The cold bites at my face despite the tartan scarf that comes up to my button nose and full lips. It’s so cold that I even worry about Dale as he runs across the playground towards his friends, stopping once to wave at me with mittened hands, before rushing off around the corner of the school building.
This wasn’t the life I’d imagined for myself back when I met my husband Joel in a swanky nightclub in London nineteen years prior. He was in finance and wealthy beyond comprehension for a young, naive girl from a quiet town. But I knew how to dress and I knew that I looked good, and that’s what caught his eye. A drunken romp in his hotel room had lead to a proper date, and that had lead to sharing a flat and then to the wedding day from my dreams. Joel wasn’t shy of telling me he like blondes with big tits and long legs, and I certainly covered all those check boxes for him.