Two years after our divorce I saw my former wife again; everything fell into a sharp, cold clarity, and she offered only a bitter smile before turning away from my desperate plea to start over.
When our second child was born, Emily stopped caring for herself entirely. Once she would change outfits five times a day, hunting for elegance in every stitch, but after her maternity leave in Manchester she seemed to have wiped from her memory every garment except a threadbare sweatshirt and a sagging pair of joggers that hung like a dull flag.
In that admirable drabness my wife did not merely linger at homeshe lived there, day and night, collapsing onto the bed still clad in those rags, as if the tatters had become an extension of her flesh. When I asked why, she mumbled that it was more practical for getting up at night with the babies. There was a dark logic to it, I admit, but the grand maxims she once recited like a litanyA woman must remain a woman, even in the heart of hell!had evaporated like smoke. Emily had forgotten everything: the boutique she adored in Birmingham, the gym she swore was her sanctuary, and forgive my bluntnessshe no longer even bothered to wear a bra in the mornings, wandering the house with a sagging chest as if it mattered not.
Naturally her body followed the same route to ruin. Her waist collapsed, her belly sagged, her legs gave way, even her neck drooped, becoming a shadow of its former self. Her hair was a living disaster: at times a wild tangle battered by a storm, at other moments a hasty bun from which rebellious strands erupted like silent screams. The worst part was that before the child, Emily had been a luminous beautya ten out of ten. Strolling through the streets of Brighton, men would turn, eyes glued to her. It swelled my egomy goddess, all mine! And now of that goddess nothing remained but a dim silhouette, a relic of past splendor.
Our house mirrored her declinea bleak, oppressive chaos. The only thing she still mastered was the kitchen. I swear on my heart: Emily was a witch of the stove, and complaining about her food would have been sacrilege. Everything else? An absolute tragedy.
I tried to shake her, begged her not to sink so deep, but she only gave me a rueful smile and promised to pull herself together. Months slipped by, my patience thinnedwatching each day the parody of the woman I had loved became an unbearable torture. One stormy night I delivered the verdict: divorce. Emily tried to hold me, rattling empty promises of redemption, but she did not scream, did not fight. When she realised my decision was final, she let out a heartbreaking sigh:
Your choice I thought you loved me
I refused a sterile debate about love or its absence. I filled out the papers, and soon, in a solicitors office in Bristol, we each held our divorce decree the close of a chapter.
I am hardly a model fatheraside from the child support, I have done nothing for my former family. The thought of seeing her again, the woman who once dazzled me, feels like a blade pressed to my chest that I would avoid at all costs.
Two years drifted by. One evening, wandering the bustling lanes of Liverpool, I glimpsed a distant figureher gait familiar, graceful, like a dance among the crowd. She came toward me. As she drew near, my heart frozeit was Emily! But which Emily! Risen from her ashes, more radiant than during our first passionate flaresthe very incarnation of femininity. She wore skyhigh heels, her hair styled to flawless perfection, her whole being a symphonydress, makeup, nails, jewellery And the scent, her old signature perfume, hit me like a wave, dragging me back to buried days.
My face must have betrayed everythingastonishment, desire, remorsewhen she burst into a sharp, victorious laugh:
What, you dont recognise me? I told you I would rise againyou never believed me!
Emily kindly invited me to accompany her to her gym, slipping a few tidbits about the childrentheyre thriving, full of life, she said. She spoke little of herself, but it was unnecessaryher brilliance, her unshakable confidence, that new irresistible charm shouted triumph louder than any words.
My mind hurled back to those dark times: her dragging around the house, broken by sleepless nights and daily burdens, cloaked in that cursed sweatshirt and joggers, her miserable bun a banner of surrender. How it had infuriated methe loss of elegance, the extinguished flame! It was the same woman I had abandoned, and with her I had spurned our children, blinded by selfishness and fleeting anger.
When we said goodbye, I stammered a questioncould I call her? I confessed I finally understood and begged her to start anew. She answered with an icy smile, shook her head with an unwavering firmness and said:
Youve understood far too late, old chap. Farewell!
