Broken Heart and a New Hope
In a small flat on the outskirts of Manchester, where the air smelled of freshly baked shepherd’s pie and musty old paperbacks, Emma sat at the kitchen table, tears streaming down her face. Her world was crumbling: her best friend Lucy was divorcing her husband, James. For Emma, who had never married or had a family of her own, they *were* family. Their split tore at her heart like a crack in a cherished heirloom mirror—one that only reflected her loneliness back at her.
Lucy and James refused to discuss the reasons. “It’s private,” they said, and Emma nodded: “Of course, I won’t pry.” But inside, her mind spun darker and darker theories. Someone *must* be to blame—no one divorces just for fun! She hated herself for suspecting them—Lucy and James had been her anchors, her truest friends. Had someone spread lies? Or had jealousy poisoned their marriage? Emma wanted to help, but how, when they wouldn’t speak? The silence coiled tighter around her heart.
Lucy’s divorce upended Emma’s life. They used to escape to her cosy cottage in the Cotswolds—planting roses, digging in the vegetable patch, laughing until their sides ached. Now the cottage stood empty, as hollow as Emma’s chest. Lucy had been like a sister. Growing up, Lucy—one of six children in a cramped council flat—would flee to Emma’s spacious house, her slice of another world. Emma had everything: her own room, well-to-do parents—her mother, Margaret, an art teacher; her father, Henry, a physicist—their cherry-red Jaguar, and a two-storey holiday home. To Lucy, it was a dream she quietly resented.
The cottage, with its creaky wooden stairs and carved banisters, smelled of varnish and second-hand bookshops. Her mother’s watercolours hung on the walls; her father would drone on about constellations. James, whenever he visited, would tinker in her dad’s shed, fixing things or coaxing life into the old Jaguar. Its leather seats and walnut dashboard still held the warmth of Henry’s hands. He’d have been pleased his tools and car were in good hands—even if those hands weren’t family. Now the shed was padlocked, and the Jaguar gathered dust.
Emma had long accepted she was plain, clumsy, and destined to stay single. Her parents once tried matchmaking her with a friend’s son, but nothing came of it. After the divorce, Lucy vanished—no calls, no texts. Emma, sick with grief, didn’t know how to go on. Then, out of the blue, James rang: “Em, can I come over? We need to talk.”
He arrived on a crisp autumn Saturday. Out of habit, Emma made leek-and-potato soup and a steak-and-ale pie—their old favourites. James trudged up the cottage’s groaning steps, the place that once felt grand now as worn-out as Emma herself. He stared at the peeling paint before speaking.
Lucy and James had been married fifteen years. When they met, she’d seemed fragile, like life had cheated her. She spoke of raising her younger siblings, of never belonging in her own family. James spoilt her, showering her with gifts. When she got pregnant, he was over the moon—but Lucy, blaming morning sickness, never smiled. After a hospital stay, she mumbled about a miscarriage. The doctors said the foetus wasn’t viable. James consoled her; she promised, “There’ll be other chances.” But there weren’t.
Over time, James noticed Lucy mocking Emma—calling her “that hopeless spinster,” sneering at her cottage, the Jaguar, the books and paintings Emma loved. At first, he laughed along—Emma *was* quirky, like a relic of another era. But when Lucy snapped, “She’s a fool for turning down that rich bloke,” something twisted in him. He defended Emma, and Lucy exploded: “You’re as daft as she is! I married you because you had *prospects*! I’ve had enough of being poor! But no, Mr. Morals here walks away from a promotion because *someone* fudged the numbers! Back to pennies and pride—congrats!”
James listened, his heart icing over. This wasn’t the Lucy he’d loved. How could he stay? But he spared Emma the truth. She didn’t need to know Lucy had envied her—or that now, with nothing left to envy, she just despised her.
As Emma laid the table, James chopped firewood—the nights were getting chilly. They ate, making small talk, but something new hummed between them. Lucy soon remarried—her ex-boss—and vanished from Emma’s life. James began visiting more: fixing leaks, bringing little gifts—a punnet of blackberries, wild daisies tied with string. They’d walk by the river, talking for hours, and Emma felt her heart unclench.
It felt strange, almost wrong. James—Lucy’s ex. Yet he’d become her closest friend. Then, to her own shock, Emma fell in love. Guilt gnawed at her—was she stealing happiness? Worse, she couldn’t believe he’d ever love *her*. It just didn’t happen to women like her.
They married in winter, during a snowstorm. At the cottage, by the hearth, they stammered out confessions, cheeks flushed from fire and fear. By autumn, they had a daughter—Margaret, after Emma’s mother. Sometimes, Emma pinched herself. At thirty-eight, she was loved. The cottage rang with a baby’s cries and James’s hammering—as if he was piecing her shattered heart back together, one nail at a time. Emma bloomed, though she still sometimes feared waking up to emptiness.
