My husband slipped away with a younger woman. I did not sob. I settled into the kitchen chair and let the air out of my lungsa breath of relief I had not felt for ages.
Peter and I had been married thirtythree years. We wed when I was twentytwo and he was twentysix, fresh out of school, full of plans. The early days were a tangle of love, plastering bricks together, a mortgage in the bank, the first baby, then a second, endless kitchen redoings, and evenings spent polishing the garden fence. We lived normally, as most people dono wild passions, no catastrophes.
Slowly we began to drift. He would come home late, his pockets full of excuses about projects. My routine settled into library shifts, grocery runs, cooking, laundry, helping the grandchildren with their homework, and gossip with Mrs. Green next door. At night we watched television in opposite corners of the sofa.
Touch faded away. I cannot recall the last time his arms wrapped around me, yet I made no complaint. I told myself that this was the shape of a mature life, that love had simply changed its clothing.
Two years ago Peter started behaving oddly. He trimmed his belly, dusted off crisp shirts that had been hanging untouched for years, and began spritzing cologne again. Suddenly there were business trips and assignments that had never existed before. I pretended not to notice.
I was frightened to ask. Deep down I knew something was amiss, but I told myself, Its just a phase. Hell tire of it.
One evening, after he returned home without touching his dinnera first in my memoryhe said:
I need to talk to you, he said, sitting opposite me, eyes locked on mine.
Ive met someone. Shes younger. I feel right with her. Im leaving.
That was it. No shouting, no hesitation.
I looked at him. He was fiftynine; I was fiftyfive. And I felt relief. A genuine, unexpected relief.
No tears fell. No drama unfolded. I moved to the kitchen, poured tea, and a silence settled over the house that I had not known for years. For the first time in a long while, no one complained that the tea was too sweet, no one smacked plates at dinner, no one slammed doors because the remote had vanished.
I did not sleep that night, but not from hurt from the weight lifting. For the first time I could think only of myself. Peter moved out a week later, dragging a suitcase, a couple of shirts, his old desktop. The rest, he declared, was already mine.
Our children reacted in their own ways. Lucy was furious. Dads gone mad, Mum, what is he thinking? she repeated. James stayed quiet; he had always been closer to his father. I did not need their support. I was free.
I began to do the things I had always postponed. I signed up for a painting class, even though I had never held a brush before. I took a weekend trip with Mrs. Green to Yorkmy first unplanned journey in twenty years, a breath of air without the sour face waiting at home.
I started sleeping when I wanted, ate dinner in bed, rearranged the livingroom furniture, bought a new tablecloth splashed with large, colourful flowers. Peter would have hated it, but I loved it.
People around me reacted oddly. Some asked, How do you manage it at your age? Others, more quietly, whispered that Peter got what he deserved. Their opinions mattered not.
For decades I had existed in a marriage where I was invisible the cook, the accountant, the nurse, the cleaner. Not a wife. Not a woman. When Peter left, I did not lose love; I lost a burden.
It may sound as if I rejoice at anothers misfortune, but that is not true. I simply celebrate the life I have reclaimed.
I have no idea how long his adventure with the younger woman will last. Maybe years, maybe it ends quickly. That is no longer my concern.
My concern now is tea with honey, reading late into the night, long walks without a hint of guilt. My concern is me.
And for the first time in thirty years I am truly at home.
