The air was thick with incense as we walked hand in hand toward the old stone chapel, when a stranger stepped from the mist and seized my fiancées wrist. His words slithered between us like cold breathHazel carried his child. The revelation hung like a rotten apple from a twisted branch, obvious now in its grotesque weight. Shock rippled through the wedding guests, but none more than me. Had I known earlier, the path might have forked differently.
Id only just left my parents cottage in Devon, with no intention of returning. The reason coiled around my throat: Hazel. Id been a late arrivalMothers health had delayed thingsbut their discipline was iron all the same. Stern as they were, their love was never in doubt. They wanted me decent, and I tried to be.
At school, I was middling at best, numbers and equations clotting my brain like stubborn ivy. Yet I took strange joy in chores: mending fences with Father, herding sheep, stacking firewood for winter. The chickens, with their pecking and clucking, were my peculiar friends. Later, Mother taught me to starch shirts and roast beef properly, and when I grew taller, I took on more so they could rest.
After A-levels, university seemed a distant castle. Money was tight, so I enrolled at the local technical college, close enough to dash home if needed. Weekends were for hoeing the garden or nursing pints with mates at the Fox & Hounds.
Then *she* appeared. Hazel, a first-year at the neighboring college, with a laugh like wind chimes and hair like spun copper. Men turned their heads as she passedwhy she chose *me* for cinema trips and walks along the moor, I couldnt fathom. But soon we were inseparable.
Mother noticed first. My visits home thinned; sleep frayed at the edges. Father joked Id been pixie-led by some town girl, but Hazel lived two villages over. I kept us secret awhile, testing the truth of her affection.
We were a blur of train rides and stolen kisses, picnics where shed produce scones still warm from baking. Id never known such sweetness. When I finally told my parents, they grinned over talk of grandchildrentoo soon, perhaps, but I already pictured Hazel in lace, walking the aisle of St. Michaels.
For our anniversary, I booked The Gilded Pheasant. She arrived with her own news: a child inside her. I wept, proposed on the spot. Her “yes” was sunlight through storm clouds.
Both families met at a pub near Dartmoor. To my shock, they got on like old friendsher father clapping my shoulder, my mother praising Hazels knitting as if shed raised her herself. Plans spun like candy floss: a barn wedding on her uncles estate, garlands of ivy, a roast pig turning on a spit.
But dreams curdle.
The civil ceremony was ink and handshakes. The church wedding would followuntil *he* emerged from the crowd, gripping Hazels elbow. His claim was a knife twist: the child was his. He spat threats of paternity suits, swore hed not have his blood raised by a stranger. I laughed at firstmadman!but Hazels silence was a landslide. She stared at her shoes, then wept into her palms. No denial, only a choked “Its true.”
I walked. The next week dissolved into fog.
By months end, Id fled to London, transferred colleges, severed all ties. My parents never speak of it. I dare not ask.
Later, I met Imogensteady as oak, clear as well water. I ended things with Hazel by post. Now I tread carefully in love, wary of fairy tales. Some wounds dont scar; they fossilize.
