Page 13 of Happy Days Ahead in the Cornish Village

Megan looked across at Sally. ‘So what’s the real reason you asked me on the walk, then? You already know they get along together because they share a kennel, and you could have walked them both together yourself, anyway.’

‘You got me.’ Sally held her hands up, Ocean’s lead tucked around her wrist and between her fingers. ‘I wanted to check in on you, see how you’re doing with everything.’

Maybe she should be annoyed, but it was nice of Sally to ask. None of her so-called friends from home had even bothered to get in touch with her. Not that she blamed them. When she’d moved in with Lyle, she’d moved away from her family, her friendship group, and although she’d been welcomed into his social circle, she’d never quite felt comfortable with them and maybe they hadn’t quite been as accepting of her as she’d believed. Besides, she hadn’t been the one to tell them she and Lyle had split up so she dreaded to think how he would have spun the story.

Megan looked across at Sally. ‘I’m okay.’

‘Are you sure? You’ve had a lot of upheaval recently and, as Percy said, none of us liked Lyle, but he was your husband.’ She paused as Ocean slowed down. ‘You loved him and now…’

As they walked towards the sea, the sand became wet and Megan could feel her trainers sink, the millions of tiny grains moving beneath her.

‘I did love him, yes. Once, a long time ago, but honestly? Towards the end of the relationship, I knew he had changed, I knew he was no longer the man I’d vowed to spend the rest of my life with, I just didn’t realise quite how much he had changed and quite how much I’d end up hating him.’

Bending down, Sally coaxed Ocean to move along the beach, before looking back at Megan. ‘Why didn’t you leave him before then?’

Megan shrugged. There hadn’t been one reason, there had been a million different ones.

She cleared her throat. ‘He was my world. I’d been with him for fifteen years and spent pretty much my entire adult life with him. I’d have lost everything – our friends, our social circle, my home. Everything.’

‘I understand.’

Megan laughed, her voice catching in her throat. ‘As it turns out, I’ve lost everything, anyway. Maybe I should have found the courage to leave him years ago.’

‘Do you wish you’d left him before?’

‘Yes, and no. I don’t know.’ Megan looked down at Splash as she pulled at the lead, seemingly desperate to get to the water. ‘Part of me does. Part of me feels as though I wasted all that time I stuck with him.’

‘If you had, though, Wagging Tails would have likely been bulldozed by now.’

‘That’s what I keep telling myself.’ Megan bent down and fussed Splash behind the ears. ‘I think this little one wants to go for a paddle.’

Sally smiled. ‘She seems to love the water. You should have seen her this morning when Alex was cleaning out their kennel. Neither of them seems to be house-trained yet, so he had the hose out and Splash was absolutely loving it! Jumping up to catch the water and everything.’

‘Aw, she was given the perfect name then.’

‘She was! She’s come out of herself so much since they first arrived.’ Sally began walking across the sand towards the water’s edge. ‘But back to you. How are you holding up now?’

Megan watched as Splash lunged forward again, diving straight into the water, the seawater quickly reaching her shoulders. ‘I’m not sure. Lyle was away from home so much towards the end of our relationship that, quite honestly, I don’t really miss him much, but I miss being with him. That doesn’t make sense, does it?’

‘Umm…’ Sally shrugged.

‘I mean, I miss knowing he’s there for me, that it’s not just me on my own against the world, that I have someone to fight my corner.’ Megan walked along the wet sand, the water seeping in through the tops of her trainers. ‘Not that he would have been there for me anyway, but it’s more the thought of being completely alone that I struggle with sometimes.’

‘I understand.’

‘It’s strange because on the one hand, I feel totally free, as though I can do anything I want and go anywhere I want without having to think of anyone else, but on the other hand, it’s daunting. I’ve not been alone since I was at university and then I lived with housemates. I’m completely alone now.’

She swallowed. Now she’d said it, it somehow felt real all of a sudden. She was alone. Her parents had emigrated to Spain years ago, she had no siblings and her so-called friends had all dropped her, perhaps worried that the impending divorce was a contagious disease which could threaten to ruin their marriages too. That, or they had just sided with Lyle.

‘You’re not alone. You have us.’ Sally reached out and gave her a quick hug around the shoulders.

‘Thanks, but you know what I mean. I guess it’s that my life has been well and truly turned upside down. I don’t miss Lyle, not one bit, but I miss the safety net he provided. I miss the future I thought we’d have. And now I don’t know what my future looks like from one minute to the next, let alone where I’ll be in five years’ time.’

‘Have you thought about what you’d like to do? Long term?’

‘No.’

That wasn’t true. She had.

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