The Minster bells toll and I count each strike like a reminder of everything I’ve lost.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
I push through the heavy glass doors of the university library, my bag weighing down my shoulder with art history textbooks I can barely afford. The night air hits my face, sharp with November cold. Around me, clusters of students spill onto the cobblestones, their laughter echoing off ancient walls. They clutch takeaway coffees and complain about essays due tomorrow, their problems light as air.
I watch a girl with purple hair link arms with her friends. She can’t be older than twenty. When I was twenty, I was married. When I was twenty, I thought I had it all figured out.
Now I’m thirty-eight and starting over.
The weight of my textbooks reminds me why I’m here. Art history degree. Gallery work. A future that doesn’t depend on anyone else. But as I walk past the students with their easy friendships, I feel ancient. Separate.
Wrong.
I turn towards home, following the familiar route through York’s winding streets. The Minster looms ahead, its twin towers disappearing into the darkness above the streetlights. During the day, tourists photograph its Gothic arches and marvel at the rose window. At night, the gargoyles seem to watch.
Tonight, they’re watching me.
The city centre thrums with life. Hen parties stumble between pubs, their sashes glittering under neon signs. Couples walk hand in hand towards restaurants I can’t afford. Street performers play to crowds that drop coins into guitar cases.
I used to be part of this world. Nick and I would walk these same streets on Friday nights, his hand on the small of my back as he steered me towards whatever wine bar had caught his eye. He knew York like he owned it. Talked to bartenders by name. Left tips that made me wince.
Now the city feels like a film set I’m not supposed to be on.
My phone buzzes. A text from my sister Amy: How’s the studying going? Don’t work too late.
I don’t reply. She means well, but she doesn’t understand. She has a husband who brings in a steady salary, two children who don’t ask why Daddy isn’t coming home. Amy thinks I’m being stubborn, pursuing a degree when I should be looking for “proper work.”
But proper work pays fifty pence above minimum wage an hour and expects you to be grateful.
I turn off the main road into Clifton, where the noise fades to nothing. My terrace house sits halfway down the row, its Victorian brick façade identical to its neighbours. Mrs Jennings is at her front gate, wrestling a wheelie bin that’s too heavy for her seventy-year-old frame.
She looks up as I approach. “Evening, Anna.”
“Evening.”
I fumble for my keys, hoping she’ll go inside. She doesn’t.
“That’s a big house for just you and Poppy,” she says, not for the first time. “Too much for one woman to manage.”
Her tone is sympathetic, but I hear the judgement underneath. Poor Anna. Can’t even handle her own life.
“We manage fine,” I say.
Mrs Jennings nods, but her eyes say otherwise. “If you ever need help with anything…”
“Thanks.”
I unlock my front door and step inside, grateful for the barrier between me and her pitying stare. But the house greets me with its own judgement.
Silence presses against my eardrums.
Poppy is at my mother’s tonight, supposedly so I can study uninterrupted. Really, it’s because I can’t afford childcare and my mother feels sorry for us both. Another failure to add to the list.
I drop my bag in the hallway and walk through rooms that feel too big, too empty. Nick’s reading chair sits in the living room, still angled towards the television. His suits hang in the wardrobe upstairs like he might need them tomorrow. His cologne bottle sits on the dresser, half-empty.
I can’t bring myself to pack his things away.
Some days I tell myself it’s because Poppy needs the consistency, the reminder that her father existed. Other days I know the truth: I’m afraid that without his possessions anchoring him here, the weight of what happened by the river will crush me completely.
In the kitchen, I switch on the kettle and sort through the mail I’ve been avoiding. Council tax bill. Electricity. Mortgage statement with numbers that make my stomach clench.
I pull out my calculator and add everything up, subtracting my part-time gallery wages and the small pension Nick left behind. The result is what it always is: not enough.
Poppy needs new school shoes. The boiler is making that rattling sound again. My textbooks for next semester cost more than most people spend on groceries in a month.
I could quit. Amy would be relieved. Get a job at the supermarket checkout, smile at customers all day, come home too tired to dream of anything bigger.
But then what was the point of any of it?
Through the kitchen window, I see Mrs Jennings still fussing with her bins. She catches me watching and waves. I wave back, forcing a smile that feels like glass.
When she finally goes inside, I sit at the kitchen table with my laptop. My inbox blinks with new messages.
The advert I posted last week sits heavy on my mind.
At first, I told myself it was only to test the water, but I know better. I can’t carry this house on my own anymore.
I click open the emails.
A lad asking if he can pay half-rent during holidays. A woman with three cats and “one friendly ferret.” A mature student who wants “party-friendly housemates.” Each reply is another reminder of why this might be a mistake.
Then I see it.
Lauren.
Her message is short, careful, and neat. Literature student. Clean, quiet, reliable references. Can pay three months in advance.
I read it twice. The phrasing feels almost too perfect, like it was written specifically for me. A literature student would appreciate books, wouldn’t she? Someone mature enough to pay in advance, responsible enough to live with a single mother and her daughter.
My fingers hover over the keyboard.
This is Nick’s house. Our house. The place where we fought and made up, where Poppy took her first steps, where he…
Where he died.
But bills don’t care about sentiment. Poppy needs stability more than she needs a shrine to her father. And maybe, just maybe, some company would make this house feel less like a mausoleum.
I type quickly, before I can change my mind:
Hi Lauren, I have a double room available in a quiet Clifton house. Near campus, garden, family-friendly. Would you like to arrange a viewing? Anna.
I hit send and immediately want to take it back.
My phone pings with a response within minutes:
Hi Anna! That sounds perfect. I could come round tomorrow evening if that works? Looking forward to meeting you. Lauren x
I stare at the message. The “x” at the end seems intimate somehow, like we’re already friends. Like she already belongs here.
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