22October2025
Ive been lying awake for hours, the ceiling above my mind a dull, cracked plaster ceiling in our cramped flat on Oldham Road. Sam has been staring at the floor for days now, his eyes never reaching mine, and I can hear the weight of his thoughts in the quiet of our kitchen. Well have to put the flat on the market, he finally mutters, voice barely a whisper, and the car too. The lenders wont leave us alone. Its not just me who could lose everything you and Emily could suffer as well.
I try to think of the police, of filing a report, but he snaps back, Which police? I owe them a fortune already, he says, finally looking up, the lines on his face deepening. Every day the interest piles up faster than I can breathe. Youll have to stay with my mum for a while, with Emily.
What about you? I ask, feeling the sting of his cold stare.
I have to get out of here. Ill never be able to settle the debts. The companys been ripped apart. Im heading north theres decent money for seasonal work on the farms now. Maybe there, everything will settle down.
It isnt a secret that things have been spiralling. The first time strangers with hard eyes and a hint of a criminal past showed up at our doorstep, they called Sam outside for a talk. When he returned, his shoulders were slumped, his jaw clenched, and he shouted at Emily for the slightest mishap. Shes only four, not a welltrained dog to be disciplined for every tiny slip.
Sams business has always been a bit of a mystery. He runs an online store selling computer gear, but Ive never seen where those laptops and monitors come from. I suspect theyre knockedoff, because whole batches get pulled from the market from time to time. Every time that happens Sam has to borrow more, trying to stay afloat; a few times he managed to wriggle out, but this time its different the hole is too deep.
I grew up in a village in Norfolk, and with a modest flat I could have gone back to my parents house. Yet I cant just abandon my job Im deputy head at StGeorges Academy, a private school that specialises in English literature and language. The headmistress, MsCatherine Andrews, has already announced shell retire in a year, and Im being floated as her successor. Walking away now would be foolish.
Living with my motherinlaws family has never been a dream. From the moment I arrived, the relationship has been strained. At first I was the unwanted bride you look like youve walked straight out of a village a mile away. After I earned a firstclass degree and landed a teaching post at the specialist English school, she called me that foreignborn fife who cant even make a proper bangersand mash. I did make the borscht for Sam, and he praised it, but I never seemed to have enough time to keep a proper home kitchen running the extracurricular clubs at school ran till dusk.
My motherinlaw, of course, was delighted for the granddaughter, but her opinion of me was anything but warm:
Good wives dont run off to the North.
It wasnt me she ran from, it was the creditors. Hes buried in debt.
And where have you been looking? A good wife keeps the familys finances in order. You call this a business, we used to call it housekeeping. You havent even cooked a decent dinner for your daughter yet.
When I have time I do everything.
Then why dont you? Whats this school that runs lessons until midnight? Ill be checking on that myself. Maybe youve already taken up the role of husbands replacement.
She once turned up at the school in the evening, inspection in hand, and the complaints only grew. She complained about the foreignlanguage signage on the doors, and about the cats roaming the corridors thats unsanitary, this isnt a zoo. She claimed any respectable woman would never work in such chaos. She kept glancing at the tall, lanky English teacher, Dave Spencer, as if trying to read something between the lines.
Dave an English teacher himself seemed to take a soft spot in me, but he never crossed any boundaries; he knew I was a married woman with a child. The cats, she later learned, were part of a British educational approach: interacting with animals is said to make children kinder. The school had deliberately let a few Britishshorthair cats roam, even allowing them onto desks during lessons. In reality, the cats behaved far better than the motherinlaw gave them credit for.
Sam used to send occasional emails about where hed ended up, but they grew rarer. When people with a criminal background came knocking on our door, they asked about his whereabouts. Then the messages stopped entirely, and a knot formed in my stomach. I feared the creditors had found him, but my motherinlaw remained oddly optimistic:
If theyd caught him, theyd have stopped bothering us.
Then why has he gone silent?
Hes a proper lad, he wont stay alone forever.
A year later, just before the school term ended, Sam wrote that he had met another woman and was now living with her. He didnt call it an affair after all, we never had a formal marriage and he never mentioned Emily at all, as if she didnt exist. My motherinlaw immediately offered a justification:
She knows Emily isnt his.
How? She was born while we were together.
Hes the father, but not the biological one. Can that happen?
What are you talking about, Mother?
Im not your mother any longer. I might be a grandmother to Emily, but from today on Ill be Elizabeth Marlowe, or perhaps just nobody at all thats better.
The flat wed been sharing in Manchester now had to be vacated. 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, apart from my daughter, I have no family left? My own parents, hearing of my plight, have been urging me to return to the village, promising a teaching post; theres always a need for a teacher in the countryside.
MsAndrews put my application on hold:
Youre not getting a fever, love. I intend to keep the school running, and the trustees are fine with that.
But where will we live?
Ill speak to the trustees. Perhaps theyll contribute a rent allowance or a loan. In the meantime, you can move into the cottage I have on the outskirts. The school year is winding down, May is here, theres no need for heating there. My husband and I only go there on weekends anyway. Youll have the summer off, then you can visit your parents.
Dave Spencer offered to drive us, his old estate car, to move whatever we could. All we had left were a few sets of clothes and some dishes. On the way he asked:
Where will you stay in winter?
MsAndrews said shed help find something to rent.
Whats the point of looking? I have a spare onebedroom flat. I stay with my mum most of the time; shes ill and I help her with meals you cant survive on frozen dumplings and instant noodles forever.
Ill see what I can do. I might head back to the village in summer, maybe stay there for good.
What about the school? Theyre lining me up as head.
Theyve always wanted to matchmake me. I was once being set up for marriage, but schools are everywhere.
At the cottage, Emily thrived the fresh air gave her rosy cheeks, and she seemed to blossom. I grew close with MsAndrews and her husband, feeling as though Id found a new family.
Memories of the old life with Sam faded, though the sting lingered. It was inevitable he never wanted to go to the registry office, after all.
Dave drove us back to my parents farm in Norfolk. We arrived that evening, unloaded the few belongings, and as Dave was about to leave, my motherinlaw called out:
Stay a while, dear. Ill bring fresh milk, well have supper together.
I followed her inside, and she turned to me, a hint of accusation in her voice:
How could you let Dave become my soninlaw?
What? No, theres nothing between us, and theres never been.
Youre mistaken. Ive seen the way he looks at you. And Emily she could easily fall for him too.
From a distance I watched Dave laughing with Emily, their voices light. Perhaps there was no danger; perhaps it was just the foolishness of a tired mind.
The evening settled into a quiet warmth, a rare peace that reminded me of childhood summers spent by the river. I felt, for the first time in weeks, that maybe things could be put right again.
