Oh Well, Everyone Stumbles Now and Then – It Happens to the Best of Us

“So what if I slipped up? It happens,” he muttered.

“You’re really stuck on this, aren’t you? That Natasha is gone, and yet you still cant let it go. Emma, maybe enoughs enough? Weve got real problems to deal withlike Sophie.”

Emmas eyebrows shot up. For a second, she just stared, wondering if shed misheard. Any moment now, hed probably blame *her* for his affair.

“Youve got the wrong door, Robert,” she said coldly. “Ive got other priorities now. My only real problem is divorcing you.”

“Divorce?!” he exploded. “For Gods sake, we were fine all these years! Almost a decade. Wed still be fine if you hadnt found out. What does it even change?”

“It changes *everything*,” Emma met his gaze, unflinching. “All this time, I was living a lie. And now you act like its nothing.”

His stubbornness grated on her as much as the betrayal itself. Shed known Robert for over twenty-five years. Knew how his brow furrowed when criticised, how his lips pressed thin when hurt. But this? This was new. It was like looking at a stranger.

“What lie? I loved you then. I love you now. That other thing” He waved a hand, dismissive. “That was ages ago. Might as well never have happened.”

Hard to pretend it never happened when there was an eight-year-old girl left behind. Robert, ever the gallant knight, insisted on bringing her home. The alternative? His elderly mother, barely able to care for herself. A care home was out of the questionhis children wouldnt grow up without parents, he declared.

Emma couldnt forgive the infidelity. Shed grown up in a house built on trust.

Her father was a homebody; her mother, a wanderer. Shed vanish for spontaneous trips to Cornwall, and Dad would wave her off at the station, smiling, never once suspicious. Mum would do the same when he travelled for workkiss him goodbye, pack him a tin of biscuits, tuck a tiny cross into his coat pocket.

They had rows, sure. Mum slammed doors; Dad gave the silent treatment. But they never doubted each other. Even when he drank at office parties, his eyes never left her.

That was Emmas blueprint: love meant trust. No trust? Then what was the point?

She and Robert had been comfortable once. The only tension was children.

“Weve got time, love. Let me get a proper job first, *then* well think about kids,” hed say, five years in.
“Times ticking. Im thirtynot getting any younger. Neither are you. Or do you want our kid calling us grandpa and grandma?” shed snap.

So she waited. The “proper job” never came. Biology didnt wait. At thirty-eight, she had their son. Now, James was twelve.

Robert took shifts up norththree months away, one month hometo support them. It was hard, but the money was good. Emma missed him but saw it as an investment in their future.

She didnt know he wasnt suffering alone.

“What did you expect? Three months alone. It was justneed. Doesnt even count,” hed said when the truth came out.
“*Need?!*” shed hissed. “Funny how I never had needs parading outside. Are we made of different stuff?”
“Well, youre a woman. Its not the same for you.”

Maybe they *were* different. To him, it was a lapselike sneaking an extra biscuit. To her, it erased every good thing between them.

She wouldnt even have known if disaster hadnt struck. If Robert hadnt casually brought up Sophie over tea, like it was a grocery list.

“Heres the thing, Robert,” Emma said, snapping back to the present. “I dont even blame the girl. Shes innocent. But *you*? I wont live with you.”

He scoffed, waving her off.

“Honestly, whats got into you? Fine. Well talk tomorrow. Mornings are wiser.”

Come morning, reinforcements arrived: his mother, Margaret. She had skin in the gameif Emma refused, *shed* be stuck with the girl.

“Emma, love, think of the child!” Margaret pleaded. “A girls a blessing in old age. Boys leave the nest; girls stay. Look at it differentlymaybe its for the best? Youre past having your own, and heres one ready-made!”
“I cant, Margaret. Id always resent her,” Emma admitted.
“Oh, rubbish! Youd adjust. Women do it all the timewartime evacuees, widowers with kids, adoptions! It works!”

Emma exhaled sharply. One thought betrayal had an expiry date; the other compared it to *The Railway Children*. Meanwhile, Emma felt like shed been sleepwalking through someone elses life.

“Margaret, those people *choose* that life. I didnt choose this.”
“But the girls blameless.”
“So am I.”

The conversation looped, but they never agreed. To Margaret, it was a hiccup. To Emma, it was the end.

So that evening, she didnt answer the door. She left Roberts bags in the hall, bolted the lock, and turned on the telly. Nerves buzzed under her skin, but peace was gone anyway. He didnt even apologise. Maybe he didnt *get* it.

At seven, a key jiggled. Then pounding.

“Emma, I know youre there! Open up! Youre acting like a child!”
“Right. And youre the *grown man* scattering kids across England,” she shot back, leaning against the console table. “You wanted a decision? Here it is. Raise your daughter with your mum. Should be cosy.”
“Dont be daft! So I tripped upwho hasnt?”
“*Me.* I havent, Robert. Take Sophie and go. Betrayal doesnt come with a best-before date.”
“At least let me say goodbye to James!”
“So you can upset him too?” She paused. “Fine. But the door stays locked.”
“Twenty-five years, and now Im barred from my own home!” he whined.

Emma ignored him. James had been quiet all evening. Hed watched her pack Roberts things without a word. Even a child could see where this was heading.

“Jamie, your dad wants to say goodbye.”

James didnt look up from his homework.

“No.”
“You sure?” she asked softly, stepping closer.

She braced for blamefor driving Robert away, for breaking the family. But

“Im sure. He was my hero. I thought he sacrificed for us. Now?” He pressed his lips tight. “I dont want to see him, Mum.”

Emma exhaled, pulling him into a hug. His words lifted a weight she hadnt known she carried.

“I get it. Im sorry”
“*He* lost the family. Not you,” James said firmly, hugging back. “*Im* staying with you.”

Robert spluttered for ten more minutes, rattling the door, demanding to “talk properly,” then finally left.

Bitterness still clawed at Emma, but beneath it, relief surged. Shed drawn the line. Made the choice. Self-respect mattered more than the illusion of a “whole” family.

And her son? Thank God, he was nothing like his father.

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