She returned from work around midnight, “dead on her feet,” hungry and furious. How many times had she sworn to herself shed quit that damned shop? Midnight had already danced its dark waltz beyond the windows of her council flat when Veronica, dragging her feet, fumbled the key into the lock. Even the metal seemed to resist, unwilling to admit the exhausted shadow of a woman. “Dead on her feet” was too gentleshe felt like a broken machine, its gears ground to dust, its wires burnt out. The hunger was sharp and gnawing, the anger thick as tar, coating her from within.
“How much longer?” pulsed in her temples. “Wheres the limit? When do I finally break?” That question, a nightly requiem, had haunted her for a year, ever since her life had turned to hell under the sign of “Vintage Spirits.”
Veronica worked in that cursed shop, an aquarium of alcohol and human weakness, from eight in the morning till eleven at night. A prison. Endless, soul-crushing. The owner, a greedy spider named Archibald Pettigrew, had spun a web of surveillance cameras, and every glance through the lens seared her back like hot iron. Sitting down? A privilege punished by a hefty fine. “Sitting means youre not working!”this motto was branded into every shopgirls mind. By evening, her legs burned, swollen and pleading for mercy.
And those crates Heavy, clinking coffins of bottles they had to unload themselves. Fifteen minutes for a bitethen back to the front lines, the counter, where not all customers were sober or civil. She had to smile. Smile at drunks, at rude men reeking of booze, at screeching women. Smile when all she wanted was to weep or scream.
Her coworkers called her the epitome of endurance, an iron lady nothing could break. Few lasted more than six months. Staff flowed like a river, slipping the hook of this hellish net and vanishing. Veronica held on. Because behind her wasnt just empty air. Behind her stood the meaning of her lifeher seven-year-old son, Stephen. She desperately needed the money. Those grubby, sweat-and-whiskey-stained notes were the only thread tethering them to a normal life. Where else could she go? Their town, once bustling and industrial, now quietly rotted. The lumber mill and chemical plant, once feeding thousands, stood as grim monuments to a dead era, guarded by ghosts who watched over dust and memories.
Crossing the threshold, Veronica barely shrugged off her coat before freezing at muffled voices from the kitchen. Her heart clenchedtrained by constant dread. Then memory supplied the missing piece: her mothers morning words. “Veronica, love, dont forgetAunt Irenes coming today.”
Aunt Irene. Mums elder sister. From Manchester. From another, bigger life. It had been five years.
The kitchen smelled of fresh tea and homemade pie. The two sisters, grey-haired and wrinkled, sat bathed in warm lamplight. That light fell on Veronica, on her gaunt face and shadowed eyes.
“My dear!” Aunt Irene rose first, a woman with soft features and kind eyes. “Our beauty, worn to the bone, poor girl!”
She hugged her niece, and for a moment, Veronica felt a long-forgotten warmth, a childs safety. They kissed her cheeks, sat her down, fed her till she was full.
Then Aunt Irene, sipping tea, looked at her squarely.
“Vera, love, how much longer? Look at yourself! Youre burning alive in that hellhole. Quit it. Move to us. Manchesters a big citymore opportunities. Well find you decent work. And” She paused. “Life isnt over. Youre only thirty. Young, beautiful. Maybe youll find happiness yet.”
The words dropped into silence like stones into mud. Veronica felt everything inside her twist into a knot of bitterness.
“No, Auntie. Enough,” she rasped. “Ive had two tries at happiness. Two loud, bright failures. Enough. In two months, on holiday, I promise, Stephen and I will visit. Just a week. Take him to the circus, the theatre, the funfair. He dreams of it.”
She kissed her aunts cheek and, pleading exhaustion, retreated to her room. Stephen slept peacefully, his steady breath the only calm in her storm. But despite her fatigue, Veronica couldnt sleep. The visit had dredged up long-buried feelings.
And her mind, like a cruel demon, began pulling out the very memories shed spent years forgetting.
Shed been eighteen. With top marks and dreams of becoming a doctor, shed enrolled in medical college in Manchester, living with Aunt Irene. Studies came easy; she loved her future profession. Then, on a field trip to the universitys anatomy museum, her heart had racednot from the specimens, but from Him. Arthur. A dentistry student, charm and confidence incarnate. Hed seen hera shy girl with a chestnut braid and summer-sky eyesand been smitten.
He was perfect. Brilliant, well-dressed, witty, gallant. A knight from a novel, sweeping her into a fairy tale. Theyd dated barely a month before he proposed. Shed floated on cloud nine.
His parents, successful dentists with their own clinic, threw a lavish wedding. Her side had only Mum, Aunt Irene, Uncle, their son and his wife, and one college friendwhod been her witness. Her father was long gone; Mum had never remarried, devoting herself to her daughter.
The newlyweds got a luxury flat in the city centre, furnished impeccably. Arthur graduated, joined the family business, earned wellmore each month. Traded his car for a flashy import. Life seemed perfect. At nineteen, Veronica had Stephen. College was abandoned.
Then things changed. Arthur stayed late. Disappeared overnight. Then for days. Always with ironclad excuses. Shed believed. Desperately, blindly.
Until one day, pushing the pram, shed stopped at a café for water. And seen him. Her knight. At a table with a sleek blonde, gazing at her with the same adoration hed once shown Veronica. Frozen, shed watched him lean in and kiss hertenderly, passionately.
The scene at home was worse. He didnt apologise. He explained.
“Vera, look at me!” hed said, almost sincere. “Im a successful man! In our circle, fidelitys a joke. Everyone has mistresses. Be smart. Tolerate it.”
And she had. Five humiliating years. Ashamed to return to Mum broken, disgraced. Waiting for the mask to slip, for the Arthur from the museum to return.
But every limit is reached.
She left. Packed Stephens things and her meagre belongings and went home. Returned with nothing. Their flat, by some legal sleight, was in his mothers name. The car, the garagehis fathers. Aunt Irene begged her to sue, but Veronica was deep in depression. She knew their lawyers would shred her, leaving her with crippling legal fees. Arthur didnt refuse child supportsmall mercies. The sums were laughable. His fathers accountant likely showed only a fraction of his real earnings.
“So thats it? The end?” Mum had asked, staring at her hollow-eyed, aged-beyond-her-years daughter.
With Stephen in nursery, Veronica took the job at “Vintage Spirits.”
But youth has its way. Her wounded heart still longed for love; her body, for warmth. A year later, she met Him. The second one. Gregory. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a roguish grin. He owned a small bar he grandly called a “bistro.” The local loud crowd gathered there. He worked till 3 a.m., reeking of expensive tobacco, booze, and easy money.
*This ones real,* naïve Veronica had thought. *Down-to-earth. Not like that fake aristocrat Arthur. This time, Ive found loyalty.*
Shed been painfully wrong. The rose-tinted glasses shattered fast. The honeymoon ended in weeks. Greg came home nightly, reeking of cheap perfume and other women. She learned to recognise that stench of betrayal.
Fights began. Screaming, smashed crockery, tears. They broke up, reunited, bound by toxicity. Two years of humiliation, empty promises, and late-night remorse. Then, after another of his benders, watching Stephen sleep, she knewenough. Final.
She left. Again. Disillusioned with life, love, men, herself. Soul scorched barren. She drew a thick line through her personal history. No more dates, no illusions. Just work. Home. Stephen. And quiet, grey hopelessness.
Now Aunt Irenes talk of new beginnings had ripped open half-healed wounds.
The aunt left but made Veronica promise to visit that summer with Stephen.
She kept her word. That summer, the three of themVeronica, Mum, Stephenwent to Manchester. Aunt Irene threw a feast, glowing with joy.
At the table sat her aunts son, his wife, and another
