vanished long ago, leaving behind nothing but a dusty void and an old photograph.
Her life was harsh. The tap coughed up rusty trickles of cold water, the shared outdoor loo turned into an icebox in winter, and summers choked the flat with stifling heat. But the real tyrant was the stove. In winter, it devoured two full lorry-loads of firewood, gnawing away at her meagre wages. Lucy spent long evenings staring into the flames behind the cast-iron door, half-convinced it wasnt just logs burningbut her years, her strength, her future, all turning to cold ash.
Then, one evening, as twilight seeped into her flat like grey melancholy, something extraordinary happened. Not a grand, trumpeted miracle, but a quiet, shuffling onelike the slippers of her neighbour, Maggie, who suddenly knocked on her door.
Maggie, a cleaner at the local hospital with a face etched by years of hard graft, clutched two crisp banknotes.
“Lucy, love, Im sorry. Ere. Two hundred quid. Wasnt right, lettin it slide,” she muttered, shoving the money into Lucys hand.
Lucy blinked at the cash, a debt shed mentally written off two years ago.
“Christ, Mags, you didnt have to”
“I did!” Maggie cut in fiercely. “Im flush now! Listen”
Lowering her voice like she was sharing state secrets, Maggie launched into an unbelievable tale. How a group of lads from Tajikistan had turned up in their sleepy town. How one of them, spotting her sweeping the street, had offered her a bizarre, terrifying dealfifteen hundred quid.
“Need citizenship, see? Quick-like. So theyre trawlin towns like ours, lookin for wives. Fake ones, for papers. Got hitched to mine yesterday. Dunno how they grease the wheels at the registry office, but its fast. My bloke, Rashid, hes at mine nowtil its dark, then hes off. My Emily said yes too. Needs a new coat, winters comin. What about you? Look, this is a proper chance. Need the money? Course you do. And whos gonna marry you, eh?”
The last bit wasnt cruel, just brutally honest. And Lucy, feeling that familiar ache under her ribs, hesitated for only a second. Maggie was right. Real marriage wasnt in her future. No suitors, never had, never would. Her world was the nursery, the corner shop, and this fire-hungry flat. But herefifteen hundred quid. Enough for firewood, maybe even new wallpaper to chase away the gloom of those stained, peeling walls.
“Alright,” she said softly. “Ill do it.”
The next day, Maggie brought the “candidate.” Lucy opened the door, gasped, and instinctively stepped back, wanting to hide her bulky frame. Standing there was a young man. Tall, slender, with a face untouched by lifes roughness, and dark, impossibly sad eyes.
“Blimey, hes just a boy!” Lucy blurted.
The lad straightened.
“Im twenty-two,” he said clearly, with only a faint, musical lilt to his words.
“There, see?” Maggie chirped. “Mines fifteen years younger, but you two? Barely eight years apart. Prime of life!”
At the registry office, they hit a snag. The clerk, a stern woman in a sharp suit, eyed them suspiciously and declared theyd have to wait a month. “To think it over,” she added pointedly.
The Tajik lads, their business done, left for work. But before going, Rahmatthat was his nameasked for Lucys number.
“Gets lonely in a strange place,” he explained, and in his eyes, Lucy saw something familiar: lostness.
He started calling. Every evening. At first, the chats were short, awkward. Then they grew longer. Rahmat was a surprising talker. He spoke of his mountains, how the sun there was different, how he adored his mother, how hed come to England to help his big family. He asked about Lucys life, her work with the kids, andto her own shockshe talked. Not complained, but *shared*funny nursery mishaps, her flat, the smell of spring soil. She caught herself laughing down the linegirlish, carefree, forgetting her weight, her age. In that month, they learned more about each other than some couples did in years.
When Rahmat returned, Lucy slipped into her only decent dresssilver, clinging unflatteringlyand realised she wasnt scared. Just fluttery. His mates, all lean and serious, stood as witnesses. The ceremony was brisk, bureaucratic. For Lucy, though, it was a flash: rings glinting, official words, the surrealness of it all.
Afterwards, Rahmat walked her home. Inside, he solemnly handed her the envelope of cash. Lucy took it, feeling its strange weightthe heft of her choice, her desperation, her new role. Then he pulled out a tiny velvet box. Inside lay a delicate gold chain.
“A gift,” he said quietly. “Wanted a ring, didnt know your size. I I dont want to leave. I want you to really be my wife.”
Lucy froze, speechless.
“This month, I heard your soul over the phone,” he went on, eyes burning with grown-up earnestness. “Its kind. Pure, like my mums. Shes gone nowDads second wife, but he loved her. Ive fallen for you, Lucy. Properly. Let me stay. With you.”
This wasnt a plea for a sham marriage. It was a proposal. And in his honest, sorrowful eyes, Lucy sawnot pity, but what shed stopped dreaming of long ago: respect, gratitude, and the first flickers of tenderness.
Rahmat left the next day, but now it wasnt goodbyejust waiting. He worked in London with his mates but visited every weekend. And when Lucy found out she was pregnant, he sold his share in their business, bought a second-hand Transit, and moved back for good. He started a delivery service, ferrying people and goods to the nearest town, and it thrivedthanks to his honesty and graft.
Then came their son. Three years later, another. Two beautiful, dark-eyed boys with their dads gaze and their mums gentle grin. Their home filled with shrieks, laughter, tiny footsteps, and the warm, lived-in smell of family.
Her husband didnt drink, didnt smokehis faith forbade itworked tirelessly, and looked at Lucy with such love that the neighbours glowered. The eight-year gap vanished in that love, became invisible.
But the real wonder was Lucy herself. She bloomed. The pregnancies, the happiness, the purposeher body reshaped itself. The weight melted away, day by day, like an old shell shed outgrown. She didnt diet; she just *lived*.
Sometimes, by the stove (now neatly tended by Rahmat), Lucy would watch her sons play and catch her husbands warm, adoring gaze. Shed think of that odd evening, the two hundred quid, Maggies knock, and how the biggest miracles dont come with fanfarebut with a strangers quiet tap, bringing sad
