A Different Kind of Happy

by Rachaele Hambleton

  I realised that, actually, if Mark had just done the same and admitted that he didn’t want that involvement, and had just been honest about the fact he no longer wanted to be a father to our children, things would have been far easier. Yes, it would have been devastating at first, but not as devastating as him continually coming in and out of their lives – appearing too much one minute then not at all the next. It’s like a wound on your knuckle that keeps opening up – one that can’t heal because every time it starts to get better, you bend your finger and it breaks open all over again.

  After chatting with Jen, Rex and I began dawdling up the hill towards home and he asked me what a bastard was. I almost choked on fresh air and he said, ‘I heard you say bastard to Jack’s mummy.’ Brilliant. I told him it was an ‘adult word’ and that he couldn’t use it until he was older. Hopefully that would put him off.

  After the chat I’d had with Jen, I decided that I really felt different about my reasons for not encouraging the children to call Mark; they had enough love in their lives to not be missing out on what Mark could offer, and let’s face it, they were worth more than that. I also decided to go and see a local solicitor about the house sale. Mark had decided that he couldn’t in fact afford to buy me out so he put the house on the market and said I would receive £150,000 once it sold. But then I’d seen it for sale at a price that was much higher than I’d expected, going off my share, even taking into consideration the deductions, and I decided that, actually, we weren’t going to settle for any less than what we were entitled to, even if it did mean dragging it all out for longer. My name was still on the deeds and Mark hadn’t paid me a penny yet and wouldn’t until the house sale went through. I might have agreed to accept his previous offer, but it wasn’t in any way fair.

  I had given a third of my life to turning that house into a home, after giving up my career to dedicate myself to my husband, who thought it was acceptable to shit all over me then try to rip me off. Fuck that, fuck him. The solicitor said I was entitled to at least half, being around £270,000 rather than £150,000. Part of me felt guilty – like it wasn’t my money as I hadn’t earned it – but then reality struck, and it dawned on me that I couldn’t have earned anything because I was so busy raising the children that Mark had desperately wanted. And every time I’d mentioned going back to uni to complete my nursing training and qualify, he had kiboshed the idea, making me feel like I was stupid for even bringing it up.

  What I had done was work twenty-four hours a day for him and our children. I had cooked, cleaned and driven myself into the ground to keep everyone else happy.

  This money was what I was entitled to – this was what was fair.

  And Mark could fucking well learn to deal with it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Second Chances

  Friday

  Jamie’s children are coming over to stay with us for the first time this coming weekend. Belle and Ruby have their own rooms but Belle has a double bed and Ruby has asked to sleep in with her for the first night. Belle was fine with the idea – she adores Ruby and always refers to her and Will as her brother and sister, exactly the same way she would about Art and Rex, which is such a relief for me and Jamie. Will is up in the attic with Art, and the boys are excited about sharing a room. They’re the same age, and they get on so well. Rex has his own room. Theoretically they could all have their own rooms but the boys like sharing and I’m happy they do.

  I’ve bought both Will and Ruby clothes to keep here; when we were in Canterbury Laura would send their clothes up for weekends but I’m hoping we’ll be having them a lot more now we’re closer to them and I want them to feel like this is their home rather than that they’re just ‘staying at Dad’s’.

  I’ve spent this week trying to personalise the rooms too with cute signs with their names on their bedroom doors. I can’t bear the idea of them walking into a house that feels like my kids’ home more than theirs and I’m trying my best to make it feel like a home they can relax in.

  I can tell Jamie thinks I overthink it all. Every time I try to speak to him, he just kisses my forehead and says, ‘Babe, it will be fine.’ But I don’t think men think about stuff like that; they don’t view it from a child’s perspective – they see it so black and white and think their kids will too … anyway, I have tried to make it feel like their home, and I hope that they like it here. Being a stepmum, I’ve decided, is one of the toughest jobs in the world.

  It’s amazing now that Jamie has weekends off work. When we lived in Canterbury his job would get so busy at times he would have no option but to go into the office on weekends, but he’s been assured by his bosses here that the weekend is for family time and that’s something I know he’s really pleased with. It will be lush to spend some time together, the seven of us, exploring the area.

  I feel so happy that we’ve moved – like a weight’s been lifted – and I’m excited for what’s to come in our future.

  Will and Ruby arrived at 5pm. Jamie wasn’t back from work and when I answered the door and saw Laura there, I didn’t really know what to do. Although I’ve heard so much about Jamie’s ex, I haven’t ever really spoken to her before, beyond saying a quick hello or a wave at the service station. Now was my chance for a proper chat, I guess.

  ‘Hi guys!’ I said to Will and Ruby. ‘And Laura, it’s so good to see you. How are you? Do you want to come in? Jamie isn’t back yet but the kettle has just boiled if you fancy a coffee.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Laura spat back at me, in front of the kids, as she looked me up and down in disgust.

  This was not the reaction I had been expecting.

  ‘Have a good weekend, kids. Hopefully your dad will be back at some point to actually spend a bit of time with you.’

  I felt sick. Immediately sick. Both the kids fled into the house with their heads bowed and, as they got inside, they stood awkwardly behind the front door awaiting my instruction on what they should do next. This wasn’t what I’d expected either, and it wasn’t how I’d wanted their first day in our new home to be.

  When we got inside, I bent down and removed Ruby’s coat. Belle came down the stairs and immediately grabbed her and swung her round, kissing her neck and making her squeal. She then took her hand and ran up the stairs to show her the bedrooms. I felt really lucky, so lucky, that I have a teenage daughter who was there to make everything better without even knowing that’s what she was doing. I told Will to help himself to any food and drink that he wanted, that this was his home.

  As he walked up the stairs, he turned round and said, ‘Sorry about Mum.’

  I felt a lump in my throat. He was embarrassed, and upset – and I was gutted that at the age of eleven he was carrying that weight around where he was apologising for his mother’s actions. I shrugged it off like I hadn’t noticed and he gave me a smile before he ran upstairs. Within minutes I heard him and Art in a fit of laughter and despite Laura making me feel like crap, my heart soon felt full again. I had a feeling we were going to be OK.

  Jamie got back from work with three carrier bags full of fish and chips and two bottles of red wine. I could tell he was buzzing. Seeing him so excited about spending the weekend with us all made me feel really happy. I didn’t want to kill his mood but I had to tell him about how Laura had been. He didn’t look surprised. He asked if I wanted him to speak to her, but I didn’t. My anxiety couldn’t cope with having to do another tense handover if Laura thought I was trying to cause issues. Jamie said he would speak to Will and Ruby and check they were both OK, and with that we got on with planning our amazing weekend together.

  I had thought that Laura was cool with us moving nearby so I was a bit thrown by her reaction today. Maybe it was proving more difficult in reality. It wouldn’t be easy for anyone to see their ex happily living with someone else and building a home together.

  Perhaps it would just take her some time.

  Sunday

  Jamie and Laura have had words. I went out this morn
ing to get the umbrella out of the car and found a bag on the front doorstep full of Will and Ruby’s school uniforms.

  Jamie called her to find out what was going on and she told him that she’d made plans so he couldn’t return the kids at 5pm as planned; instead he could take them to school in the morning – she had apparently emailed them to say Jamie and I would be doing more school runs now.

  He explained he started work at 8am and I had to get Art to school then Rex to pre-school fifteen minutes later.

  She responded with ‘It’s called being a father, Jamie – something you have apparently decided you now want’ and hung the phone up on him.

  I reassured him it was fine. We would manage. I had no idea how, but I would figure it out. Will and Ruby were chuffed to bits that they were sleeping over again, and as much as it would make things a bit more stressful in the morning, we had moved here to spend more time with them and an en masse school run, complete with hastily eaten bowls of cornflakes and missing reading books, could only help them to feel that we were all one big family. I never want them to feel they are a burden when they are here.

  I could see Jamie was angry and upset. He kept apologising to me for the way Laura was being, and I kept reassuring him that it was fine. He had taken my three kids on full-time; the least I could do was take his to school one morning!

  But despite my reassurances to Jamie, it made me realise how hard it was going to be raising all these kids together as a blended family. Questioning and panicking and overthinking every decision or choice we make as parents. If these were all our kids together, we would just get on with it. But they aren’t and so we have to try our hardest to make sure they grow up having the best childhoods possible. That they feel loved and included – no matter what is going on behind the scenes.

  Monday

  Fuck me – that was a stressful morning. I decided that in order to get everyone to school on time, I needed to pull up outside Art’s school at 8.45am. Theoretically he doesn’t start until 8.55am but he said he would jump out and read his book in the playground. I felt a stab of parental guilt at leaving him, but Ruby and Will need to be at their school at 8.55, which is a ten-minute drive away, and then I’d have to circle back to Art’s school to drop Rex off for pre-school, which starts at 9.10am. I got stuck in the school-run traffic so got them there at 8.57. Parking was an absolute twat, and while Will jumped out and ran ahead, by the time we pulled up, got out and I’d walked Ruby into class while attempting to restrain Rex, who was losing his mind because he wanted to get to his pre-school, it had just gone 9am.

  Ruby’s class teacher said I had just made it but if we were going to be ‘late like this again’ I would need to sign her in at reception. Another stab of parental guilt – and then the panic hit me that the teachers would be sat in the staff room at lunchtime slagging off the ‘new disorganised stepmum’. I wondered if they knew Laura and if they’d tell her I was late today. My head was swimming with the ‘what ifs?’, and I was turning such stupid minor things into first-world problems.

  I went to give Ruby a kiss goodbye and she got really teary, telling me she didn’t want me to go and gripping me round the neck. I didn’t know that she had issues with being left at school so I didn’t know what to do. I had that immediate feeling of upset watching her big eyes well up.

  Her teacher looked surprised, though, and asked Ruby if she was OK – it turns out that this wasn’t normal for her – and after a while of unsuccessfully trying to distract her, she mouthed the words ‘I think you’d better just go’ while she held her so she couldn’t run after me. The majority of me felt nothing but guilt that she was in this state, but there was a small part of me that felt relieved, and honoured, that she loved me enough to want to be with me, and then I felt guilty for feeling that.

  I then had the issue of removing Rex, who by this point had helpfully pulled up a chair at one of the tables in Ruby’s class and was practising letters with his new mates. As I tried to hold his hand to leave, he decided to begin wailing at the same pitch as Ruby. This is totally unlike Rex, he rarely has tantrums – let alone ones to this extreme – so I was totally out of my comfort zone. He began screaming the words ‘NO MUMMY, NO MUMMY’, like I was surgically removing a tooth without anaesthetic. I had no choice but to do a double-armed restraint to remove him from the classroom, while the teacher was doing the same to Ruby who was now crying so hard that there were full choking sobs. I now had the added guilt that holding him back a school year would cause him lifelong issues.

  I could feel a lump forming in my throat, I was stress sweating and wondering how the fuck things were this bad before 9.15 in the morning.

  As soon as I got to the car, Rex changed his entire personality, asked me to pass him his toy dinosaur, and announced he didn’t actually want to go to pre-school now. But in we went, twenty-seven minutes late, Rex crying that he didn’t want to be there, and right now I’m sat writing this in my new favourite café, alone, gorging on carrot cake, sipping a latte and using this book as some kind of therapy.

  Despite the hectic school run today, all in all we’ve had the best weekend. On Saturday we went to the beach. It was really windy and still quite nippy, but we took buckets and caught baby crabs. I used to do it when we went on holiday down here when I was young. The trick is to find the huge rocks that are almost impossible to lift because of their weight, because they’re wedged in the sand. As soon as you flip it over, there are baby crabs, tiny ones dancing about. Sometimes there are big ones, but the kids didn’t like them.

  I could tell Jamie had been quite impressed by my crab-catching skills, and I noticed how he does the same thing I do: that every now and then I could see he was just taking it all in. Us, being together, our kids getting on, and being in such a beautiful place – and I could see that he was happy. Maybe that’s why we get these second chances, to appreciate everything that we once took for granted.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Other Ex

  Tuesday

  I called into the café this morning after a more prompt school run. There was a beautiful woman with wild red hair behind the counter today who I hadn’t seen working there before. Just as I was about to go up and order, Jen walked in with Jack and offered to get me a coffee. She walked up to the counter as the pretty lady walked round to greet her. They embraced and she showed Jen her wrist, which I hadn’t noticed until now was in plaster. The woman looked like she was pretending to be OK – I know from my own experience exactly what that looks like – and she was smiling and saying she could manage while Jen was telling her she should close the café if she couldn’t get any staff to work. I gathered this must be Lou, the owner.

  Jen said she would make our coffees and they started joking about how she would mess it up, and I felt like I was being a total pain, so I went over and said I was happy to just have a glass of water to save any hassle.

  Jen introduced us and as I took in Lou’s features more closely, I realised that she was absolutely beautiful. Her nose and cheeks were covered in soft freckles and she had the brightest blue eyes. They stood out against her skin, which was so pale it made her look like a china doll. She had no make-up on but her cheeks had a rosy pink flush like she had just come inside from a cold walk. She wore a long-sleeve white T-shirt, cropped navy chinos and gleaming white Converse boots. Here was another woman who looked like she’d thrown an outfit together with minimal effort but still looked amazing.

  I noticed she was different to Jen, much quieter, and although she asked me question after question about me, she didn’t freely offer up much information about herself.

  Jen walked behind the counter and made a pot of tea for the three of us, which we shared over a freshly baked coffee and walnut cake that Lou told us had taken twice as long as usual to make.

  Lou said the young girl who had been helping was sick, so she had to come in to cover for the day. It was clear she was struggling to do most things and she had another four weeks at least o
f being in plaster.

  Jen and I cleared our cups and plates into the dishwasher, and Jen told Lou she would pop back in after the afternoon school run to help for an hour. Lou looked so relieved and thanked her for the offer.

  Jen and I left the café together and sat on the wall overlooking the beach, while Jack ran round the beach, rolling in the sand and getting a bit too close to the waves.

  I asked her what Lou’s situation was and she told me that she was married to a local guy called David who seemed really nice, although she didn’t know him that well. He owned a chain of solicitors and his firm specialised in family law. They had two boys: Harry, who was fourteen, and George, who was nine. They sounded like a perfect family.

  Jen asked me what I did workwise, and I felt embarrassed suddenly. My dream, once upon a time, was to have a career just like hers – and I’d so nearly made it. I didn’t tell her that though – I just said due to having Belle when I was young, I’d been a stay-at-home mum. I was bored now, though – with Rex being in pre-school and starting properly in September I do often wonder how I’m going to fill my days. It feels quite frightening to know that soon – for the first time in fifteen years – I won’t have a sidekick around me, and I’m worried I’ll be lonely. Then I worry what that says about me as a person, that I need my kids around me because I have nothing else in my life …

  I like Jen. She’s fun. Her sense of humour is dry, and she makes me cry with laughter with her one-liners about the funniest things, and she giggles at herself. I love that about her. We’ve exchanged numbers and she said she would message me to meet up. I like feeling that I have a friend; it’s something I’m not used to, but maybe now is the perfect time to start getting used to the idea.