The Decision

The Decision

The day was drawing on to evening but Julie felt she just had to get out. Get away from the house. Walking usually helped her to think and the decision she was trying to reach needed a lot of thinking. Once made and acted on it would change her life as she knew it

Hunching her body she turned left at the end of the lane and crossed the road to walk facing the oncoming cars. A cow in a nearby field snorted mournfully making her jump. “Its face is as sorrowful as my own,” she muttered as she hurried on her thoughts in turmoil.

She stopped at the top of the hill as familiar to her as the lines on her own face and looked back the way she had come. The road looked dark and dismal with only the occasional light on in a house here and there to break the gloom. Like my life has been since I took on Harry and his brood of motherless brats, she thought. A bright spark here and there but for the most part gloom and drudgery.

Her steps slowed as she neared the house again. She felt guilty about not telling Harry or his children that she was leaving. She squared her shoulders. “They brought it on themselves.” she muttered.

She’d wait until she got the right moment and then she’d simply disappear. She already had part of her plans in place. Gradually she’d packed some of her personal things and hidden them in a secret hiding place – an old tumbled down cottage near the town.

As she lifted the latch on the door she hoped that Hurry’s girls had thought to tidy away the dinner things. But what met her eyes was the cat helping itself to the leftovers solidifying on the plates and dishes still sitting on the kitchen table. She swept her eyes around the kitchen. A pile of clothes she had ironed and left for the girls to put away in their bedrooms spilled off the back of a chair onto the floor.

Anger replaced her guilty feeling. “See how you like it when ‘Cinderella’ is not here to pick up after you,” she muttered.

Now that her mind was made up she felt better. She’d think twice before she’d take on another job as unpaid housekeeper and general dogsbody to a readymade family.

The sun was rising the following Friday when she quietly let herself out of the house. She looked back from the end of the lane with a mixture of sadness and elation. Would Harry report her as a missing person? What would he think when the fire wasn’t lit and there was no breakfast on the table for him or the girls? Would he guess she had left? Surely he had noticed how unhappy she had been lately?

She had been tempted to leave him a note; pour out all her hurt. But in the end she had simply lifted her coat and handbag and left.

Harry will soon find another woman to work and slave for his spoilt children she thought as she collected her case from its hiding place..