For The Babies' Sakes

The floodgates opened. Her burst of displacement activity was over. Almost too blurred to see through the curtain of tears, she dispiritedly made herself a fresh hot-water bottle and dragged herself up to bed.

Eventually her howling turned to intermittent sobbing and she found herself listening for Dan’s car, every sound outside rocketing her hopes up to a peak of anticipation, only for disappointment to follow. Dan didn’t come back at all. In her heart of hearts she knew he wouldn’t, not with Celine panting eagerly on the sidelines.

Most of the night she spent awake, morbidly cuddling his pillow, reflecting that she’d never been really unhappy before. Unlike Dan, she’d had a childhood unblemished by tragedy or trauma. Her parents—now enjoying life in the Californian sun—adored her. She’d been popular at school and clever enough not to worry about exams.

This feeling of deep misery was totally alien. For the first time she understood what it was like to be unhappy and to lose a person you loved. It was frightening, she mused, to surrender your whole self to someone and to have that commitment flung back in your face as if it were worthless.

She felt as if he’d crushed her. Trampled on her dreams, knocked the confidence out of her. He’d chosen someone else, effectively telling her that she wasn’t good enough. So her self-esteem was at an all-time low.

Wearily she crawled out of bed the next morning and rang in sick. All through the day she continued her onslaught on the house, with frequent breaks for a crying fit whenever she came across something that reminded her of Dan. Which was often. Yet she slogged on with dogged determination.

She still felt sick but she was learning to ignore that. The house needed to be in good shape if it was going to be photographed and put on the market. Tomorrow she’d speak to her solicitor. At the moment she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t bawl down the phone. She had her dignity, after all.

Dusk was now falling. She’d been working since dawn, clad as before in Dan’s big T-shirt and the cosy socks.

A sudden dizziness made her clutch at the table in the hall that she was polishing. The duster floated to the floor and she stared vacantly into space, weak from her stomach bug, from exhaustion and lack of food.