“Go on then, head back to your village,” said her husband sharply, not turning to look at her.
Thomass voice was level, but in it was the chill and weariness of a man whod frozen out every feeling over long years of silent evenings and unspoken disappointments.
He stood by the window, staring at the bleak November sky, clouds stitched tight above the rooftops, and suddenly Jane understoodit was over. Entirely and completely.
No amount of excuses, no tears, no attempts to stitch the past back together would change a single thing. The door to their life together had closed with a quiet, final click.
“So thats it? Just like that?” she asked softly, her voice a whisper in the hollowed-out room, where laughter had once lived.
“What do you want, Jane? Theres nothing left. You see it yourself.”
He said it, then turned away, and in that gesture was more bitterness than in any harsh words. He had cut her from himself, as one snips away an unneeded scrap.
Jane sat at the edge of the settee, pressing her palms to her face. She didnt feel like crying, as if every last tear had already been spent.
Theyd trickled away, drop by drop, day after day, vanishing in the bitter tea of loneliness she drank every night, facing a man who had become a shadow.
She rememberedfifteen years ago, he had stood before her in front of another window, but then the summer sun had flooded the room with golden light, and hed smiled, looking straight into her eyes:
“Jane, together we can manage anything. No trouble will ever be too much for us.”
And she had believed him; believed so fiercely she would have chased him to the ends of the earth.
But now those promises had faded, as pale and fragile as old photographs left too long in the sun. All that remained were the ghostly outlines of former feelings.
“Alright then,” she said simply, and in that word was not defeat, but a strange, new calm. “If thats what you want.”
She spoke quietly, thoughtfully, though inside a tight, painful knot was winding ever tighter.
Jane stood, her movement carrying a distant sort of grace, and pulled an old suitcase from the back of the wardrobe.
There wasnt much to packafter all these years, Jane had never quite dared to make the flat her own, to live completely in her own way. Everything felt hers, but without herlike a guest in someone elses dream.
Footsteps shuffled in the corridor. At the door stood Ellentheir daughter, nearly grown now, a student, worry glimmering in her familiar eyes, her world suddenly upended.
“Mum, whats going on? Why do you look like that?”
“Its nothing, love,” Jane tried a smile, but it was crooked and small. “Im just popping back home. To granddads, in the village. Only for a little while.”
Ellen frowned, her clear young eyes filling with tears that trembled on the brink.
“Has Dad started again? All his endless complaining?”
“It doesnt matter,” Jane replied. “Sometimes you have to leave, so as not to fade away while youre still here. Ill visit. Well always keep in touch. I just need some time to myself.”
Thomas didnt come to see her off. Not a word of farewell passed his lips. The silence in the flat was suffocating, broken only by the ticking kitchen clock.
She heard only the distant thump of the front door closing behind her as Jane hauled her few belongings down the stairs, out into a life unknown.
The train rattled through the night, long and steady, as if rocking away a strangers ache. Jane rested her forehead against the cold glass, gazing into the darkness, seeing nothing.
Outside, endless woods slipped by. Minor stations flickered past, empty platforms standing under the mist, the rare bundled figure gliding through the gloom.
Everything beyond was as silent and cold as she felt insideempty, like her battered case, where only echoes of memories lingered.
With her in the compartment were a young mother with a sleeping child, and a lad absently strumming a guitar.
She barely heard their conversation. Only one word, caught drifting in the air, struck her hard: “home.”
She, too, was going home. But now, it was for goodaway from a city that had never truly felt like hers.
Scattered in her mind, those blurred but dear images returned: the old cherry tree at the window of her childhood house; her mother up to the elbows in pastry for her home-made pies; her father bringing fragrant, fresh honey in a crock from his hives.
Those years breathed of innocent calm, warmth from the range, a sure promise of tomorrow. And how long it had been since shed felt such deep, quiet comfort.
At the break of day, the modest station greeted her, smelling of coal smoke as it always had. Her home ground.
Everything seemed smaller, shrunken to the scale of toyslow houses, winding lanes, the little shop on the corner with its faded sign.
Or perhaps she herself had grown beyond this life, too big for this compact world now?
But when Jane saw her father waiting by their iron gate, something inside her melted, broke at last, and warm tears ran freely down her cheeks.
He looked up, took in his daughter, her solitary case, and only breathed outwearily, wisely:
“So youre here. Home at last.”
“I am, Dad. Im sorry.”
They stayed that way for ages, saying nothing, holding each others hands. Just standing, storm survivors washed up in a quiet harbour.
Those first weeks felt strange, almost dreamlike. Jane was learning to live afresh, rediscovering simple things.
She rose earlyhelped her father in the yard, strolled to the market for bread and vegetables, made a hearty stew by her mothers old recipe.
Afterwards, shed sit in the front room window, gazing at the quiet road. Stillness. No city traffic, no constant commotion, no tense phone calls from the boss.
Only the cocks crowing and an occasional van humming past through dawn mist.
She would sometimes linger by the old wooden wardrobe, where her school dresses still hung, trailing her fingers over their faded fabric.
Everything felt distant and close all at once, as if time had tangled itself into a single, knotted thread.
On the third day, Mrs Hawkins, their boisterous neighbour, popped by, as always with a pailful of freshly dug potatoes.
“Jane! Back with us at last. The town didnt suit you, did it?”
“It didnt, not in the end,” Jane smiled thinly.
“Now, dont look so down, love. Life heres lively in its own way. Theres a new head at the schoolwidowed, fresh from the county office. Youngish, a good sort. Youll meet him soon enough, I expect?”
Jane brushed her off, a little embarrassed. “Im really not up to meeting new people, if Im honest. I need to find my feet.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs Hawkins insisted with a wave. “Folk come in all shapes. Youll seeitll be better than shutting yourself away.”
Within a week Jane did make her way to the school, to help Mrs Abbott with a pile of old paperwork. Thats where she met Michael.
He was tall and lean, with thoughtful grey eyes and a gentle, measured voice. One of those people whose steadiness lived not in loud words but in calm, unwavering presence.
“You must be Jane Edwards?” he asked, a warm smile just touching his lips. “Mrs Hawkins mentioned you were good with the accounts. Were in a bit of a muddle here.”
“Yes,” Jane nodded, feeling her anxiety retreat a little. “Ive done ledgers for years, Im sure Ill cope.”
“Brilliant. Folk like yousteady, capableexactly what were short of.”
They talked for a while about the school, the village, ordinary things. And Jane felt an easing inside herselfaround this man, there was no need to pretend.
No endless pretending, no posturingjust a simple ease, like being a child again.
Winter passed before she knew it. Jane settled into routine: she helped at school, joined Michael on trips to the county offices, took care of business.
On long evenings, shed curl up with her knitting in front of the crackling stove.
Little by little, colour seeped back into her life: the smell of new-baked bread, the warm glow of the lamp, the friendly crackle of firewood.
Worries and old sorrows from city life ebbed away, replaced by something newa sense of home.
Ellen rang rarely nowat first, a few video calls, her face tired and distant; later, contact shrank to short texts:
“Alls well, studying hard, dont worry.”
Jane didnt press or demand. She understoodher daughter was wedged between two worlds, two parents, and would find her own place in time.
Sometimes, on the quietest nights, Jane remembered Thomashow in the beginning hed held her hand so tightly, as though afraid to let her go.
And years later, how hed walk out, wordless, estranged.
She kept circling the same question: had he ever been real? Or had she believed in a man she herself had painted, one she desperately needed to love?
With each new dawn in her fathers house, the answer dawned clearerunmistakably so.
Spring came suddenly to the English countryside. The snow melted, revealing black earth hungry for seed; cockerels called at the break of day; the air tasted wet and sweetrich with memory.
Jane decided to plant flowers in her mothers old front bedlupins and violets.
Every spring, her mother had done the same. That simple act, nearly ritual, brought something important backsomething long lost.
Michael stopped in often now, to deliver boards for a new border or pass her the hammer.
Once, as the setting sun blushed the sky peach, he said, softly, without looking at her:
“You know, Jane, I never meant to stay here either. After my wife passed, I moved away, swearing Id never come back. But lifethats always a surprise, isnt it? This rundown school, these village children and so I did.”
“The village knows everyones business,” Jane said with a wry smile, as she pressed fresh roots into the soil.
“Let them. The real troubles only in lying to yourself.”
He said it simply, but in his voice was a hard-earned confidenceone only found by those whove known pain, and learned to rebuild after it.
For the first time in many long years, Jane felt that she was truly living, not just existing.
Not just waiting for better daysbut living here and now. Her hands smelled of earth, her hair of woodsmoke, her soul of a peace shed almost forgotten.
At Whitsun, the village held a grand fête. Jane, who still remembered the old church hymns of her childhood, was asked to join the choir.
She hesitated, embarrassed, but Michael gently encouraged her:
“Your voice is clear and full, Jane. Dont hide it. Singlet the season sing through you.”
After their performance, the village hall rang with applause.
When their eyes met in the crowdhis gaze steady, warmJane realised what shed missed all those years: that simple warmth, that deep understanding.
Summer was endlessly bright and golden. The village bloomed, fragrant with roses and fresh hay.
Jane often travelled with Michael into townto gather supplies for school, to arrange finances.
On the road, their silences were companionable, comfortable. Only between people who truly feel settled together falls such easy quiet.
One day, as they returned along the dusty lane, Michael said, eyes on the road:
“Youre like a bit of spring for us here. Since you came, even the air in my office seems fresher, clearer. Lighter.”
“Dont flatter me, Michael,” Jane answered, abashed.
“Its not flattery. Just the truth, as obvious as sunrise.”
Her heart squeezedbut not from pain. From the surprise, the impossible hope, that anyone might ever speak so honestly of her, an ordinary woman, hair silvered at the temples.
On her birthday, Jane woke to a persistent rattle at the gate. A courier stood there, holding a grand bouquet of deep red roses.
A tiny, neat card: “Im sorry. Maybe its too late. But if you wantcome back. I see it all, now. Thomas.”
Jane stood for ages, bouquet in hand, looking at it and seeing nothing.
Roseslush, expensivethe type hed given her for birthdays, out of duty more than affection.
That evening, when Michael came by, Jane simply handed him the flowers.
“Looka gift from the past. Ive not a clue what to do with it now.”
“Perhaps simply let it go,” he offered, gazing at the scarlet petals. “If its found you again, maybe you should make your choice.”
“I will. Thank you.”
She set the roses on the window sill. After two days, she emptied their heavy, cloying blooms into the compost without a backward glance.
That autumn, as the leaves goldened and danced down in farewell, Ellen arrived unexpectedly.
She stood at the gate, uncertain, more grown, but always Janes girl, pain in her eyes.
“Mum Can I stay a while? I cant bear the city anymore.”
“Of course, love. This is always your home.”
That evening, by the fire, Ellen wrapped in an old plaid blanket and whispered:
“Dads living with her nowMegan. But Mum, hes not happy. Never smiles.”
“He told me once: ‘None of its turned out as I’d thought.'”
Jane said nothing, tending the flames.
“It never is, Ellen. One day, were simply honest with ourselves. Take it or go on living half-asleep.”
Ellen wept softly. “I always hoped you two might make upBut here, watching you Youre different now. Youre peaceful.”
“I am, darling. Thats real happinessquiet mornings, knowing youre wanted and loved.”
Winter brought fluffy snow and a deep, serene quiet.
The home filled with the sweet scent of dried apples and pine from the tree in the garden. Jane saw in the new year with Ellen, her father, and Michael.
On the tablea simple meal, hearty and good, and outside, snow spun slow pirouettes under the moon.
At midnight, Michael raised his glass of homemade cider.
“A toastto never fearing a new beginning. At any age, in any season of life.”
Jane looked at him, at her daughter, her wise old father, and understood, with utter certaintyshe had found her true home.
Not in a city flat with mirrored wardrobes and a grim husband, but here, among people with honest eyes and warm hearts.
She smiled, light and easy: “Thank you, life. Thank you for the lessons. Youve placed everything as it ought to be, like the most patient gardener.”
Two years passed. In the village, rumours swirled: “A wedding soon, surely! Jane looks twenty-five again!”
Ellen started college nearby and came home at weekends, finding here the anchoring shed lost in town.
Michael had become almost familysteady, kind, supportive.
Jane managed the school books, ran stalls at the village fairsand made unmatched cherry jam, just like her mother used to.
She never saw those years in the city as lost. Just difficult lessonsnecessary ones.
Sometimes, in the early mornings, Jane would step out on the porch, cradling a mug of hot, herby tea.
Sunlight crowned the snowy fields, wind twirled frost on birch branches, and she felt ither earned reward. For having the courage to leave, to find herself.
She thought, now and then, of Thomass last words: “Go on, back to your village!”
And in her heart, with no anger or spite, she answered: “Thank you. If not for you, Id never have found my true place in the world.”
Jane no longer looked elsewhere for happinessshe had built it, quietly, from the timeless bricks of love, trust, care and honesty.
And each new day began with its own tiny miracle: to simply live, breathe deep, love and be loved. Knowingfeeling in her bonesthat this time, it was entirely, and forever, real.
