Chapter 2

The next morning, Joshua and Rosie come downstairs together for breakfast; the smell of fresh pancakes must have woken them. I didn’t sleep much last night, the conversation between Dylan and I played in my head over and over again.

Joshua has always been so caring towards his little sister, he helps her up the table as I set pancakes, chocolate and strawberries down in front of them,

“Wow” says little Rosie,

“Thanks mummy” Joshua says as he tucks into the plate of pancakes, drizzling most of the chocolate on the table.

It’s Saturday so Dylan would normally be home, but the children haven’t noticed yet, probably because they’re too busy getting sticky. They look so happy with chocolate all over their faces, how am I supposed to tell them Daddy won’t be living here for a while or even forever. I still don’t know what’s happening and he didn’t bother to try and contact me last night. I’m pleased he didn’t as I was too angry to speak to him then anyway.

Harry is cooing away in his mosses basket that is on it’s stand next to the table.

Rosie offers him a strawberry, but I explain he’s still too little for food and can only have milk. Rosie loves her baby brother; she helps me bathe him and covers him with his blanket at bedtime and kisses him on his forehead.

My phone pings, it instantly makes me feel sick, what if its him, or worse, what if its her?

“Good morning beautiful, how are you feeling today? If you like I can come over when you tell the children about dickhead? Love you so much”.

Good old Liana checking in on me,

“Thanks babe, I love you too, I’m just about to tell them now, I’ll let you know how it goes”.

Sitting opposite my chocolate covered children, I say,

” Hey guys, so Daddy had to pop out and he might be gone for a little while”,

“Like a holiday”, Joshua asks,

“Yes, like a holiday baby”.

I’m sure he’ll be enjoying his ‘holiday’ very much.

“Ok” Joshua says through a mouthful of strawberries, looking very pleased with himself and how messy he was, he pops some more strawberries on Rosie’s plate, and she giggles with excitement.

*

Later that day Liana and I are sat drinking coffee while her husband Kristian plays with the children at the soft play centre, he’s always been so great with the children, he’s a bit of a goof ball and so much fun. Kristian is tall with a shaved head and the kindest eyes, the children are always throwing themselves all over him. Liana and Kristian have an eight week old baby girl called Luna, she’s the sweetest little thing. Luna and Harry, as usual are fast asleep in their prams while Kristian chases Joshua and Rosie around, Rosie squeals in delight as he catches her and spins her round, then Joshua jumps on his leg, and they tumble to the floor.

“Thank you for coming with me today, I don’t think I could face sitting here alone”

“Don’t be daft” Liana says, putting her hand in mine, “you know I’m always here for you, have you heard from him yet?”

“Nothing at all, maybe I should just message him and get it over with, we’re going to have to talk at some point to work out what we’re going to do, the children are going to want to see him and surely, he wants to see them too. I don’t want them anywhere near her though, I don’t trust her at all”.

“I don’t blame you, silly cow. People like her never end up happy, so they have to steal everyone else’s happiness”.

I look up to see Kristian, Joshua and Rosie all sliding at what seems like super speed down the bumpy slides and ending up giggling in a pile at the bottom. All I want is my babies to be happy and have the best life. I don’t want to let them down.

*

Once I’ve put my babies to bed, I decide I should message Dylan and see if we can have an adult conversation. I hate the thought that he’s at her house and I’m sat here alone. Never mind, what do I say? You’re an arse and I hate you? I hope you choke on her cottage pie? I bet she doesn’t even cook, grrr, I’m so mad at him. Ok, pull yourself together Alice, you’ve got this,

“We need to talk about where we go from here, do we want to try and fix this, do you want to see the children, how are you feeling about everything?”

And send. Now just to sit and wait to see if my husband actually wants me or not, do I even want him? I don’t know if we could ever go back to how things were. Do I want things to go back to how they were, now that I think about it, was I truly happy? I’m trying to think of a time recently that Dylan had made me smile and laugh so much my belly hurt. I know I laugh and smile when I’m with friends and family and my babies but when did he last make me really happy? After what seems like hours, I finally get a reply.

“Ok”

Ok! Ok what? Ok you want to talk, Ok you want to see the children or Ok you want to be with me? O fucking K! Is that all I get? My goodness this man infuriates me.

“Ok what”, I reply, in hopes of a more inciteful response.

“Ok I’ll see the kids, I’ll come round tomorrow”.

That’s it, nothing about wanting to try and sort things out with me, am I really that awful, does he honestly want to throw away eight years of marriage and our beautiful family for someone who clearly has no heart. Maybe it is me, maybe I’m just not good enough. I certainly feel that way right now.

The evening seemed to drag on, I tried to sleep, but the more I tried the harder it was to drift off. I thought back over our marriage trying to figure out where I had gone wrong and if I’d missed any signs. It was raining again, and I opened the curtains to look at the night sky, all I could see were tiny beads of rain falling down the window pane, I felt cold, lonely and sad.

*

I must have eventually drifted off as I woke to thumping on the front door. I ran downstairs bleary eyed in my pyjama’s, hair all over the place and unlocked the door, expecting to find the post lady, thinking I can apologise for my appearance when I open the door. Swinging open the door, to my horror, stood Dylan, and who was standing there with him, Stacey! Great, not only did my husband turn up at our house with his bit on the side but I looked like I had been dragged backwards through fields with huge bags under my eyes where I hadn’t slept properly and for some reason feeling extremely sweaty, I’m sure I must have smelt pretty ripe too.

Stacey sniggered at the sight of me as she held my husband’s hand. I couldn’t do this, this was cruel. I slammed the door shut and locked it again. I sat on the floor with my back against the front door for a few minutes. He didn’t knock again so they must have left. Why would he bring her here and why were they holding hands, are they a couple now? That was a really horrid thing to do and what did he expect of me, to just let them both into my home like one big happy family!

I heard Harry cry, so I went upstairs to see him. As I lifted Harry from his cot, and put his warm little body on mine, I felt a sudden rush of pain in my heart, not only had Dylan done this to me, but he had also done this to our family, my poor babies.

I sat comfortably in the old rocking chair in Harry’s room and began to feed him. This was one of my favourite things in the world, feeding my baby, he would gaze into my eyes as he drank and wrapped his tiny fist around my finger, in that moment, a feeling of calm and contentment fell upon me.

I looked into my babies’ bright blue eyes and knew that he, Joshua and Rosie were all that I needed in my life. I suddenly felt like everything was going to be ok.

*

A few weeks passed and I hadn’t heard anything from Dylan. I had told Joshua’s teachers about the separation in case it started to affect his school work but thankfully all seemed to be well.

A couple of the mums at school had asked me what was happening as they had heard rumours about the separation, I feel like they were just being nosey rather than actually checking in on me, however I did take a couple of them up on a coffee date.

Things at home were good too, I had redecorated my bedroom and living room, previously the rooms were decorated how Dylan liked everything and I hadn’t had much of a say, but now everything felt fresh and homely. I packed up all of Dylan’s belongings and put them in his car which was still on our driveway, it was like he had never existed.

I was surprised too at how well I was coping as a single parent, if anything, I was thriving. Liana had been amazing, so had my mum and sisters who were excellent support.

“Never shall that man darken my doorway again” my mum had said when I told her, actually, when I phoned her to tell her we had separated her response took me by surprise,

“Thank goodness for that, I never liked him anyway”,

this did make me laugh out loud and I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I was so worried that I’d let the family down by being separated, as if it was my fault. Both my sisters were happily married with two children each of their own. My sisters are twelve and thirteen years older than me so growing up I kind of felt like an only child, but I looked up to them and tried to grow up way too fast.

My sisters were furious with Dylan and thankfully once it was all out in the open, I didn’t have to talk about him to them anymore, they never brought the subject up when they came to visit, it was always,

“Your house looks fab”,

“I love what you’ve done with the garden”,

“Haven’t the children grown”.

I could tell they wanted to ask but they knew better not to.

I was feeling incredibly proud of myself and the children who had only asked once about Daddy and when he would be back from holiday, I had to tell them I wasn’t sure as I had no idea when we would see him again.

*

After a lovely evening baking cookies with Joshua and Rosie and then giving them a much-needed bath with way too many bubbles and bath crayons (seriously, who invented them) the children came out dirtier than when they went in, I settled them into their beds and went to lie down. I was feeling exhausted after a long week of school runs and multiple questions from parents at school that clearly didn’t know how to mind their own business. I was looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend, when, ping. Message from Dylan, instantly I felt sick and started getting palpitations, I could feel my heart beating hard against my chest. I tried to calm myself by taking a few long deep breaths, I opened the text….

“I want a divorce”.