Kathleen McGurl - The Stationmaster’s Daughter

‘Do you love her?’

He hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘Yes. Yes, I do. She’s glowing in pregnancy.’

‘Well fuck you , then,’ she shouted, grabbing his Prosecco out of his hand and throwing its contents over him.

‘I deserved that, I suppose,’ he said, his tone infuriatingly mild as he brushed the wine out of his eyes. ‘I’ll go and stay in Naomi’s flat for a few weeks. Just until you’re able to find somewhere else.’ With that he stood up and left the kitchen, leaving Tilly staring at the chair where he’d been sitting. A few minutes later the front door banged shut, and she realised she was alone. Alone with an almost full bottle of Prosecco to ‘celebrate’ her new, unwanted freedom from both job and husband. She topped up her glass and stayed sitting exactly where he’d left her, her gaze fixed on her bleak, lonely future.

*

When she’d finished telling her story, she picked up the cup of tea Ken had quietly placed in front of her and sipped it. Ken was silent, but she could see a muscle twitching in his cheek, as though he was clenching and unclenching his jaw. He lifted his own cup of tea but before it reached his mouth, he put it down again, hard, so that some spilled and joined the red wine that already puddled on the table.

‘I can’t believe it. So he’d been cheating on you with this Naomi. And now she’s pregnant. And I’d thought I liked the man.’ Ken reached for her hand. ‘Tilly, pet, you are definitely better off without him, although I know it might not feel like it right now.’ He looked distraught.

‘You’re right, Dad, I am. Not that I had any choice in it. But I can see now that we’d been drifting apart, after that last miscarriage. I guess there are some things a relationship can’t cope with.’

‘For some people, it’d make them closer. Shared tragedies.’

‘Not us, apparently.’ She drank more of her tea. Her half-drunk wine was still there, on the table, but she no longer wanted it. ‘Thanks, Dad. For listening. It’s definitely helped.’ It had, she realised. He knew nearly all of it now. Not everything – but he knew about the miscarriages and Ian, and somehow that made it seem just a tiny bit easier to cope with.

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