I spent the next few days sorting out paperwork, speaking to solicitors, and telling friends and family what had happened. Surprisingly, James was being extremely reasonable. He'd agreed to pay far more in child maintenance than I was expecting and also offered to pay the mortgage until we could sell the house. It was already on the market and I'd started looking at houses for sale. One had caught my eye just a few streets away and I'd arranged to go and view it the following week. My parents had also been amazing, offering to top up my share from selling the house so I could buy outright and not have to worry about a mortgage. Things seemed a little brighter. I still couldn't stop thinking about Mark and I knew I'd made one of the biggest mistakes of my life, but I had to put that behind me now and move on. He'd made it blatantly clear by his silence that whatever we had between us was gone for good.
"It's absolutely stunning" I said, as the estate agent showed me around the house I'd seen a few days later.
"There's plenty of room and a lovely garden for the kids to play in." I couldn't help smiling, I just knew this was it. Our new home.
"If you're interested I wouldn't hang about. Places like this don't come on the market very often, and when they do, they sell really quickly" the agent advised.
"I'll have my solicitor call later on to put an offer in." I answered as we left the house. I turned to have another look from the outside and my whole body just seemed to relax. I had a really good feeling about this.
I'd just gotten home after picking the kids up from my parents' house, when I noticed a letter hanging out of the letterbox. Taking it out, I realised it had been hand delivered. Opening the envelope, I found a note from Lisa.
"Get the kids in bed early tonight, I'm coming round with wine and chick flicks, and I want to hear all about it." I smiled to myself. Lisa always managed to cheer me up and I knew I could tell her anything, but somehow, I just knew I couldn't mention Mark. It still didn't seem real to me, so how on earth could I try and explain it to someone else?"
"Well, all I can say is you're well rid of him. What an absolute knob!" Lisa exclaimed a few hours later, after I'd recounted the whole saga with James.
Just sharing it all with someone else had lifted a weight off my shoulders. I told her about putting an offer in on the house and she squealed in excitement.
"Oh my god, housewarming party!" She breathed, with a wicked glint in her eye.
"Hey, don't get carried away, I haven't got the house yet." I laughed.
"Ok, ok, I'll give it time, but you need to tell me the minute you hear anything."
As I waved goodbye an hour or so later, I genuinely felt happy for the first time since we'd got home. Maybe things weren't so bad after all.
The next couple of days were a whirlwind. Not only did our house sell the day after it went on the market, I got a call to tell me my offer on the house had been accepted! Cue a torrent of calls and emails to sort out moving dates and form filling. I had to bite the bullet and call James to ask him to come and collect his personal stuff and to split things like furniture between us. He didn't take much. Apparently he'd moved in with Melissa so didn't need much. After that I was kept o busy with packing and chucking out old junk the time just flew in. Luckily I'd taken another week off work so I managed, with the help of my parents and Lisa and Alex, to get everything sorted in time.
The night before the move, I sat, looking around at all the boxes, thinking about how different everything was to just a couple of weeks ago. I lifted my glass, saluting thin air. "To new beginnings" I said to myself, before draining the glass and heading to bed.
