Page 2 of Breaking
She glanced at the clock. 11:47 PM. The kids had long since gone to bed after their perfunctory grunts of goodnight, and her husband, Troy, was still at the office. Or at least that was the explanation he'd texted-a curt message, devoid of warmth or apology, just as it had been for months now.
Jenna sighed, closing the sketchbook with a soft thud. She pushed herself up from the chair and moved to the sink, rinsing the mug of chamomile tea she hadn't finished. Her reflection in the darkened window caught her eye. She barely recognized the woman staring back. Deep lines etched around her eyes, hair that hadn't been trimmed in far too long, and a heaviness in her expression that no amount of sleep could erase.
The house had been quiet for years. Jenna couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the hush first settled in-only that each passing day had felt longer and heavier than the last. It felt like yesterday though it had been years. She had been ten weeks late for her period when she finally realized that she was late. At the time, she convinced herself itwas just stress or exhaustion which led to a light period. It was Sasha who had insisted she take a pregnancy test.
When the test came back positive, Jenna remembered standing in the tiny upstairs bathroom, the pale lines on the stick confirming her suspicion. She’d felt so many emotions at once- shock, fear, and-beneath it all-a hesitant flicker of excitement. She still remembered how her heart had fluttered when she sat Troy down and told him he was going to be a father again. Both Max and Lilly were in their teens and she had been excited with the idea of holding a new life in her arms.
He hadn’t reacted with delight. Far from it. His initial silence was a wall between them, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low with frustration at the timing. “Are you sure?” he’d asked in an echo of that question he had asked so long ago while raking his hair in agitation. “We have enough on our plates already, Jenna.”
His response gave her a sense of déjà vu, from the time of her first pregnancy. If there was anything she knew, Troy did not like surprises.
Troy eventually came around-on the surface. She’d catch him at night with his palm on her still-flat abdomen, eyes distant but not unkind, as if he were trying to piece together what their future would look like with another baby. He would murmur soft reassurances, though it felt more like he was trying to reassure himself. Jenna told herself it was all going to be alright. That this child would bridge the distance between them.
Then, the bleeding had started. When Troy did not pick up the call in time, she had driven herself to the hospital. The doctor’s gentle eyes as he explained the miscarriage were a blur. That first trimestermiscarriages are often associated with genetic abnormalities. “Sometimes, it is for the best.” he had said, gently. It didn’t feel that way. He had sent her home with the medication. “Expel the products of conception”, the label said.
She remembered clutching the edges of the hospital bed, the cramping pain radiating through her body while her heart threatened to split in half. She was only eight weeks along, but in her mind, she had already pictured the child’s face, the nursery she would soon start on, the unsteady first steps he would someday take. She had been sure it was another boy.
For the first time, Troy’s cold practicality truly stung. He had apologised for not picking up the phone and for once, she did not accept it. He had given her a stilted hug, a quick squeeze of her shoulder, and retreated into work. Meetings. Deadlines. Business travel. He left her alone in their bedroom, with grief carving hollows into her chest. The children barely registered what had happened-too young, too absorbed in their lives. And Jenna, too numb to demand their attention, tried to hold herself together in front of them.
But at night, she would lie awake and feel the emptiness. Each day brought a new wave of sorrow that threatened to pull her under. Even after her body healed, something inside her remained wounded. When she found herself too exhausted to get out of bed, or sobbing into a pillow for hours, she sensed this was more than grief-she was drowning in a bottomless pit she couldn’t name. The sides seem to cave in around her. She just didn’t know how to help herself climb out.
Troy didn’t notice. Or maybe he just didn’t want to. He left early, returned late, and avoided her eyes as though her grief werecontagious. For weeks, Jenna drifted through the house like a ghost, the unspoken tragedy pressing on her chest until she hardly recognized herself.
It took Sasha and Claire to pull her back from that dark place. Claire showed up with groceries and refused to leave until Jenna ate something more substantial than tea and toast. Sasha texted her daily, sending links to articles about postpartum depression-even though Jenna had lost the baby very early, the hormones and heartbreak were real. She had been the one to find Dr. Patel for her. Slowly, Jenna began getting help, though she kept it from Troy-she couldn’t bear another reminder that he wasn’t present when she needed him.
Her children had been oblivious. They noticed her sleeping more or skipping meals, but in that way that teenagers sometimes do, they chalked it up to “Mum not feeling well.”. Max made an annoyed comment about ‘attention-seeking behaviour’. Jenna told herself they were too busy, she told herself she didn’t want to burden them. But part of her still ached at how easily her pain went unseen.
It was weeks-months-before she found her footing again.Somewhat. She allowed Sasha and Claire to guide her toward the help she needed, and slowly, she learned to breathe in a world that looked different than the one she had pictured when those test lines turned pink. The final sign that she was resurfacing came one day when she managed a genuine smile, painting alone in the kitchen. She remembered looking down at the fresh, bright colours on the canvas, her mind clear for the first time in what felt like forever. She missed the baby she’d never hold, but she could stand again under her own strength.
Still, in the years that followed, that grief and depression lingered like an old scar. It flared now and then-tiny pangs whenever she saw a pregnant friend, or a baby’s laugh echoed in a grocery store aisle. It left her with a quieter sadness, a reminder of what she had lost. But it also taught her that she was stronger than she thought-that healing didn’t require Troy’s validation or anyone else’s. It required time, self-compassion, and the unwavering presence of real friends who refused to let her drown.
And while she never truly forgot the child she lost, she found a way to live with the memory-a soft, solemn note woven into her story, reminding her that even the darkest chapters did not last forever. But not without Dr.Patel’s help from time to time.
But things had changed. It was now clear to her that the fragile truce between her and Troy-one that had existed ever since the day behind the restaurant when she revealed her pregnancy-had disintegrated. The dreams she had fooled herself into nurturing felt like relics of another life. Once, she'd been a bright, hopeful art student with a world of possibilities spread before her. Then came the pregnancy test, the hurried wedding, and the countless adjustments that followed. Then the blow of an unplanned pregnancy and, not soon after, losing that hope. Now, at forty-three, she felt more like a shadow of herself rather than a mature version of the vibrant young woman she used to be.
Her phone buzzed on the counter, breaking her reverie. She glanced at the screen: a message from Troy. "Working late. Don't wait up." No emojis, no'love you,' just a stark confirmation of the distance that had grown between them. Maybe she had fooled herself into thinking they were ever close.
Jenna set the phone down, her jaw tightening. She didn't need to imagine where he really was. The colleague he'd been spending so much time with lately-Lila, the ambitious, impeccably dressed colleague with a laugh like wind chimes-wasn't exactly a mystery. The woman who was once been chosen by his father as the perfect fiancée for Troy. Jenna knew Lila was a fixture in Troy’s family, sister of his best friend and a more recently a valued colleague. Lila was charming and magnetic, her hand lingering on Troy's arm just a fraction too long every chance she got. Lila was also his mother's first choice for her successor. Jenna had gotten used to ignoring the poisoned jabs from a mother-in-law unhappy with her son being trapped into marriage by a gold digger using the oldest trick in the book. She was used to swallowing her discomfort like a bitter pill. But now, the cracks in their marriage felt too wide to ignore.
Her phone buzzed again. This time, it was a message from Sasha, her childhood friend. Sasha, who had grown up navigating the same rough edges of life as Jenna, was a rare constant in her ever-shifting world. Sasha, who knew about her secret life and supported it.
"Uploaded your latest illustration," the text read. "People are loving it. Check your store when you get a sec. Proud of you, babe."
A small smile tugged at Jenna's lips. Sasha had been the one to push her to sell her art online, convincing her that her talent deserved an audience. The sales were modest, but they were hers, born of sleepless nights and stolen moments at the kitchen table. It was the first time in years she'd felt a sense of agency, however fragile.
Jenna took a deep breath and turned off the kitchen light, leaving the room in darkness. Upstairs, the kids were asleep, their doors closed like barriers between their worlds and hers. Max had just turnednineteen and had his acceptance letter from UCL. He planned to follow Troy's footsteps. Lilly was seventeen and had already decided that she was going into arts. Both were busy in their own worlds which no longer seemed to have much space to include her. A year after they had Max, her mother-in-law had suggested that maybe a daughter would complete the ideal family for Troy. And Jenna was insecure enough to pray for a girl until the ultrasound confirmed it. She had even allowed her bitter mother-in-law to name her.
She paused in the hallway, her hand brushing against the worn oak banister. A part of her wanted to storm into her children’s rooms, to demand they remember the mother who had once been their whole world. But she knew it wouldn't work. Time had pulled them away, as it did with everything.
Returning to her own bedroom, she crawled into the cold, empty bed. Her gaze lingered on the ceiling, her mind a tangle of unspoken words and unanswered questions. Somewhere deep within her, a spark of determination flickered. She didn't know where it would lead, but she knew one thing: she couldn't keep waiting for her life to begin again. It was time to reclaim the pieces of herself she'd lost along the way, even if it meant starting over alone.
And as the clock struck midnight, Jenna closed her eyes, her heart heavy but resolute. Tomorrow would be different. It had to be.
Chapter 2
2years later.
Jenna didn't wake up so much as she surfaced from the fog, her mind clawing its way out of the abyss of restless, fractured dreams. The light streaming through the curtains was sharp, unkind, the way January mornings often were in Brighton. It illuminated the chaos of her bedroom-the half-folded laundry on the chair, a mug with a dried ring of chamomile tea on the nightstand, the cold expanse of the bed next to her.
