28October2025
Ive spent the evening trying to sort the tangled mess that has become my life, and I feel compelled to put it all on paper before the weight crushes me completely.
Helen, well have to sell the flat, I said, staring at the worn carpet, my eyes refusing to meet hers. And the car as well. Those men who have been lurking around our neighbourhood wont leave us alone. It isnt just me who will suffer you and little Emily are in danger too.
She whispered, Cant we go to the police?
The police? Theyre the ones I owe money to, I finally managed to say, looking up for the first time. The interest is compounding every day; its enough to drive a person to madness. Youll have to stay with my mother for now.
What about me?
I have to get out of here. Ill never be able to repay all my debts; the firm has already been seized. Ill head north, where the oil rigs are still paying decent wages. Perhaps, if Im lucky, things will settle down.
Helen understood that things were spiralling when strangers with obvious criminal pasts began showing up at our door, demanding that I step outside for a word. After each encounter he returned bruisedinspirit, his temper flaring at the smallest infraction. He started shouting at Emily over trivial things. She is only four, after all, and certainly not a trained dog.
My husbands business has always been a mystery. Yes, his company sells computer hardware online, but Ive never known where the laptops and monitors actually come from. I suspect theyre counterfeit, because whole batches have been forced off the market more than once, leaving him to dive deeper into debt just to stay afloat. He has managed to wriggle out of trouble before; this time, however, the net has finally closed.
I grew up in a village, and without a proper city flat I could have lived comfortably with my parents. Yet I didnt want to quit my job I am the deputy headteacher at an elite private school where English is the main focus, and the headmistress, Margaret Whitaker, has already announced her retirement next year. Leaving now would be foolish.
Living under my motherinlaws roof has never been a dream. From the start our relationship was strained. I was the unwanted daughterinlaw because you can see the countryside still clinging to her a jab about my village upbringing. When I later earned a firstclass degree and began teaching at the school, she called me a foreign fancy woman who ought not to be cooking borscht for us. Yet Simon always praised the borscht I made, even if the long school days left little time for home cooking.
Mrs. Whitaker, of course, was delighted by her own granddaughter, but she made it clear to me that I was not worth much:
Good wives dont run off to the North.
You think he ran away from me, not from his creditors. Hes drowning in debt.
A proper wife keeps the finances under control. In our house we called it the household, not the business. You havent even prepared a decent dinner for your child yet.
When you have time, you do cook.
What time? Your school lessons go on until midnight. Ill check that myself. I suspect youre already finding excuses for yourself instead of being a real wife
She once dropped by the school after hours to inspect. The visit only gave her more fodder for criticism. Everything is written in foreign script thats one thing. The cats roaming everywhere are a health hazard! This is a school, not a zoo. Respectable women wont work in such chaos. She also noted how David Sinclair, a tall English teacher, seemed to keep an eye on me, as though he were trying to size me up.
David, a fellow English teacher, indeed liked me, but he never crossed the line, aware that I was a married woman.
The cats, she claimed, were a British educational method: having pupils interact with animals was supposed to make them kinder. The school deliberately housed a few Britishshorthair cats, letting them climb onto desks during lessons. In truth, the cats behaved far better than the staff sometimes did.
Simon sent occasional emails about where he was and what he was doing, though he never gave details. He stopped altogether after a few more men with obvious criminal backgrounds appeared at our door, asking about his whereabouts.
I grew anxious, fearing that his creditors had found him, but my motherinlaw remained oddly optimistic.
If theyd found him, theyd stop coming to us.
Then why has he gone silent?
You dont see it, do you? Hes a good man; he wont stay alone forever
A year later, right at the end of the school term, Simon wrote to tell me he had met another woman and was now living with her. He didnt consider it an affair after all, we were never formally married. He never mentioned Emily at all, as if she never existed. Mrs. Whitaker immediately found an excuse for her son:
Looks like he knows Emily isnt his.
How can that be? She was born while he was here.
Born to him, perhaps, but not from him that can happen, you know.
Stop nonsense, mother!
Im not your mother any more. I may remain a grandmother to Emily, but from today Im just Elizabeth Whitaker, or perhaps nobody at all thats better.
Obviously we had to move out of my motherinlaws flat. The thought of renting a new place while raising Emily seemed impossible. I could try to scrape by, but why stay in a city where, aside from my daughter, I have no family left? My own parents, hearing of my troubles, have invited me back to the village, promising a teaching post theres always a shortage of teachers in the countryside.
Mrs. Whitaker set aside my concerns:
Girl, dont get carried away. I intend to keep the school running, and the board is fine with that.
But where will Emily and I live?
Ill speak to the board. They might agree to a housing allowance or a loan for a rental. In the meantime, come stay at my cottage. The term is ending, May is here, and you wont need to heat the place. My husband and I only go there on weekends, and you can take a summer break with your parents.
David offered to drive our few possessions a few pieces of clothing and some dishes to the cottage. On the way he asked:
Where will you stay in winter?
Mrs. Whitaker promised to find something to rent.
Why bother? I have a spare onebedroom flat. I live with my mum most of the time; shes ill and cooks for me. You cant survive on dumplings and instant noodles forever.
Ill see what happens. In summer Ill go back to the village, perhaps stay there permanently.
What about our school? Theyre courting you for the headship
I was once being set up for marriage. Schools are everywhere, you know.
Emily thrived at the cottage the fresh air flushed her cheeks pink, and she grew healthier. She quickly became close friends with Mrs. Whitaker and her husband, as if we were one family.
Memories of my former life faded. Its painful, but perhaps its for the best. Simon would have left anyway; he never wanted to go to the registry office.
David drove us to the village with Emily. We arrived late afternoon, unloaded what we could, and he began to head back, but my motherinlaw stopped him:
Stay tonight; Ill bring fresh milk and well have dinner together
I followed her inside and said, Mother, did you ever think of David as a husband for me?
No, why would you?
Theres nothing between us, no plans.
Youre not seeing what I see the way he looks at you, and how easily Emily could be drawn to him
From a distance I watched David laughing with Emily. Perhaps something could indeed develop.
The night settled over the cottage, and for the first time in months I felt a calm I havent known since childhood. Ive learned that when the walls youve built collapse, you must be ready to walk through the rubble and find a new foundation.
Lesson: loyalty to the people who truly care for you is far more valuable than clinging to a false sense of duty.
