Emily Parker left her husband after forty years of marriage, storming out with a fierce argument. She accused Peter, her spouse, of ruining her whole life, and he shot back, saying she had ruined him, dragged him into a painful, lonely old age. Who was right? At first I could not side with either.
They had met as young adults, liked each other, and soon married. Peter was considered a welloff groom: his father gave him a plot of land on which he began building a house. Emily could not picture living on a rural acre; she had spent her youth in a city flat with her parents. She tried to explain this to Peter, but he refused to listen. How can we swap twenty acres and a modest 150squaremetre home for a cramped flat on the eighth floor? he retorted.
While the house rose, the couple lived with Peters parents. Emily gave birth to three sons. After the house was finished, she never took a job, spending her days tending a garden she despised and looking after the boys. Peters career surged, and neighbours envied their family. Visitors praised the spotless rooms, the overflowing dining table, the endless supply of food.
No one realised how much the house drained from Emilyshe had no minute left for herself. Adding to the load were two large dogs. It wasnt the chores that wore her down, but the endless entertainments: fishing trips, hunting outings, hikesPeter insisted she accompany him everywhere. Bored, she lingered beside his friends, playing the role of the perfect wife day after day. Guests adored their home, lauded the sumptuous meat aspic, and raved about the meltinyourmouth Victoria sponge.
Peter loved the life they had built, yet year after year Emily sensed she was living a script written by someone else. She knew she needed a new setting, but not yet. She wanted the sons to finish school, go to university, graduate, marryperhaps then she could think of a change. Who would help with the grandchildren?
Emilys mother had passed away, leaving her a flat in the city. At fifty, Emily began dreaming of a comfortable life in that apartment. But Peter moved in the tenants, kept the rent, and used the money to buy gifts for his friends and host lavish dinners. Emily, tears in her eyes, tallied his yearly spending and imagined that the few tens of thousands of pounds he squandered could fund a twoweek holiday in Italy or Spain. She mentioned the thought to Peter, who laughed and dismissed it as bourgeois fantasy. Everyone lives like that, he said, and Emily swallowed her protest, staying silent.
One afternoon, after a funeral, Emily waited at a bus stop when an old schoolmate, Nicholas, boarded. He was a widower living alone in a spacious flat. How do you manage? she asked. He shrugged, Just a bagels and a bottle of kefir. Could I move in with you? Emily asked. Live here if you wish, he replied coolly.
Sixtyyearold Emily felt like a girl fleeing an overbearing fatherfree, light, and airy as she had never been. The first month she did nothing: no cooking, no laundry, no cleaning, merely reclining before the TV while Nicholas brought her pastries. Gradually her hands returned to the stove and the cloth, but with a joy she had never known at home.
Evenings they strolled hand in hand, and neighbours assumed they had been soulmates for forty years. Their children urged her to return, and Peter promised to hire a cook and a gardener, yet Emily held firm. In truth, she should have stood her ground decades earlier.
As a poet once said, each of us lives for the first time on this earth, and none can claim to know the proper way to live. The true lesson is that freedom and fulfillment come not from fulfilling others expectations, but from daring to write ones own story, no matter how late the pen is picked up.
