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Warnings: Age Gap, Domestic Abuse, Arranged Marriage, Sexual Abuse, PTSD, Religious Extremism; Implied Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Child Abduction,
Two weeks after Luka started kindergarten, the Father’s Day newsletter arrived in your inbox.
You stared at it for a long time.
Not because it was unusual.
It was, in fact, aggressively normal.
Blue border. Clip-art ties. A cartoon man holding a barbecue spatula. Three exclamation marks after Father’s Day Breakfast!
You read it once.
Then again.
Then a third time, although by then the words had stopped meaning anything and had become shapes on the screen.
Dear families,
We are excited to invite all dads, grandfathers, uncles, special friends and father figures to our Father’s Day breakfast on Friday morning…
You closed the laptop.
Then opened it again almost immediately, because closing it did not, apparently, cancel Father’s Day.
Luka was on the floor in the sitting room, lying on his stomach with a dinosaur pressed dramatically against a wooden rabbit.
“No,” he said in a deep voice. “You cannot go in the hole because you are a meat eater.”
You watched him for a moment.
He looked fine.
That was the problem, really.
He so often looked fine until he suddenly wasn’t.
By the following morning, you had spoken to his teacher.
You did it at drop-off, quietly, once Luka had vanished inside with his backpack bouncing against his legs and his dinosaur of the week clutched in one hand. His teacher, Ms Harris, was kind without becoming too soft, which you appreciated. You had grown to dread that look people got sometimes, the one that made you feel as though grief had entered the room before you had.
“I just wanted to mention the Father’s Day activities,” you said, keeping your voice low.
Ms Harris nodded at once.
“Yes. I did wonder whether we should have a chat.”
You nodded too, gripping the strap of your bag.
“He might be fine. Or he might not. I honestly don’t know. But his biological father…”
You stopped, because there was no simple way to say it in a kindergarten corridor next to a wall display of paper plate suns.
Ms Harris’s face softened.
“I understand.”
You were not sure she did, exactly, but you were grateful she did not make you explain.
“There’s a breakfast, isn’t there?” you said.
“Yes. The Friday before Father’s Day. We’re making invitations this week. Then cards and a little photo frame for Sunday. There’s also a small ‘All About My Dad’ sheet for show and tell.”
Your stomach tightened.
“Right.”
“We can absolutely adapt it,” she said quickly. “He doesn’t have to participate. He can make something for someone else, or do a different activity entirely. We have children with all sorts of family structures. We’re very careful.”
You swallowed.
“Thank you.”
“And I’ll speak with him gently,” she added. “Not in front of the others.”
You looked through the glass panel in the classroom door. Luka was sitting beside another little boy, already talking with both hands as if he were in the middle of an urgent board meeting.
“He may say he doesn’t want to do it,” you said.
“Then he won’t.”
“He may say he does and then get upset.”
“Then we’ll stop.”
You nodded again.
You wanted to be reassured.
You were.
That did not make you feel better.
Father’s Day had never been something you had expected to fear. It was supposed to be school stalls and ugly mugs and paper ties. It was supposed to be ordinary and, before everything had happened, and before Luka was so confused with life, it was you who had attended these events. Because there was no father and there was no father figure before.
But ordinary had always been where the hardest things hid now. Especially after the abduction.
*******
That afternoon, Ms Harris approached Luka during quiet activity time.
The children were scattered across the tables, surrounded by crayons, glue sticks and paper offcuts. One table was making invitations. Another had started on cards. There was glitter already on the floor, though no glitter had technically been opened yet, which Ms Harris considered one of the enduring mysteries of early childhood education.
Luka sat with his dinosaur beside his elbow, carefully sharpening a blue pencil that did not need sharpening.
“Luka,” Ms Harris said softly, pulling a small chair beside him.
He looked up.
“Yes?”
“We’re doing some Father’s Day crafts this week.”
He blinked at her.
“All right.”
“And I just wanted to tell you that you don’t have to make one if you don’t want to.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
Ms Harris paused.
“Well, sometimes children have different families. Some children might make things for their dad, or their grandad, or their uncle, or someone special.”
Luka stared at her with growing suspicion.
“I have a dad.”
Ms Harris went very still.
“Oh,” she said carefully.
Luka looked almost offended now.
“I do.”
“Of course,” she said, recovering quickly. “Then would you like to make an invitation for him?”
“Yes.”
“Lovely. That’s absolutely fine.”
He picked up a sheet of folded paper, apparently satisfied that the adult had stopped being strange.
Ms Harris sat with him while he worked.
The front of the invitation was supposed to show the child and their father doing something together. Some children drew footballs. Some drew cars. One child drew their father asleep on the sofa, which Ms Harris privately thought was probably the most accurate submission of the day.
Luka drew a person.
Then he added dark hair.
Then, very carefully, he added two earrings to one very large ear.
Ms Harris looked down at the paper.
The figure had a book in one hand. Beside him was a rabbit. Or possibly a potato with ears. There were also two socks, each a different colour, floating near the figure’s feet.
“What are those?” Ms Harris asked gently.
“Socks.”
“Right. And why are they different?”
“Because he can’t find them properly.”
“I see.”
“He says they are the same if they both go on feet.”
Ms Harris pressed her lips together.
“That’s very practical of him.”
“No, Mum says it’s horrifying.”
Luka added what appeared to be a dinosaur wearing a crown.
“And is that you?” Ms Harris asked.
“No. That’s Judge Roary.”
“Of course.”
“He does dino court.”
“I remember dino court.”
Luka looked pleased by that.
Then he opened the card and, with enormous concentration, began making marks inside.
The card itself was mostly pre-written.
Dear Dad,
Happy Father’s Day!
Thank you for…
Ms Harris moved closer.
“What would you like it to say after thank you for?”
Luka thought seriously.
His tongue poked out a little at the corner of his mouth.
“Reading to me,” he said.
Ms Harris wrote it down.
“Reading to me,” she repeated.
“And tugging me in.”
“Tucking?”
“No. Tugging.”
Ms Harris hesitated.
“Do you mean tucking you in at night?”
“Yes. Tugging.”
“Right.”
She wrote tucking me in, then immediately felt dishonest.
“And being funny sometimes,” Luka added.
“Only sometimes?”
“He is funny a lot, but sometimes he is annoying when he uses the big voice.”
“The big voice?”
“When he does the story and makes the dragon sound like Maddy’s friend Sam.”
Ms Harris had no idea who Sam was, but she nodded as if this explained everything.
“So,” she said, “thank you for reading to me, tucking me in, and being funny sometimes.”
Luka nodded.
“And then I love you very much Luka.”
Ms Harris’s pen paused.
Just for half a second.
Then she wrote it.
I love you very much.
Luka.
She looked at the card.
Then at the invitation.
Then at Luka, who was now attempting to glue an entire handful of glitter onto the photo frame without using his hands.
“Luka,” she said, carefully, “what is your dad’s name?”
He looked at her as if this was a very basic question.
“Tom.”
“Oh.”
Ms Harris sat back slightly.
That did explain things.
By the time they reached the All About My Dad worksheet, Ms Harris had the mild, dazed expression of a woman who had started the morning expecting a sensitive pastoral issue and instead found herself fact-checking the private life of an actor through the medium of crayon.
My dad’s name is: Tom
My dad does this for work: Actor
I like to do this with my dad: Lego. Reading. Dino court. Feed bunnies. Football but he is bad.
My dad likes: Books. The red football team. Coffee. Vanilla ice cream.
Ms Harris looked down at the sheet.
“The red football team?”
“Arsenal,” Luka said.
“Oh.”
“He says it like this.”
Luka put on a very serious face and, in an accent that was neither Tom’s nor any known dialect on earth, said:
“Ah-sen-al.”
Ms Harris choked slightly.
“And football but he is bad?” she asked.
Luka nodded gravely.
“He tries.”
“That’s important.”
“Yes,” Luka agreed. “Mum says trying is important when someone is hopeless.”
Ms Harris made a mental note to never let the school counsellor read these worksheets without warning.
That afternoon, when you picked Luka up, Ms Harris caught your eye.
“He did the Father’s Day activities,” she said quietly.
Your heart gave a strange, hard kick.
“Oh.”
“He was very happy to.”
You looked toward Luka. He was standing at his bag hook, shoving something inside his backpack with the urgency of a jewel thief.
“He was?”
“Yes.” Ms Harris hesitated. “He made them for Tom.”
The name landed in you softly and painfully at the same time.
“Right,” you said.
“He was very clear.”
You glanced again at Luka.
He looked up at that exact moment and shouted, “No looking!”
You froze.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were nearly.”
“I was not nearly.”
“You were nearly looking with your eyes.”
Ms Harris turned her face slightly, but you saw the smile.
On the walk home, the top corner of something cardboard stuck out of Luka’s bag.
“Can I help you carry that?” you asked.
“No.”
“It looks heavy.”
“It is secret.”
“I see.”
“No touching.”
“I wasn’t going to touch it.”
“You do touching sometimes.”
“I do touching sometimes?”
“Yes. Like with washing.”
“That’s because washing needs to be touched.”
“This doesn’t.”
You left it alone.
At home, Luka took the bag upstairs, disappeared into his room, then came back down five minutes later with his dinosaur tucked under his arm and a look of grave emotional strain on his face.
Tom was in the sitting room, reading a script with a pencil between his fingers. His bare feet were on the edge of the coffee table while he balanced a mug of coffee precariously beside a stack of pages.
You were in the kitchen, technically chopping carrots, actually watching.
Luka stopped in the doorway.
Tom looked up.
“All right?”
Luka nodded once.
Then shook his head.
Then nodded again.
Tom lowered the script.
“That’s a lot of answers.”
Luka hugged the dinosaur tighter.
“I have something.”
“Is it alive?”
“No.”
“Is it sticky?”
“No.”
Luka looked offended.
“Good. That’s my preferred category of object.”
Luka took three small steps forward, then stopped.
Tom’s expression changed. Not obviously. Not enough to startle him. But you saw the shift. The way he set the script aside properly. The way he gave Luka all of his attention without making a performance of it.
Luka held out the invitation.
Tom took it.
For a second, he did not understand what he was looking at.
Then he did.
The paper was folded unevenly. The front was covered in glitter, pencil marks, a dinosaur, something that might have been a rabbit, and a tall figure with dark hair, earrings, a book and catastrophic socks.
Inside, in careful adult handwriting beneath Luka’s attempt at letters, it said:
Please come to Father’s Day breakfast.
Tom went very still.
You stopped chopping.
Luka shifted from one foot to the other.
“It’s at kindy,” he said quickly. “There is toast. Maybe muffins. And the dads come. But you don’t have to. Ms Harris said you don’t have to if you are busy or if you don’t want to or if you have work or if you get shy.”
Tom blinked.
“If I get shy?”
“Mum says sometimes you get shy and pretend you are being difficult.”
Your knife paused above the carrot.
Tom looked up at you.
You turned back to the chopping board with great interest.
“Did she?” he said.
You said nothing.
Luka pushed on, words tumbling faster now.
“And there are seats, and we sing a song, but I don’t know the song yet because Jaxon kept making fart noises. And I made you an invite because you are my dad for school.”
Tom’s throat moved.
“For school?” he asked softly.
Luka looked suddenly uncertain.
“And home too,” he said. “If you want.”
The room became unbearably quiet.
Tom stared at him for half a second too long, and Luka’s face began to fold in on itself with worry.
So Tom moved.
He put the invitation down carefully on top of the script, then opened his arms.
“Come here.”
Luka went at once.
Not cautiously. Not politely.
He launched himself at Tom, dinosaur and all, and Tom caught him with a small, broken sound that might have been a laugh if it had managed to survive the journey.
“I’d love to come,” Tom said into his hair.
Luka’s arms tightened around his neck.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You can eat toast?”
“I am extremely experienced with toast.”
“And muffins?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“And singing?”
Tom hesitated.
“I can stand near singing.”
Luka pulled back, serious.
“You have to sing.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Fine,” Tom said. “But if the song is terrible, I’m blaming Jaxon.”
Luka nodded, completely accepting this arrangement.
Then he pressed his face back into Tom’s shoulder.
You turned away from the carrots because you were not going to cry over a glittery kindergarten invitation.
You absolutely were not.
Tom looked over Luka’s head at you.
His eyes were bright.
Yours were too.
Neither of you said anything, because if either of you did, the whole room would probably fall apart.
*********
The Father’s Day breakfast was, by every possible measure, chaos.
It began at eight-thirty in the morning, which was already an act of aggression against families.
Tom stood in the kindergarten playground wearing a navy jumper, his hair still slightly damp from the shower, holding Luka’s hand in one hand and a paper plate in the other.
Luka had insisted they arrive early.
Then, the moment they arrived early, had become suspicious of being early.
“Where are the muffins?” Luka asked.
“They’ll be inside.”
“What if the dads eat them first?”
“I think we are part of the dads.”
Luka looked up at him.
“Yes,” he said, then smiled so suddenly Tom almost lost the ability to stand normally.
Inside, the classroom had been rearranged with small tables, tiny chairs, plates of toast, cut fruit, muffins and urns of coffee that had clearly been made by someone who considered coffee a rumour rather than a beverage.
Tom folded himself into a kindergarten chair beside Luka.
His knees were not where knees ought to be.
Luka looked delighted.
“You’re too big.”
“I had noticed.”
“You look silly.”
“I feel silly.”
“Good.”
A grandfather across the table smiled at him.
“First one?”
Tom looked at Luka.
“Yes,” he said. “First one.”
Luka beamed into his toast.
The young intern teachers were trying very hard not to stare.
They were not succeeding.
One of them, Miss Abbey, stood near the craft shelf holding a jug of orange juice and whispering to the other, “That is definitely him.”
The other, Miss Clare, whispered back, “I know. He dropped off Luka the a few days ago.”
“He’s really handsome.”
“I know.”
“Like, really attractive.”
“I know.”
Tom, who had spent twenty years developing a near-supernatural awareness of being discussed in rooms, pretended not to hear.
Luka, who had no such filter and also no respect for whispered privacy, turned around in his tiny chair.
“He is my mum’s,” he announced.
Both interns froze.
Tom closed his eyes.
Ms Harris, across the room, made a small noise that suggested she had swallowed a laugh whole.
Miss Abbey went bright pink.
“Oh,” she said. “Of course, Luka. That’s very lovely.”
“He sleeps in her bed,” Luka added helpfully.
Tom opened his eyes.
“Luka.”
Luka turned back.
“What?”
“That’s enough.”
“But you do.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And sometimes you snore.”
“I absolutely do not.”
Luka took a bite of toast.
“You do a little bit.”
The grandfather across the table coughed violently into his coffee.
Tom stared at the wall.
Ms Harris turned away completely now.
The singing was worse.
The children stood in a line at the front of the classroom and performed a song about dads being heroes, dads fixing things, dads lifting children high and dads loving them forever.
Tom had expected to feel awkward.
He had not expected to feel dismantled.
Luka did not know half the words. He sang three seconds behind everyone else. At one point he waved at Tom instead of doing the actions. During the line about dads fixing things, Luka pointed directly at Tom and shook his head.
Several parents laughed.
Tom did too, though his face felt strange.
After the song, Luka ran back to him with a muffin.
“I got you chocolate because you don’t like fruit.”
“Very thoughtful.”
“It has banana.”
“That is fruit.”
“It is hiding.”
“Sinister.”
Luka climbed onto his lap even though the chair was already performing miracles.
Tom put an arm around him.
And for the rest of the breakfast, with weak coffee cooling in front of him and glitter stuck to his sleeve and Luka’s elbow in his ribs, Tom felt something settle into place with a tenderness so sharp it was almost pain.
**********
Then, on Sunday morning, Tom was told to stay in bed.
This was not unusual in the sense that Tom liked staying in bed.
It was unusual in the sense that Ellie stood at the foot of it at eight in the morning with a level of authority that suggested she had inherited all of Ruth’s organisational skills and none of Tom’s respect for sleep.
“Do not come downstairs,” she said.
Tom opened one eye.
“Good morning to you too.”
“I mean it.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Being annoying before breakfast.”
“That feels pre-emptive.”
“It’s based on extensive evidence.”
He looked beside him. Your side of the bed was empty, which meant you had either been recruited into this operation or had escaped before the coup began.
Ellie pointed at him.
“Stay.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“Just stay.”
Then she left.
Five minutes later, she returned carrying coffee with both hands and an expression of deep concentration.
Tom sat up carefully.
“You made this?”
“Yes.”
“I’m frightened.”
“You should be. I wasn’t sure which machine button was correct.”
He took the mug.
“Thank you.”
“It might be decaf.”
“That would be a betrayal.”
“It might also be very strong.”
“That would be a blessing.”
Ellie hovered for a second, suddenly less sharp around the edges.
“Happy Father’s Day,” she said, too quickly.
Tom looked at her.
Something moved across his face before he could stop it.
“Thank you, El.”
She shrugged, already embarrassed.
“It’s not the real present. This is just coffee.”
“Coffee is often the real present.”
Before she could answer, there was a thundering noise from the hallway.
Then Luka burst into the room.
He was wearing dinosaur pyjamas, one sock, and the expression of a child who had been waiting his entire life for this precise moment.
“Happy Father’s Day!”
He climbed directly onto Tom.
The coffee sloshed dangerously.
“Careful,” Tom said, laughing. “I’d like to remain a father figure with skin.”
Luka wriggled onto his lap and dumped three wrapped parcels and a card onto the doona.
One of the parcels was soft. One was flat. One appeared to have been wrapped by someone during a minor earthquake.
“I made them,” Luka said.
“I can see.”
“And I didn’t tell you.”
“You were very secretive.”
“I nearly told you five times.”
“I noticed.”
Luka sat back on his knees, suddenly shy.
Tom glanced at you then, because you had appeared in the doorway quietly, arms folded across your chest, hair loose around your face.
You looked soft and tired and terrified.
Tom understood why a second later.
Luka put both hands on the doona.
“I know you’re not my real dad,” he said.
The words hit the room with the force of something much larger than his little voice.
Tom went still.
Ellie froze in the doorway behind you as she was on the way back down.
Luka kept looking at his hands.
“But I wanted to see if you wanted to be my dad anyway. Because you kind of are. And everyone has a dad at kindy and I picked you because you do dad things and you came to breakfast and you know how I like the dragon voice and you make Mum happy even when she does the face.”
You pressed a hand to your mouth.
Tom’s voice, when it came, was rough.
“What face?”
Luka looked up.
“The sad face when she thinks no one sees.”
Tom’s eyes flicked to you.
You looked away.
Luka leaned forward, urgent now.
“So do you want to? You don’t have to. Ms Harris says special people can be lots of different people, and Mum said families don’t have to match other families, but I thought maybe you could be my dad because you already are and also because I made the card say dad.”
Tom did not answer immediately.
Not because he did not know.
Because knowing was too big for speech.
He set the coffee carefully on the bedside table.
Then he reached for Luka and pulled him in.
“Yes,” he said, and the word was barely steady. “Yes, sweetheart. I would love that.”
Luka went boneless with relief.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
Tom closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You have to say promise.”
“I promise.”
“You have to not go away.”
The room changed.
You saw it go through Tom. Saw the pain, the care, the understanding that some promises had to be made with truth and not panic.
He held Luka a little closer.
“I am not going away,” he said. “I promise I am going to do everything I can to be here. Always.”
Luka considered that.
Then nodded into his chest.
“Okay.”
Tom kissed his hair.
Ellie looked down quickly, pretending to inspect the carpet.
You failed entirely at not crying.
Luka, who had apparently finished with the emotional portion of the morning, sat back up and shoved the flat parcel at Tom.
“Open this one. It has too much glitter.”
“It certainly has some glitter.”
“It has the right amount.”
The card said Dear Dad in big uneven letters. Inside, beneath the teacher’s careful handwriting, Luka had drawn a dinosaur, a rabbit, Tom, you, Mia, Ellie, and himself. Everyone had long arms. Tom had earrings bigger than his head.
Tom stared at it for a long moment.
“I look very glamorous.”
“You are.”
“Thank you.”
The photo frame was next. It was covered in dinosaurs, foam stars, stickers, and so much glitter it seemed structurally dependent on it. Inside was a photo taken at kindergarten breakfast. Luka was grinning. Tom was folded beside him on a miniature chair, looking far too tall, far too emotional, and entirely unaware of the glitter on his cheek.
Tom ran his thumb once along the edge of the frame.
“This is perfect,” he said.
Luka watched him closely.
“You like it?”
“I love it.”
“Good. Because it took a very long time and Jaxon put glue on my chair.”
“That sounds like Jaxon.”
“It does. And now you need to get up for Ellie’s surprise.”
**********
Downstairs, Ellie had already made breakfast.
This was impressive until you reached the kitchen and saw the full scope of it.
There was coffee.
There was a bowl of Cheerios.
There was milk in a small jug.
There was a side bowl of yoghurt with exactly one strawberry placed on top like a decorative apology.
Tom looked at the table.
Ellie stood beside it, arms crossed.
“I know you hate fruit,” she said, “but it looked ugly without it.”
Tom looked at the strawberry.
“It does add drama.”
“It’s garnish. You don’t have to eat it.”
“Thank God.”
“And I toasted bread but Luka ate one.”
“I was hungry,” Luka said from the table, already climbing onto his chair.
“You ate the corner of three pieces.”
“I was checking them.”
Tom turned to Ellie.
“This is brilliant.”
She shrugged.
“It’s cereal.”
“It’s not the cereal.”
He stepped forward and hugged her.
For a second she stiffened in that teenage way of hers, all elbows and pride. Then she softened and hugged him back.
“Happy Father’s Day,” she muttered into his jumper.
“Thank you.”
“I got you something too.”
He let her go.
“You did?”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked.”
“You look shocked.”
“I’m emotionally versatile.”
“You’re weird.”
She handed him a small wrapped present and a card.
The wrapping was much neater than Luka’s, which meant Ruth had absolutely been involved. The card was sharp and funny and painfully Ellie: a drawing of Tom asleep on a sofa, mouth open, script on his chest, with a speech bubble that said I AM RESTING MY EYES.
He laughed properly.
“That is defamatory.”
“It’s documentary.”
The present was a new leather bookmark, engraved with his initials on one side and, on the other, in tiny lettering:
Stop folding the corners.
Tom stared at it.
Ellie smiled, awkward and pleased.
“Mum said it was either that or socks, but I thought socks was depressing.”
“It is excellent,” Tom said quietly.
“You like it?”
“I love it.”
“Good.” She cleared her throat. “Also Mum says happy Father’s Day.”
You smiled, but your eyes had moved toward the stairs.
Mia had not come down.
Tom noticed because Tom noticed everything where the children were concerned now, even when he pretended not to.
“She all right?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know,” you said.
You tried to keep your voice neutral.
It didn’t quite work.
The worry had been sitting in you all morning. Mia was older. Mia understood more. Mia remembered more. Father’s Day for Luka was becoming something simple because Luka needed it to be simple. Tom was here. Tom loved him. Tom tucked him in and came to kindergarten breakfast and played dino court badly but with commitment.
For Mia, nothing was simple.
She had once had a father.
A terrible one.
A frightening one.
But still.
Blood made people say stupid things. The world was full of stupid things said in the name of blood.
Tom looked toward the hallway.
“I can go up.”
“No,” you said quickly. “Maybe give her a minute.”
He nodded, though you could tell it cost him not to move.
Luka was halfway through telling Ellie that the strawberry was “performing decoration” when you heard footsteps on the stairs.
Mia appeared in the doorway wearing leggings and an oversized jumper, her hair still messy from sleep.
She was holding something behind her back.
“Sorry,” she said at once. “I couldn’t find the sticky tape, so I improvised.”
Her voice was too casual.
Her eyes were not.
Tom straightened slightly.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not. Well. It might be. The wrapping is bad.”
“That’s all right. I’ve already seen what Luka considers wrapping.”
“Mine has less glitter.”
“Then you’re ahead.”
Mia came forward slowly.
She looked at you first.
You gave the tiniest nod.
Then she looked at Tom.
Her face did something that made her look suddenly much younger than ten. Not small exactly. Just unguarded in a way she so rarely allowed.
“Happy Father’s Day,” she said.
Tom stared at her.
You could see him trying to react correctly. Not too much. Not too little. Not to frighten her away with the size of what it meant.
“Thank you, Mia,” he said softly.
She handed him the card first.
It was handmade. Cream paper. Pressed flowers carefully glued around the edges. The handwriting inside was neat, deliberate, and there were places where she had clearly stopped and started again.
Tom opened it.
You watched his face as he read.
Dear Tom,
Thank you for being there for me and Luka and Mum too.
I am glad you are part of our life.
Thank you for being like a dad to us, even when things are hard or weird.
Love you.
Happy Father’s Day.
Mia.
Tom did not move.
Not for several seconds.
Then he closed the card very carefully, as if roughness might damage something more than paper.
Mia shifted.
“I know it’s not… I mean, I didn’t know if I should write dad, because I don’t call you that, and I didn’t want it to be strange, and maybe it is strange, but Luka was making things and Ellie was doing breakfast and I thought—”
Tom set the card down.
“Mia.”
She stopped.
His voice was quiet.
“It’s not strange.”
Her mouth pressed together.
“It is a bit.”
He smiled faintly.
“Yes. All right. It’s a bit strange.”
That made her breathe out, almost a laugh.
“But it’s lovely,” he said. “And I’ll keep it forever.”
She looked down.
“You don’t have to say forever.”
“I mean forever.”
Mia’s fingers tightened around the wrapped present.
Then she pushed it toward him.
“This is also not much.”
Tom took it.
It was clearly a book. Badly wrapped in brown paper, with one corner exposed and what appeared to be a ribbon stolen from a Christmas box.
“You are all very determined to make me cry before nine in the morning,” he said.
Mia’s eyes widened.
“No. Don’t cry.”
“I said determined. I didn’t say successful.”
Ellie snorted.
“You’re already halfway there.”
“I am not.”
“You’re doing the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The emotionally constipated one.”
“Ellie.”
“What? You are.”
Mia smiled despite herself.
Tom opened the present.
Inside was a second-hand copy of Tolstoy. Old, worn at the edges, the spine softened by other people’s hands. Not one of the obvious ones. Not one he already had.
He stared at it.
Mia spoke quickly.
“I know you like that guy. I looked at your shelves, and you didn’t have that one. Or I couldn’t see it. You have too many books, so maybe you do have it somewhere, but I tried to check properly. When I went out with Maddy, I asked if we could stop at the second-hand bookshop, and I bought it with my pocket money. Sorry it isn’t new.”
Tom looked up.
His eyes were bright again.
Mia’s face changed with panic.
“Oh no.”
Tom laughed once, but it broke a little.
“No, darling. It’s not—”
He stopped, swallowed, and tried again.
“It’s perfect.”
“You really didn’t have it?”
“I really didn’t.”
“And you like old books.”
“I love old books.”
“Because they smell weird.”
“Because they have history.”
“They smell weird.”
“They also smell weird.”
She nodded, satisfied.
Tom ran his thumb over the cover.
“You chose this yourself?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he reached out, slowly enough that she could refuse if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
He pulled her gently into a hug.
Mia stood stiffly for half a second.
Then something in her gave way.
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his shoulder.
Tom closed his eyes.
You turned toward the sink and wiped your face with the heel of your hand.
Ellie pretended to be very invested in pouring milk.
Luka looked around at everyone, then announced, “Everyone is being leaky.”
Mia laughed into Tom’s jumper.
That was what undid him, you thought.
Not the card.
Not the book.
Not even the word dad hovering over the room in all its strange, delicate forms.
It was Mia laughing while she held onto him.
“Thank you,” he said, so quietly you almost did not hear it.
Mia pulled back after a moment, wiping at her face with her sleeve and immediately embarrassed.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s more than fine.”
“Don’t make it a thing.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re making the face.”
“I have a lot of faces, apparently.”
“You do.”
Luka nodded solemnly.
“Mum has sad face. Tom has wet face.”
Tom looked at him.
“Wet face?”
“Your eyes are doing water.”
“Thank you, Luka.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ellie put the cereal bowl in front of him with a flourish.
“Eat your Cheerios, Wet Face.”
Tom looked at all of them.
Ellie, standing there in pyjamas and trying not to look too pleased with herself.
Mia, still close enough that her shoulder almost touched his arm.
Luka, licking yoghurt off his spoon and somehow already glittery again.
You, by the sink, crying badly and pretending you were not.
The kitchen was a mess. The coffee was probably terrible. The toast was half-eaten, the strawberry had been rejected, and there was a dinosaur sitting in the sugar bowl.
Tom looked at the card from Luka, the bookmark from Ellie, the pressed-flower card from Mia, the old Tolstoy in his hand.
Then he looked at you.
You smiled through tears.
He smiled back.
And for once, he did not make a joke quickly enough to hide behind it.
He simply sat there at the kitchen table, surrounded by children who had made room for him in different, complicated, beautiful ways, and let himself be loved.
r u gonna give Lilliana anymore air time? it would be interesting to see her have some remorse, or even feel guilty for what she did getting the paps involved. Or you can keep her a villain I don't mind either
She’ll definitely appear again, but realistically there isn’t a huge amount of damage she can do now.
The relationship is public, Tom isn’t hiding it, the family knows, the friends know, and after everything with the abduction, a few paparazzi photos are barely a ripple in comparison.
What’s more interesting to me now is what Liliana thinks about it all. Whether she doubles down, whether she feels guilty, whether she convinces herself she was justified, or whether she has one of those horrible moments where she realises she helped put events in motion that spiralled far beyond what she intended.
So yes, she’ll be back. But she’s lost most of her power over the situation, which makes her a much more interesting character than a straightforward villain.
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Warnings: Age Gap, Domestic Abuse, Arranged Marriage, Sexual Abuse, PTSD, Religious Extremism; Implied Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Child Abduction,
For the first week after sentencing, peace arrived badly.
Not absent.
Not impossible.
Just clumsy.
It came into the house in strange little pieces, never all at once. It came in the silence after the children were asleep and no one called. It came in Luka eating cereal in his pyjamas without asking whether anyone was coming to take him. It came in Mia leaving her bedroom door unlocked again. It came in Tom making tea in the kitchen with dried blood no longer under his nose, though the bruise had bloomed yellow and purple across the bridge of it in a way that made him look faintly tragic whenever sunlight hit him.
It came in you waking at three in the morning, heart hammering, convinced you had heard something, and finding Tom half-awake beside you already reaching for your hand.
“It’s all right,” he would murmur, voice rough with sleep. “You’re here. The children are here. He’s not.”
Sometimes that helped.
Sometimes you cried anyway.
Tom never made you feel stupid for it.
He only turned fully toward you, wrapped one arm around your waist, and held you with that careful, total seriousness that still occasionally undid you. As though he had decided long ago that if he could not fix the damage, he could at least make sure you did not carry it alone in the dark.
The outside world, unfortunately, had not agreed to be as gentle.
Stories went out.
Of course they did.
Not all at once. Not cleanly. Little pieces of it leaked, were confirmed, were softened, were spun. The court case had somehow gathered public interest beyond anything you had expected, partly because of Tom, partly because of the abduction, partly because people loved a story they could consume from a distance and call concern.
There were headlines.
Some were careful.
Some were not.
Some said “actor’s partner” as though you were not a person. Some used your new name with startling confidence. Some called your husband “disgraced.” A few tried to make the whole thing sound like some grim celebrity scandal rather than a four-year-old boy being taken from kindergarten by his father with forged papers and a plane ticket.
Sarah contained most of it.
You still had no idea how.
The punch-up in court should have been everywhere. It should have exploded into headlines, grainy sketches, gleeful little sidebars about Tom Sturridge losing control in court. There should have been a thousand opinion pieces about violence and masculinity and whether he had helped or hurt your case.
Instead, somehow, it became “a brief courtroom disturbance.”
Brief.
Disturbance.
You stared at the phrase on Tom’s phone while sitting at the kitchen island and actually laughed.
It came out slightly hysterical.
Tom looked up from the other side of the counter, where he was spreading peanut butter on toast for Luka with extreme concentration.
“What?”
You turned the phone toward him.
“A brief courtroom disturbance.”
Tom looked at it.
Then at you.
Then back at it.
His face went flat.
“That sounds like I knocked over a chair.”
Mia, sitting with one knee drawn up on the stool, said without looking up from her cereal, “You sort of knocked over a man.”
Tom paused with the knife in the peanut butter jar.
Luka looked delighted.
“Tom knocked over a man?”
You closed your eyes.
“No.”
Mia said, “Technically.”
“Mia.”
She looked at you with calm innocence.
“What? He did. Well, almost at least.”
Tom pointed the butter knife at her, then realised it was covered in peanut butter and lowered it.
“You are becoming increasingly difficult.”
Mia smiled into her cereal.
“Thank you.”
Luka kicked his feet under the counter.
“Was it the bad man who took me?”
The kitchen went very still.
Not in the old way.
Not in the way that meant everyone had to pretend nothing had happened.
Just still.
You looked at Luka.
He looked so little sitting there in his dinosaur pyjama top, hair sticking up on one side, mouth slightly shiny from toast. Five soon. Almost five. Too young for courtrooms. Too young for airport police. Too young for the word abduction.
Tom set the knife down slowly.
You went around the island and crouched beside Luka’s stool.
“Yes,” you said carefully.
Luka considered this.
Then nodded slowly and looked at Tom.
“And you knocked him over?”
Tom looked briefly as though he might jump out of the nearest window.
“Not exactly.”
Mia said, “He hit him.”
“Mia.”
“Sorry.”
She did not sound sorry.
Tom rubbed a hand over his face.
“I should not have hit him.”
Luka frowned.
“Why?”
Tom looked at him properly then.
Not dismissively. Not as though Luka was too small to deserve a real answer.
“Because hitting people when you are angry is not how we fix things. It’ wrong.”
Luka thought about that.
Then, with devastating seriousness, “But if someone takes me, you can hit them.”
Your whole chest caved in.
Tom’s face changed.
He came around the counter and crouched too, despite the toast beginning to cool behind him.
“If anyone ever tried to take you again,” he said, very softly, “I would do everything I could to stop them. But I would also try very hard not to do something stupid in the middle of a courtroom.”
Luka nodded.
“Because the judge lady gets cross.”
Mia snorted into her cereal.
You laughed before you could stop yourself.
Tom’s mouth twitched.
“Yes,” he said. “Because judge lady gets very cross.”
That was peace too, you thought.
Not clean.
Not pretty.
But real.
A child turning terror into a judge lady who got cross.
A joke landing where a wound had been.
A kitchen where no one had to lower their voice because your husband might hear.
The following week Tom had to go before a magistrate.
He pretended not to be nervous.
He was appalling at it.
That morning he changed shirts four times, which he insisted was because he could not decide what looked “respectfully apologetic without suggesting guilt beyond the agreed facts.” He paced the bedroom in socks and trousers, hair still wet from the shower, fidgeting with the cuff of one sleeve until you finally caught his wrist.
“Stop.”
He looked down at your hand.
“I’m perfectly calm.”
“You are one shirt change away from a breakdown.”
“That’s not true.”
From the doorway, Mia said, “It is true.”
Tom turned.
“Why are you here?”
“Because you keep coming downstairs in different shirts and Luka thinks you’re doing a fashion show.”
Luka appeared under her arm, clutching a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
“I liked the blue one.”
Tom stared at him.
“Thank you.”
“But not the grey one.”
“Brutal.”
You took the shirt from Tom’s hands and put it on the bed.
“Wear the blue one.”
“The blue one says too relaxed.”
Mia leaned against the doorframe.
“No one thinks you’re relaxed.”
Tom inhaled slowly.
“This family is becoming unsustainable.”
You smiled despite yourself, stepped closer, and fixed his collar.
His hands stilled at his sides.
That always happened now. Not every time. But often enough that you had begun to notice. When you touched him gently and deliberately, some restless part of him seemed to pause and listen.
“You’ll go,” you said. “You’ll apologise. You’ll be told off. You’ll come home.”
His eyes flicked over your face.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It is simple.”
“It is not simple.”
“Tom.”
He exhaled.
“I know.”
You smoothed his collar down.
“It’s over.”
His jaw tightened.
“For him.”
“For us too. Not all of it. But that part.”
He looked at you for a moment, then nodded once.
The magistrate did tell him off.
Thoroughly.
Sarah called it “a stern but survivable judicial scolding.” Tom called it “deeply humiliating.” Maddy called it “character-building.” Sam, who had insisted on going with him because apparently Tom could not be trusted to attend a legal appointment without adult supervision, texted you afterwards.
Told off. Very schoolboy. No prison. No fine worth crying over. He looks like he’s been made to apologise to a headmaster.
When Tom came home, he looked both relieved and irritated.
You were in the hallway when he stepped through the door.
He paused when he saw you.
You had meant to be normal about it.
You were not.
You crossed the hall and put your arms around him.
Tom’s bag slid from his shoulder and landed on the floor with a dull thud.
For a second he just stood there.
Then he folded around you.
“Well,” he murmured into your hair, “that was horrible.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
You pulled back.
“Really?”
He made a face.
“I was told I had brought the administration of justice into disrepute.”
From the living room, Maddy called, “You did punch a man in front of a judge.”
Tom closed his eyes.
“Why is she here?”
Maddy appeared in the doorway holding a mug.
“For emotional support and mockery.”
“For whom?”
“Everyone.”
You laughed, and Tom looked down at you as if the sound was worth the entire miserable morning.
That was happening more too.
You noticing the way he watched for your happiness now. Not greedily. Not proudly. Carefully. As though it reassured him more than anything else did.
Your solicitor started the divorce proceedings soon after.
The paperwork arrived in a thick envelope that sat on the kitchen table for half a day before you touched it.
You had wanted this for years.
You had dreamed of it in secret with the kind of desperation that made the dream feel dangerous. To be divorced. To be legally untied. To no longer have your husband’s name hanging off you like a chain.
And still, when the papers were there in front of you, your hands shook.
Tom did not rush you.
He did not tell you it was good news.
He did not say the obvious thing, which was that your husband was in prison and could no longer stop you living.
He only made tea, set it beside you, and sat across from you without speaking.
Eventually you opened the envelope.
The first page had your married name on it.
You stared at it.
It looked like someone else.
Not entirely.
That was the worst part.
It still knew you.
Tom’s hand appeared slowly on the table, palm up.
Not taking.
Offering.
You placed your hand in his.
His fingers closed around yours.
“They said it may take a while,” you said.
“Because he has to sign?”
“Unless the court progresses it without him eventually. But yes. If he signs, it is quicker.”
Tom’s mouth tightened.
“He won’t sign.”
“No.”
You both sat with that.
Your husband would not sign because signing would mean accepting you could leave him.
He would not sign because refusal was the last bit of control he could reach from a cell.
He would not sign because even if he could no longer take Luka, he could still delay your freedom with a pen he refused to lift.
For a moment anger rose in you so sudden and hot it almost frightened you.
Then Tom squeezed your hand.
Not hard.
Just enough.
“Then we wait him out,” he said.
You looked at him.
“We?”
His expression did something small.
Tender and slightly offended.
“Yes. We.”
The court order allowing travel came faster.
That, more than anything, felt unreal.
A document saying you could take your children out of the country for a holiday without his permission.
A document saying the world was not shut anymore.
A document saying beaches, airports, passports, hotel rooms, suncream, stupid hats, and two weeks of nothing useful could exist again.
Tom read it twice, then looked up from the paper with a kind of fierce, boyish determination.
“Right.”
You knew that tone.
“Tom.”
“We’re going away.”
“We don’t have to do that immediately.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Tom.”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“School holidays.”
“You don’t even know where.”
He was already reaching for his laptop.
“Beach.”
“That is not a location.”
“It’s a concept.”
“You can’t book a concept.”
He looked at you over the laptop screen.
“Watch me.”
By dinner he had created a spreadsheet.
A holiday spreadsheet.
You stared at it in horror.
“Who are you?”
Tom, sitting beside you looked faintly defensive.
“A responsible adult.”
Mia, walking past with a book under one arm, glanced at the screen.
“That’s new.”
“Why doesn’t anyone have some faith in me?”
Luka climbed onto the sofa between you and Tom, crushing the spreadsheet discussion beneath one small knee.
“Are we going to beach?”
Tom shut the laptop before Luka could press anything catastrophic.
“Yes.”
Luka gasped as if Tom had announced a private moon landing.
“With buckets?”
“Obviously with buckets.”
“And spades?”
“Several spades.”
Luka turned to you, eyes huge.
“Mum. Several.”
That was how the holiday became real.
Not with the court order.
Not with the booking confirmation.
With Luka saying several like it was a sacred number.
In the lead-up to it, life kept rebuilding itself around you.
Luka started at his new kindergarten.
The first morning, he put on his shoes without complaint, which immediately made you suspicious. He allowed Tom to comb his hair, badly. He selected a backpack featuring dinosaurs wearing sunglasses, then changed his mind twice and chose the one with rockets. Then he stood in the hallway and asked whether the teachers knew not to give him to the wrong person.
The air left your lungs.
Tom, crouched in front of him, did not flinch.
“They know.”
Luka stared at him.
“You told them?”
“Yes.”
“Mum told them?”
You swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Police told them?”
Tom glanced at you, then back at Luka.
“The grown-ups have all spoken to each other.”
Luka nodded, serious.
“And if my old dad comes?”
Your stomach turned at the phrase.
Old dad.
As if fathers were jumpers he had outgrown.
Tom’s face stayed calm, but you saw his hand tighten once around the strap of Luka’s backpack.
“He cannot come,” Tom said. “And if anyone you don’t know comes, you find your teacher straight away. But sweetheart, no one is coming to take you.”
Luka looked at you then.
You nodded, even though your eyes had filled.
“No one is coming to take you.”
He considered this.
Then he said, “Can I still have snack?”
Tom blinked.
You laughed in a way that was almost a sob.
“Yes, darling. You can still have snack.”
The new kindergarten was smaller than the old one.
Warmer, somehow. Or perhaps you needed it to be. The teacher had kind eyes and did not look irritated by the extra paperwork, the court order, the carefully explained restrictions, the list of approved people. She crouched when she met Luka and spoke to him directly rather than over his head.
Tom stayed beside you the whole time.
Not because you needed him to speak.
Because he knew you needed him standing there.
When you finally left Luka inside, happily being shown the blocks by another little boy, your knees nearly gave way in the car park.
Tom caught your hand.
You did not hide it.
Not there.
Not anymore.
A woman near the gate looked at your joined hands, then at Tom’s face, then at you.
You looked back.
Calmly.
It startled both of you.
Her eyes moved away first.
Tom’s thumb brushed once over your knuckles.
“All right?”
You inhaled.
The morning air was cool. The sky was pale and clean. Somewhere behind the fence, Luka laughed.
“Yes,” you said, surprised to find you meant it. “I think so.”
************
You went back to the library three days a week.
The first shift felt like walking into an old version of yourself who had kept your place at the desk.
The smell hit you first.
Paper. Dust. Carpet. Rain on people’s coats. The faint plastic warmth of laminated signs. The coffee from the staff room that always tasted slightly burnt no matter who made it.
Mabel cried when she saw you.
Irene pretended not to, then cried harder because Mabel started, and then both of them blamed allergies despite the fact that neither of them had ever had allergies in their lives.
A few regulars looked at you too long.
A few said nothing at all, which was kinder.
By lunchtime you had reshelved three trolleys, found a missing invoice file, ordered more large-print crime novels, and told a man in a raincoat for the fourth time that no, he could not use the library printer to print eighty-seven pages for free because it was “technically educational.”
Normality should not have felt so radical.
But it did.
At two, Tom appeared with coffee.
You were behind the desk.
He looked absurdly pleased with himself.
“Delivery.”
You stared at him.
“You know you cannot just come to my work because you’re bored.”
“I’m not bored.”
He leaned one elbow on the desk and smiled.
Mabel, from the returns trolley, whispered loudly, “Don’t ask him to leave.”
Irene added, “He improves the atmosphere.”
You pointed at both of them.
“Traitors.”
Tom smiled.
“I’ve brought you coffee.”
“I’m working.”
“That’s why I brought coffee.”
You took it because you were weak and because he had remembered exactly how you liked it.
He looked around the library with exaggerated appreciation.
Book club also resumed that Wednesday.
Tom came. Of course.
You had thought perhaps, after everything, the ladies might be gentle.
This was a foolish assumption.
They gave Tom grief within eight minutes.
He had brought biscuits and clearly believed this would buy goodwill. It did not.
Mabel inspected the packet.
“Shop-bought.”
Tom looked wounded.
“I’m sorry, was I expected to bake?”
Irene said, “A man trying to impress a book club should never arrive with anything that says ‘family pack’.”
Tom looked at you.
“I am being bullied.”
You arranged the chairs in a circle and did not help him.
“Yes.”
“By pensioners.”
Mabel sat down with dignity.
“Experienced women.”
“My apologies.”
“Accepted.”
Then they made him read aloud.
He did it badly on purpose for the first paragraph, putting on a melodramatic voice until you kicked his ankle under the table. Then he did it properly.
That was worse.
His voice lowered. Settled. Filled the room without overwhelming it. The ladies went quiet, even Mabel, and you watched him across the circle as he read from the worn paperback you had chosen months ago before your life had split open and rearranged itself.
The fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead.
Outside, rain ticked against the windows.
Tom’s thumb moved restlessly over the spine of the book, but his voice stayed steady.
When he finished, no one spoke for a moment.
Then Irene said, “Well. That was irritatingly good.”
Tom smiled.
“Thank you, Irene.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Mabel looked at you over her glasses.
“You may keep him.”
You felt your face warm.
Tom looked at you too.
Just for a second.
But enough.
***********
Your book arrived in print on a Friday.
A box from the publisher sat on the kitchen table like an unexploded object.
You stood in front of it for twenty minutes.
Tom did not touch it.
Mia came in, saw the box, and froze.
“Is that it?”
You nodded.
Luka came in behind her wearing one sock.
“What is it?”
Mia whispered, “Mum’s book.”
Luka looked unimpressed.
“Does it have dragons?”
Tom leaned against the counter.
“Not literally.”
“Boring.”
Mia gasped.
“Luka.”
You laughed, because if you did not, you might cry.
Tom picked up the scissors and offered them handle-first.
“Do you want to open it?”
Your hands shook.
“I don’t know.”
His voice softened.
“All right.”
Mia stepped beside you.
Not touching.
Just there.
“Can I?”
You looked at her.
Her eyes were fixed on the box with an awe that made something inside you ache. Not because she saw you as famous or impressive. Because she had watched you write in the margins of exhaustion. She had seen you scribble notes after school lunches, between bills, after nightmares, during mornings when Luka would not let go of your leg. She knew, more than anyone, what those pages had cost.
You handed her the scissors.
She cut the tape carefully.
The cardboard opened.
Inside were books.
Your books.
Your new name on the cover.
Not the name your husband had given you.
Not the name you had hidden behind.
Yours.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Tom reached into the box and lifted one out.
He held it like it mattered.
Like it was fragile and sacred and alive.
His thumb brushed over your name.
His face went strange.
You could not look at him for too long.
“It looks real,” you said.
Your voice was embarrassingly small.
Tom looked up.
“It is real.”
Mia took the book from him and held it to her chest.
“Mum.”
That was all she said.
Then she burst into tears.
Which made you burst into tears.
Which made Luka burst into tears because everyone else was crying and he did not want to be left out.
Tom, surrounded suddenly by three crying people and a box of books, looked briefly toward the ceiling as if asking God for procedural guidance.
“Right,” he said, voice thick. “Wonderful. Excellent. I’ll just—yes. Tissues. We own tissues.”
Mia laughed through tears.
Luka wailed louder.
You covered your face.
Tom came back with the entire box of tissues, set it on the table, then pulled you into him with one arm and Mia with the other. Luka shoved himself between all of you, offended by any cuddle formation that did not feature him centrally.
For a while, all four of you stood there around the kitchen table, pressed together beside a cardboard box full of the life you had survived long enough to write down.
The publisher was thrilled.
Too thrilled.
Your story being public had changed everything. The very thing you had once feared—being known—had become the thing they wanted to sell. They said it kindly. Professionally. Excitedly. Your name was already in articles. There was public sympathy. There was interest. There was momentum. They wanted to move quickly.
Bookshops.
Libraries.
Panels.
Interviews.
A tour.
The phrase made you feel faint.
“A tour,” you repeated on the phone, sitting on the edge of the bed while Tom folded washing badly beside you.
He looked up immediately.
The publisher kept talking.
You kept saying things like yes and I understand and that sounds wonderful while your fingers twisted into the hem of Tom’s T-shirt.
When you hung up, you sat very still.
Tom put down a pair of Luka’s shorts.
“What did they say?”
“They want me to do a book tour.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“That’s good.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“People will ask questions.”
He sat beside you.
“Probably.”
“About him. About the children. About you.”
“Then we work out what you want to answer before anyone asks.”
You looked at him.
“We?”
He smiled faintly.
“We seem to be doing a lot of we lately.”
You lowered your eyes.
“I don’t want it to become ugly.”
“Then Sarah helps. Your publisher helps. You decide what is private.”
“What if they don’t listen?”
Tom’s expression hardened, just a little.
“Then I become unpleasant.”
You looked at him.
He sighed.
“Verbally.”
You laughed despite yourself.
“Good clarification.”
“I am learning.”
He took your hand.
“You don’t have to do any of it.”
That was what undid you most.
Not encouragement.
Choice.
You had spent so many years being told what would happen to you that being told you could decide felt almost too tender to bear.
You looked down at your joined hands.
“I think I want to.”
Tom’s thumb moved slowly over your knuckles.
“Then you will.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“What if I’m terrible?”
He looked genuinely offended.
“At speaking about books? You?”
“That is different.”
“Not that different.”
“It is very different.”
“Fine,” he said. “Then you’ll be terrible beautifully.”
You shoved him.
He smiled properly then.
And because life had apparently decided to become unrecognisable in several directions at once, Tom also signed on for another film.
It would not start until September.
That was the crucial part, he said. September. Months away. Time to be home. Time for the children. Time for the holiday. Time for your first book events. Time for stillness.
You were not sure Tom understood stillness in any meaningful way, but he seemed determined to attempt it.
For now, he claimed, he liked being a stay-at-home dad.
The phrase sounded so strange coming out of his mouth that you laughed the first time he said it.
He was standing in the kitchen wearing old jeans, barefoot, with Luka’s lunchbox open in front of him and three separate notes from school pinned beneath one magnet. One note was about a father’s day event. One was about sunhats. One was about head lice.
Tom was frowning at all three as though they formed a complex legal puzzle.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
“You said stay-at-home dad.”
He looked at you.
“Yes.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
“Tom Sturridge. Stay-at-home dad.”
He drew himself up.
“I am excellent at it.”
At that precise moment, Luka yelled from the bathroom, “Tom! I put toothpaste in my hair!”
You stared at him.
Tom closed his eyes.
“That feels unrelated to my competence.”
Mia walked past with her schoolbag.
“Does it?”
Tom pointed at her retreating back.
“Increasingly difficult.”
He was good at it, though.
Not in a neat way.
Not in the way someone organised and naturally practical might have been good at it.
Tom forgot water bottles and then ran back for them. He packed too many snacks. He got flustered by school emails and left voice notes for Sarah by accident about whether a five-year-old needed wellies for a “mud kitchen experience.” He let Luka wear odd socks because Luka insisted the socks were friends and separating them would be cruel. He learned the names of Mia’s teachers, remembered which days she liked to be collected quietly and which days she wanted to talk, and once stood in the rain for twenty-three minutes because Luka had found a snail and Tom had apparently been drawn into “a moral conversation about not abandoning Gary.”
But the children relaxed around him.
That mattered more than efficiency.
Mia stopped asking before she put things in the trolley at the supermarket. Luka began announcing to strangers that Tom was “his Tom dad,” which made Tom freeze in horror the first time and the cashier pretend not to hear while beaming into a packet of spinach.
You were not sure what to do with how much it moved you.
Sarah, meanwhile, became increasingly aggressive about Tom being visible in professional ways that did not involve court sketches or paparazzi photos outside schools.
Two photoshoots were apparently necessary.
Tom disagreed.
Sarah won.
You watched one of their phone calls from the sofa while folding laundry.
Tom paced in front of the windows, one hand in his hair, phone pressed to his ear.
“Sarah, I’m not refusing. I’m simply saying I don’t see why I need to stand in a warehouse wearing whatever they want me to wear to prove I’m not having a breakdown.”
A pause.
“Yes, I understand optics.”
Another pause.
“No, I am not saying the word brand.”
You bit your lip.
Mia, doing homework at the table, looked up.
“Is Sarah winning?”
You nodded.
Tom glanced over.
“I can hear you.”
Mia said, “So can we.”
He turned away.
“Fine,” he said into the phone. “Fine. Yes. One of them. No—two if you stop using the phrase controlled re-entry. I am not a spacecraft.”
Luka, colouring on the floor, looked up.
“You’re going to space?”
Tom stared at the ceiling.
“No.”
Luka looked disappointed.
Sarah got her two photoshoots.
Tom complained for three days.
Then went.
Then looked annoyingly good in the photographs.
You tried very hard not to say this because he was already unbearable enough, but unfortunately one of the images came through while you were at the library and Mabel saw it over your shoulder.
“Oh,” she said.
You locked your phone immediately.
Too late.
Irene appeared beside her.
“What?”
Mabel looked at you.
“That man is wasted in cardigans.”
You nearly knocked over the stamp pad.
**********
Then Luka’s fifth birthday arrived in a storm of balloons, wrapping paper, overexcited children, and Tom losing all sense of proportion.
You had agreed to a small party.
Small.
That had been the word.
Tom had nodded seriously when you said it.
Then he had gone completely mad.
By ten in the morning, his house looked like a soft-play centre had exploded inside a tasteful adult residence. There were balloons in the hallway. A cardboard castle in the living room. A hired bubble machine in the garden. Three different types of cake because Tom had panicked over whether chocolate was too obvious, vanilla too boring, and rainbow too structurally unstable. There were party bags lined up on the dining table like military supplies.
You stood in the kitchen doorway and stared.
“Tom.”
He was attempting to assemble a dinosaur-themed sandwich platter with the concentration of a surgeon.
“Yes?”
“What happened to small?”
“This is small.”
You looked around.
A helium dinosaur drifted past the doorway.
“Is it?”
He followed your gaze.
“That was unavoidable.”
“A floating dinosaur was unavoidable?”
“He’s five.”
“That does not answer the question.”
Tom placed a cucumber slice on a sandwich.
“It answers the emotional question.”
Maddy arrived first with Byron, who was one year older than Luka and already carrying the expression of a child prepared to dominate proceedings. Sam arrived five minutes later with a present that was too large and a coffee for Maddy, because those two had reached the stage of not calling anything a thing while behaving very much like it was a thing. Suki came with Rob, their toddler, and a gift wrapped so beautifully it made all your wrapping look like you had done it during an evacuation.
Luka’s kinder friends came too.
Small shoes filled the hallway.
Small voices filled the rooms.
Luka wore a party hat for six minutes, then put it on Tom instead and declared him “Birthday King Helper.”
Tom accepted this role with grave dignity.
Mia and Ellie took command of the party games with the weary authority of girls who considered themselves above such things but still wanted to win. Byron and Luka formed an alliance over the cardboard castle, then immediately betrayed each other over a foam sword. Rob’s toddler sat inside an empty box for twenty minutes and refused all cake.
At one point, you found Tom in the garden surrounded by five children while operating the bubble machine like it required dramatic technique.
“More bubbles!” Luka shouted.
Tom adjusted a dial.
“I am giving you more bubbles.”
“More more!”
“There are only so many bubbles this machine can produce.”
Byron yelled, “More!”
Tom looked at Sam, who was leaning against the fence with a drink.
“Your influence?”
Sam lifted both hands.
“He’s Maddy’s child. I’m just here for snacks.”
Maddy, passing with a plate of crisps, said, “Coward.”
The cake was the emotional climax.
Or disaster.
Possibly both.
Tom carried it out himself, which immediately made you nervous because it had three tiers, plastic dinosaurs, edible glitter, and a volcano in the centre that he insisted was “tasteful.”
It was not tasteful.
It was magnificent.
Luka saw it and screamed.
Not cried.
Screamed.
A pure, wild sound of birthday ecstasy.
Every adult in the garden flinched.
Tom looked delighted.
“See?” he said to you. “Tasteful.”
“He screamed like he saw God.”
“Exactly.”
Everyone sang.
Luka stood on a chair between you and Tom, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, one hand gripping your sleeve and the other gripping Tom’s. When the candles were lit, his face glowed gold and soft in the little flames.
For one moment, the garden blurred.
Not from fear.
From memory.
His fourth birthday had been smaller. Harder. You had still been counting money in your head, still checking your phone too often, still carrying dread like a second body. You had bought a cake from the supermarket and apologised for it, though Luka had not cared. You had sung too brightly. Mia had watched you too carefully. No one had taken photos because you had not wanted evidence of the life you were barely managing to hold together.
Now Luka stood in a garden full of people who loved him.
Safe.
Loud.
Five.
Tom looked at you across his head.
He saw it.
Of course he did.
His smile changed.
Softened.
You squeezed Luka’s hand.
“Make a wish, sweetheart.”
Luka shut his eyes very tightly.
His lips moved.
Mia shouted, “You’re not supposed to say it out loud!”
Luka opened one eye.
“I’m not.”
Then he blew out the candles with so much force that one dinosaur toppled sideways into the icing.
Everyone cheered.
Tom leaned close to you, voice low beneath the noise.
“Are you all right?”
You looked at Luka, who was now trying to rescue the fallen dinosaur by licking its head.
You looked at Mia laughing with Ellie.
At Maddy taking photos.
At Sam holding Byron upside down because apparently that was necessary.
At Suki wiping icing off Rob’s toddler’s elbow while Rob tried to negotiate with the child in the box.
At Tom beside you, ridiculous and beautiful and still wearing the party hat Luka had given him.
You nodded.
“Yes.”
Tom’s eyes searched yours.
“Really?”
You slipped your hand into his.
In front of everyone.
Without thinking.
Without flinching.
“Really.”
His fingers closed around yours.
Later, after the children had eaten too much sugar and cried over leaving and lost three party bag whistles under the sofa, after Maddy helped clean despite claiming she was “morally opposed to domestic labour at children’s parties,” after Sam carried sleeping Byron to the car, after Rob retrieved his toddler from the box with minimal cooperation, after Suki kissed your cheek and told you the party had been perfect, the house finally quieted.
Luka fell asleep on Tom’s lap halfway through opening his last present.
Mia sat on the floor beside Ellie, both of them sorting through wrapping paper and pretending not to be exhausted.
You stood in the doorway and watched Tom look down at Luka.
He had one hand spread carefully over Luka’s back.
The party hat was still on his head, crooked now.
He looked tired.
Happy.
A little overwhelmed.
You walked over and gently lifted the hat off.
Tom looked up at you.
“I think I may have overdone it.”
You looked around at the wreckage of balloons, cake crumbs, wrapping paper, bubble solution, and one suspicious smear of blue icing on the wall.
“A bit.”
He winced.
“Was it too much?”
You looked at Luka asleep against him, mouth open, one hand still clutching a tiny plastic dinosaur.
“No.”
Tom’s face softened.
“No?”
You bent and kissed him.
Just once.
Gentle.
Domestic.
In a living room destroyed by a five-year-old’s birthday party.
“No.”
You kissed him again.
Not quite as quickly this time.
Still gentle, still careful because Luka was asleep between you in a living room full of wrapping paper and cake crumbs, because Mia and Ellie were only a few feet away pretending not to notice, because there were balloons slowly dying against the ceiling and a plastic dinosaur lying face-down in a smear of blue icing on the coffee table.
But it lingered.
Long enough for Tom’s eyes to close.
Long enough for his hand, the one not holding Luka safely against him, to rise and rest lightly against your waist.
Long enough that when you drew back, he looked a little stunned.
Tired.
Soft.
Yours.
You brushed your thumb over the place where the elastic from the party hat had left a faint red line near his temple.
“Thank you.”
His brow furrowed.
“For what?”
You looked at the room again.
At the wreckage.
The excess.
The ridiculousness of it.
The cardboard castle sagging slightly in the corner. The bubble machine abandoned by the garden doors. The party bags that had been opened, emptied, swapped, fought over, and partially destroyed. The half-collapsed volcano cake. The wrapping paper Mia had tried to fold neatly before giving up because Luka had torn through everything like an animal.
Then you looked back at Tom.
“For this.”
His face changed, faintly embarrassed.
“This was mostly me being unable to behave sensibly in a party supply shop.”
You smiled.
“Yes.”
“And online.”
“Clearly.”
“And then again at the bakery.”
“Tom.”
He stopped.
You kept your hand on his face, thumb moving gently along his cheekbone.
“Thank you.”
He swallowed.
His eyes flicked down to Luka.
“He deserved a good birthday.”
That nearly broke you.
Not because it was grand.
Because it was simple.
Because Tom said it as though there had never been any other option. As though Luka deserving joy was a fact as obvious as weather. As though giving him too many balloons and three cakes and a floating dinosaur was not indulgence, but correction. A small, absurd repair offered to the world.
Your throat tightened.
“Yes,” you whispered. “He did.”
Tom looked back at you.
There was a question in his face, though he did not ask it. He was still learning not to apologise for loving too much. Still learning that excess did not always mean danger. That joy could be loud. That safety could be silly. That a five-year-old’s birthday could be overdone and still not be too much.
You bent and kissed his forehead.
Then his cheek.
Then the corner of his mouth.
He closed his eyes again.
“I love you,” you said softly.
His face stilled.
Not because you had never said it.
Because every time still seemed to land in him somewhere deep.
Warnings: Age Gap, Domestic Abuse, Arranged Marriage, Sexual Abuse, PTSD, Religious Extremism; Implied Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Child Abduction,
And then he moved.
Not Tom.
Your husband.
He twisted violently out of the security officer’s grip and lunged forward with a suddenness that made half the room gasp. His face was red now, stripped of every careful performance he had worn all morning. No calm father. No respectable defendant. No wounded man wronged by a dishonest wife.
Just him.
The man who hated being told no.
The man who hated seeing you protected.
The man who hated that Tom had said out loud what he believed should never be said in front of other people.
Tom barely had time to react before your husband shoved him hard in the chest.
Tom stumbled back against the bench.
Maddy shouted, “Tom!”
The judge called out again.
“Security, now!”
Your husband swung.
It was not clean. Not practised. Just rage.
His fist caught Tom across the nose.
The sound was horrible.
Tom’s head snapped back, and blood appeared almost immediately, bright and shocking beneath his nostrils.
You made a sound.
Not a word.
Not even his name.
Just terror.
Tom brought a hand to his face, blinked once, and looked down at the blood on his fingers.
For one awful second, something deadly passed over his face.
Then your husband came at him again.
Tom did not punch him.
Not then.
He caught him.
Both hands gripping the front of your husband’s jacket, stopping the next blow before it landed. Your husband drove forward anyway, snarling, trying to reach him, trying to turn the whole room into something physical because words had failed him.
Tom shoved him back only far enough to keep him off.
“Don’t,” Tom said, voice low and shaking. “Don’t you fucking touch me again.”
Your husband spat something in Farsi and swung again, but this time security got between them.
Tom staggered back, one hand pressed beneath his nose, blood running over his fingers and down onto his shirt. His chest was heaving. His eyes stayed fixed on your husband.
Not because he wanted to fight.
Because he was making sure your husband did not get near you.
The judge’s voice cracked through the courtroom.
“Remove the defendant. Now.”
Your husband fought them.
Of course he did.
Two officers had to take him by the arms, and even then he twisted, still trying to look past them, still trying to find you.
Tom took one step forward before he stopped himself.
Maddy grabbed his sleeve with both hands.
“No. Tom, no.”
He froze.
Blood dripped from his nose onto his lip.
His whole body trembled with the effort of staying where he was.
Your husband laughed, ugly and breathless, as security dragged him back.
“Look at you,” he spat. “Bleeding for a whore.”
Something in Tom’s face changed.
Not rage this time.
Something colder.
Something that seemed to empty the room of air.
Maddy’s fingers tightened around his sleeve.
“Tom.”
But your husband jerked free just enough to shove past one officer’s shoulder, still snarling, still trying to get at him, still trying to make Tom flinch.
Tom did not flinch.
He hit him.
Once.
A sharp, hard punch across the face that snapped your husband’s head sideways and silenced him for half a second.
The sound cracked through the courtroom.
Everything stopped.
Tom stood there afterwards, breathing hard, blood still running from his nose, his fist clenched at his side like he had not understood what his body had done until it was already done.
Your husband staggered back into security.
For one tiny, terrible second, he looked shocked.
Not hurt.
Not frightened.
Shocked.
As if the world had done something impossible. As if he could not comprehend being struck by a man who was not afraid of him. As if violence had always belonged to him and he had just discovered it could be returned.
Then he surged again.
Security took him properly this time. No hesitation now. Two officers forced his arms behind him while he cursed in Farsi, twisting, spitting, fighting to turn his head back toward Tom.
Tom did not move.
That was almost worse.
He stood there with blood on his mouth and murder in his eyes, looking at your husband like he could still see every room you had ever been trapped in.
The judge’s voice cut through the room.
“Enough.”
It was not loud.
It did not need to be.
Everyone froze.
Even Tom.
The judge was standing.
Her face was white with fury.
“Remove them both.”
Your stomach dropped.
“No,” you whispered.
Tom heard you.
Of course he heard you.
His head turned immediately.
And that was when the fury broke.
Not vanished.
Broke.
His face changed all at once, as if someone had struck him somewhere deeper than his nose. He looked at you, at your shaking hands, at the horror on your face, and you saw it arrive in him.
The realisation.
The shame.
The terrible knowledge that he had done exactly what he had promised himself he would not do.
He had left you in the room.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Not to the judge.
To you.
Your husband laughed through blood at the corner of his mouth.
“See?” he said, voice thick now, triumphant despite being held. “Animal. Like her.”
Tom turned back so fast Maddy actually cried out.
“Mr Sturridge,” the judge snapped.
The usher stepped between them.
Tom stopped.
Barely.
His chest rose and fell violently. Blood had reached his collar now. His nose was bleeding badly, but it was not broken. You could see that through the panic. It was not bent. Not ruined. Just red and swollen and awful.
He looked awful.
He looked like he had been dragged into a version of himself he hated.
The judge’s voice went glacial.
“Get him some medical attention and do not let him leave the building.”
Tom swallowed. Then nodded.
His eyes flicked to you again.
Your husband started shouting again as the officers hauled him toward the side door.
“She is my wife! She is my—”
“Out,” the judge said.
The door opened.
Your husband was dragged through it still fighting.
Still shouting.
Still trying to make himself larger than the law, larger than the court, larger than you.
Then Tom was guided toward the opposite door.
Not roughly.
No one needed to be rough with him. He went as if every step hurt somewhere he could not touch.
He kept looking at you.
You stood without meaning to.
Your solicitor’s hand closed around your wrist.
“Stay,” she whispered. “Please. Stay seated.”
Tom saw that too.
It ruined him.
He pressed the tissue someone had shoved at him beneath his nose, but the blood had already marked his shirt, his fingers, his mouth. His eyes were glassy now with rage and apology and something much worse.
Fear.
Not of the court.
Of you seeing him differently.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
Then the door closed behind him.
The silence after was worse than the shouting.
You sat because your legs stopped understanding how to hold you.
Maddy sat beside you immediately, one hand at your back, the other finding your fingers under the table.
Her own hands were shaking.
“Breathe,” she said. “Look at me. Breathe.”
You could not.
You stared at the door.
“He hit him.”
Maddy swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Tom hit him.”
“Yes.”
“Because of me.”
Maddy turned on you so sharply that your eyes snapped to hers.
“No.”
The word was vicious.
Not at you.
For you.
“No. Absolutely not. We are not doing that. Your husband hit him first. Your husband called you vile things. Your husband tried to drag your child into this. Tom lost control, yes. Tom was an idiot, yes. Tom will probably sit in a room bleeding and hating himself for the next hour, also yes. But this is not because of you.”
Your breath shook.
“The judge is furious.”
“Good. I’d be worried if she wasn’t.”
That almost made you laugh.
It came out broken.
Maddy squeezed your hand.
Across the room, the judge sat again with the kind of controlled anger that made every barrister in the room look suddenly younger.
“I will say this once,” she said. “There will be no further disorder in this courtroom. If any person interrupts these proceedings again, they will be removed. If any person attempts violence again, I will deal with them accordingly. Is that understood?”
No one spoke.
No one needed to.
The judge looked first toward the door your husband had been dragged through.
Then toward the door Tom had left by.
“The defendant’s conduct may amount to contempt of court, quite apart from its relevance to sentence. Mr Sturridge’s conduct will also be considered. But I will not deal with either matter until the substantive issue before this court has been resolved.”
Your stomach turned.
Maddy leaned closer, nodding and touching your shoulder again in comfort.
The judge allowed her.
Then your husband’s barrister stood, pale and stiff.
“My Lady, in light of what has occurred, the defence renews the application regarding the child witness. The defendant’s position remains that his daughter may provide relevant evidence concerning the household circumstances and—”
“No.”
The word came from you.
Too loud.
Too raw.
Everyone looked at you.
You did not care.
“No. You do not put Mia in this.”
Your solicitor touched your arm.
“Let counsel deal with it.”
But your hands were already curled into fists.
“He only said that to hurt me.”
The defence barrister’s face arranged itself into something almost sympathetic.
It made you want to be sick.
“My Lady, the complainant’s distress is understandable, but it cannot determine whether relevant evidence is heard.”
The prosecutor stood.
“My Lady, may I take brief instructions and confer with my learned friend?”
The judge looked deeply, visibly annoyed.
“Two minutes. Not ten.”
The courtroom loosened into murmurs.
Your solicitor leaned close and discussed the matter with the prosecutor.
Then the prosecutor returned to her feet.
The judge looked at her.
“Yes?”
“My Lady, the Crown opposes the application to call the child.”
Your whole body went rigid.
The prosecutor’s voice remained calm, careful, measured.
“Not because her evidence could not theoretically touch upon issues raised. It may. The Crown accepts that. But because it is neither necessary nor proportionate in the circumstances. The complainant has expressly asked that her daughter not be drawn into these proceedings, and the Crown has considered that carefully even where the Crown is of the view that the child’s testimony might assist it’s case.”
Your husband’s barrister rose again.
“My Lady, with respect, the complainant’s wishes cannot be decisive.”
The judge’s eyes cut to him.
“I am aware of that, counsel.”
He sat down.
Quickly.
The judge looked at her notes.
The room held its breath.
You held Maddy’s hand so tightly your fingers hurt.
Then the judge looked up.
“I am refusing the application.”
For a second, you did not understand the words.
Then you did.
Your whole body went weak.
Maddy’s hand clamped around yours.
The judge continued.
“This court is not assisted by compelling an ten-year-old child to give evidence where the matters can properly be determined without her. The defence appears increasingly determined to turn these proceedings into a general trial of the marriage. That is not the issue before me.”
Your eyes burned.
The judge’s voice remained firm.
“The question is not whether every alleged act of abuse has been proved here to a criminal standard. The question, for present purposes, is whether, on the balance of probabilities, immigration authorities had sufficient material before them to consider the complainant’s account credible and to process her application on that basis.”
You stopped breathing.
Maddy went very still beside you.
“On the evidence before me,” the judge said, “including the complainant’s testimony, contemporaneous diary entries, medical records, charity notes, immigration records, and the defendant’s own subsequent conduct, I am satisfied that they did.”
Your hand flew to your mouth.
The judge went on.
“I find that the complainant and the children were properly treated as persons requiring protection. Therefore I also find that the defendant had no lawful authority to remove his son from this jurisdiction without the complainant’s consent. I find that what occurred at the nursery, and subsequently at the airport, was an abduction.”
Abduction.
The word landed in the room like something heavy.
Final.
Real.
Not a misunderstanding.
Not family business.
Not a father’s right.
Abduction.
You bent forward slightly, one hand over your mouth, trying not to make a sound.
Maddy’s arm went to your shoulder again.
“She said it,” you whispered.
Maddy’s voice shook.
“Yes.”
“She said he abducted him.”
“Yes.”
Your eyes filled so quickly the courtroom blurred.
Tom should have been there.
The thought hurt before you could stop it.
Tom should have heard it.
Not because he needed vindication for himself. Not because this was his fight too.
Because he had held Luka at Heathrow while your little boy sobbed into his neck. Because he had taken the calls, the lawyers, the police, the press, the nightmares, the school runs, the bloodless waiting.
Because he had believed you before anyone in a robe said you were believable.
And now he was somewhere outside the room, bleeding and alone, thinking he had failed you.
The judge removed her glasses.
“I will consider sentencing after a short adjournment. I will also consider what action, if any, should be taken in relation to the contempt and disorder that occurred in this courtroom.”
Your stomach clenched.
Maddy leaned closer.
“He’ll be all right.”
You looked at her.
“Will he?”
She swallowed.
For once, she did not make a joke immediately.
Then she said, softer, “Yes. Because we’ll make him be.”
The judge stood.
Everyone rose.
You barely managed it.
Your knees were shaking too badly.
When the judge left, the room erupted into movement around you, but you stayed exactly where you were, one hand still over your mouth, the other gripping Maddy’s like it was the only solid thing in the world.
Your solicitor came close.
“We’re going to take you into the consultation room.”
“And Tom?”
“I’ll find out where he is.”
“His nose—”
“It was bleeding,” Maddy said quickly. “But it didn’t look broken. So he should be fine and still be beautiful and dramatic.”
You gave a broken little laugh.
Maddy looked satisfied.
“Good. There we are. Still capable of making fun of him. We’re not dead yet.”
Your solicitor helped you stand.
As you walked out of the courtroom, you looked once toward the door where your husband had been taken.
For the first time in years, that door did not feel like something closing on you.
It felt like something closing on him.
***********
In the consultation room, you sat because someone guided you into a chair.
You did not remember choosing it.
You did not remember crossing the corridor properly.
You remembered the smell of court carpet. Maddy’s hand at your elbow. Your solicitor saying something about water. The prosecutor speaking quietly near the door. The distant murmur of people outside, as though the world had rudely continued without asking whether you were ready.
You stared at the table.
There was a ring mark on it from someone else’s coffee.
That felt obscene.
Someone else had sat here before you. Someone else had been terrified in this room, with this table, with this cheap box of tissues, with this air that smelled faintly of dust and printer ink.
Maddy pushed a bottle of water into your hand.
“Drink.”
You looked at it.
“I can’t.”
“Sip, then. We’re not asking you to do a triathlon.”
You lifted it because she was Maddy and because sometimes it was easier to obey love than fear.
The water tasted metallic.
Your solicitor came back over.
“They’ve checked on Mr Sturridge.”
You looked up so quickly your neck hurt.
“Is he all right?”
“His nose is bleeding, but it is not broken. He has been cleaned up. The judge is going to allow him back into the courtroom.”
Your whole body loosened so suddenly you nearly dropped the bottle.
Maddy caught it before it spilled.
“See?” she said, too brightly. “Still beautiful. Still dramatic. Still legally inconvenient.”
You pressed a hand over your mouth.
You wanted to laugh.
You wanted to cry.
Both happened badly.
“Can I see him before?”
Your solicitor’s face softened.
“Not before we go back in. But he’ll be there.”
You nodded.
That should have been enough.
It was not.
You needed to see him.
You needed him to see that you did not hate him. That you were frightened, yes. Upset, yes. Furious, probably later when your body had room for fury. But not ashamed of him.
Never ashamed.
The usher knocked too soon.
Court always moved too soon.
“We’re resuming.”
Maddy stood first.
Then you.
Your legs shook, but held.
As you stepped back into the courtroom, your eyes found Tom before anything else.
He was already seated.
Not where he had been before.
Farther back now. Deliberately. As if he had chosen distance as proof that he could behave.
There was no more blood running down his face, but his nose was red and swollen, and there was dried blood at the edge of his nostril. His shirt was marked at the collar and down the front in small, dark, terrible spots.
He looked pale.
He looked furious with himself.
He looked at you like he had been waiting to breathe until you came back.
You stopped.
Only for half a second.
Tom stood slightly, then caught himself and sat back down, jaw tight, eyes wet.
You gave him the smallest nod.
His face changed.
Not enough for the room to notice.
Enough for you.
The shame did not leave him, but something worse loosened. Some fear that you would look at him like he had become another violent man in a room full of violent men.
You did not.
You sat.
Maddy sat beside you and muttered, “He looks like he lost a fight with a filing cabinet.”
A tiny, unbearable laugh escaped you.
Tom heard it.
Of course he heard it.
His mouth twitched once, painfully.
Then the side door opened.
Your husband was brought in wearing cuffs.
For one second, everything in you went silent.
Metal around his wrists.
Officers on either side.
His suit creased. His hair disturbed. One side of his mouth reddened where Tom’s fist had landed.
He looked furious.
Humiliated.
Contained.
Contained was the part your body understood.
Contained was the part that made your lungs work.
He did not look at Tom first.
He looked at you.
You held his gaze for one second.
Then turned away.
The judge returned.
Everyone stood.
Everyone sat.
The room settled into a silence so tense it felt threaded with wire.
The judge looked first at your husband.
Then at Tom.
Then at the papers in front of her.
“Before I proceed to sentence, I will deal briefly with the disorder that occurred in this courtroom before the adjournment.”
Tom went very still behind you.
Your husband’s shoulders stiffened.
The judge’s voice was controlled. That was somehow worse than anger.
“The defendant broke free from security, assaulted Mr Sturridge, continued shouting abusive remarks, and caused a serious disruption to these proceedings. Mr Sturridge was warned repeatedly by this court. I accept that he did not initiate the physical violence. I accept that he was struck first. I also accept that the provocation was extreme.”
Tom swallowed.
You heard it.
Or imagined you did.
The judge’s gaze moved to him.
“However, Mr Sturridge, you struck the defendant in open court. The circumstances explain your conduct. They do not excuse it.”
Tom lowered his head.
“Yes, My Lady.”
His voice sounded awful.
Thick from his nose.
Small with shame.
The judge continued.
“Both men will be charged with contempt of court. Mr Sturridge, I do not consider you an ongoing risk to this court, to the complainant, or to any person present. You may remain in court for sentence, but the contempt matter will be addressed before a magistrate in due course.”
Your hands clenched in your lap.
Not good.
But not the worst.
Maddy leaned closer.
“Breathing would be nice,” she whispered.
You breathed.
Barely.
The judge turned to your husband.
“The defendant will remain in cuffs and in custody. His contempt matter will also be addressed before a magistrate. His conduct today will be taken into account in the sentence I now pass.”
Your husband said something in Farsi under his breath.
The judge looked at him.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking I require translation to understand contempt.”
Silence fell so hard it almost made Maddy smile.
Almost.
Your husband’s jaw worked.
He said nothing else.
Then the judge turned a page.
And somehow the room became even quieter.
This was no longer about Tom.
No longer about the punch.
No longer about the blood.
This was about the thing that had brought you here.
Luka’s small body being lifted from kindergarten.
The false papers.
The airport.
The flight.
Your son screaming.
Tom running.
The judge began.
“The defendant stands convicted of child abduction and associated offences arising from the planned unlawful removal of a minor from the United Kingdom.”
Your son’s name.
Spoken so formally.
Your throat closed.
“The maximum sentence available for the principal offence is seven years’ imprisonment as the defendant is the minor’s biological father.”
Seven.
The number entered the room like weather.
Your husband stared forward.
His barrister’s face was tight.
The judge continued.
“I have considered the submissions made on the defendant’s behalf. I have considered the argument that he acted from distress, from paternal concern, and from a desire to be reunited with his child.”
She paused.
Then her voice hardened.
“I reject that characterisation.”
Your eyes filled instantly.
Behind you, Tom shifted.
Only slightly.
Enough that you knew he had heard it like a hand gripping the back of his neck.
“This was not a confused or spontaneous act by a desperate father. It was calculated. It involved surveillance. It involved stalking of the complainant, her partner, and her children. It involved false documents. It involved deception of nursery staff. It involved the planned removal of a four-year-old child to Iran, a jurisdiction from which his return would, in practical terms, have been extremely difficult.”
Your hand went to your mouth again.
Maddy’s hand found your shoulder from the back.
Solid.
Warm.
There.
“You knew the complainant did not consent. You knew there were lawful processes available to you. You chose not to use them. Instead, you chose deception, coercion, and force.”
Your husband’s face tightened.
The judge did not look away.
“The harm was profound. The child was taken from a place where he was entitled to feel safe.”
Your breath shook.
“The offence is aggravated by the stalking behaviour. It is aggravated by the use of false documents. It is aggravated by the planning. It is aggravated by the defendant’s intention to remove the child permanently from this jurisdiction. It is aggravated by his lack of genuine remorse.”
Your husband’s barrister rose.
“My Lady, may I renew the defence submission that, given the defendant’s status and the international nature of the family circumstances, the more appropriate course would be for him to be returned to Iran—”
“No.”
The word cracked across the room.
Your husband’s head turned sharply.
The judge looked at the barrister with open displeasure.
“This crime occurred on British soil. It involved a child resident in this jurisdiction. It involved deception practised here, forged documents used here, stalking conducted here, and an attempted removal through a British airport. It will be dealt with here.”
Your husband’s face changed.
Not guilt.
Never guilt.
But panic.
Real panic, flashing through the rage.
The judge continued.
“Any future immigration consequences are matters for the appropriate authorities. They are not a substitute for punishment by this court.”
Your husband said something sharply to his barrister.
His barrister did not answer.
The judge looked down at the papers once more.
Then she said your husband’s name.
He straightened.
Still proud.
Still angry.
Still not understanding that none of that mattered anymore.
“For the offence of child abduction, taking into account the nature of the offence, the planning, the stalking, the false documentation, the intended removal to Iran, the age of the child, the terror caused to the complainant and her other child, your lack of remorse, and your conduct in this courtroom, I sentence you to seven years’ imprisonment.”
The room vanished.
Not entirely.
Just at the edges.
Seven years.
Seven years.
Seven years.
You felt Maddy’s hand clamp over your shoulder.
You heard someone behind you exhale.
Tom.
You did not turn.
If you turned, you would break.
The judge kept speaking.
“You may apply for release after five years and nine months, subject to the usual considerations and your conduct in custody. Until then, you will remain in custody.”
Your husband stood suddenly.
The officers moved at once.
“No,” he said.
The word was not loud.
It was disbelieving.
As if the court had misunderstood who he was.
The judge looked at him.
“Yes.”
His face hardened.
He turned toward you.
There it was.
The last weapon he had.
Not his hands.
Not his voice.
His certainty that somewhere inside you, there was still a girl trained to feel responsible for his pain.
“You did this,” he said.
Tom rose behind you before anyone else moved.
Not fully.
Not violently.
Just instinct.
The judge’s eyes cut to him.
“Mr Sturridge.”
Tom stopped.
His hands were curled over the back of the bench in front of him. His face was pale, blood still dried beneath his nose, but he did not speak.
He looked at you instead.
Waiting.
Letting you decide.
So you did.
You looked at your husband.
Properly.
Not as a wife.
Not as a frightened girl.
Not as the mother of children he could steal to punish you.
Just as yourself.
“No,” you said.
Your voice shook.
But it carried.
“You did.”
The silence after was complete.
Your husband stared at you.
Something ugly moved across his face.
Then the judge’s voice cut through it.
“Remove him.”
The officers took his arms.
He fought once.
A sharp, useless jerk.
The cuffs held.
The officers held.
The sentence held.
He was taken toward the side door.
This time, he was not dragged.
He was walked.
Contained.
Controlled.
Unable to make the room move around him.
He twisted his head once at the end.
You did not look away.
The door opened.
He disappeared through it.
The door closed.
And when it did, something inside your chest gave way.
Not relief.
Not exactly.
Relief sounded too clean for what came out of you.
It was more like your body had been holding a scream for almost thirteen years and had only just discovered it could become breath.
You bent forward.
Maddy caught you at once.
“Hey. Hey, I’ve got you.”
You heard Tom move behind you.
A chair scraped.
A step.
Then nothing.
He had stopped himself.
Of course he had.
He was waiting for permission now.
From the judge.
From the room.
From you.
The judge looked at him.
Then at you.
Her expression was still stern, but something had shifted beneath it.
“Mr Sturridge,” she said. “You may see to her.”
Tom was beside you almost before she finished speaking.
He did not grab you.
He did not make a scene.
“Darling,” he said.
That was all.
Just that.
Your name would have been too much.
Anything else would have been too much.
You turned into him so quickly he nearly lost his balance.
His arms came around you.
Careful for half a second.
Then tight.
Tight enough that you could feel he was shaking too.
You pressed your face into his shoulder and cried.
Not quietly.
Not prettily.
Not in a way the room could politely ignore.
You cried like someone who had survived and hated that survival still hurt.
Tom’s mouth pressed to your hair.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m here. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
You gripped his jacket.
“Seven years.”
His breath shook.
“I know.”
“He can’t take Luka.”
“No.”
“He can’t take Mia.”
Tom’s arms tightened.
“No.”
You pulled back enough to see his face.
His nose was swollen. Dried blood marked his skin. His eyes were red, furious, ashamed, devastated.
You touched his cheek.
He went still under your hand.
“You’re bleeding.”
His mouth twitched, broken and miserable.
“Less than before.”
Maddy leaned in from your other side.
“Wonderful. Medical update from the idiot section.”
Tom closed his eyes.
“Maddy.”
“No. You punched someone in court. You don’t get my nice voice yet.”
You made a small, wet sound that might have been a laugh.
Tom opened his eyes immediately.
There it was again.
That look.
Like your laugh had reached him somewhere no one else could.
You wiped under your eyes with shaking fingers.
“You hit him.”
Tom’s face fell.
“I know.”
“You idiot.”
“Yes.”
“He hit you first.”
Tom looked down.
“That doesn’t make it all right.”
“No.”
His throat moved.
“I’m sorry.”
You nodded, tears still slipping down your face.
“I know.”
For a moment, that was all there was.
His hand on your back.
Maddy’s shoulder pressed against yours.
The courtroom emptying around you.
The prosecutor speaking quietly to your solicitor.
The judge gone.
Your husband gone.
The door closed.
The sentence spoken.
Then Tom whispered, barely audible,
“Do you hate me?”
Your heart cracked so violently you almost felt angry with him for asking.
You held his face more firmly.
“No.”
His eyes searched yours.
“I frightened you.”
“Yes.”
Pain flickered across his face.
You did not soften it.
Not entirely.
Because it was true.
Because love did not need lies to survive.
“But not like him,” you said. “Never like him.”
Tom shut his eyes.
His forehead dropped carefully against yours.
Not pressing too hard because of his nose.
Still absurdly careful while covered in blood because of you.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again.
Maddy sniffed beside you.
“Right. Well. This is very moving, but let’s get out of here.”
Tom’s hand tightened on your back.
You felt it.
Not possessive.
Protective.
Then he seemed to remember himself and loosened it slightly.
You leaned into him anyway.
“The kids,” you said.
Tom nodded.
“You can call Matilda as soon as we’re in the car.”
Maddy stood and started gathering your bag, your coat, the useless bottle of water, anything practical because practical things were easier than grief.
Then, for a moment, the three of you stood in the courtroom without moving.
You looked once at the place where your husband had sat.
Empty now.
Just a chair.
Just wood.
Just nothing.
It stunned you, how ordinary it looked without him in it.
Tom followed your gaze.
His hand brushed yours.
Not taking it yet.
Asking.
You took his hand.
His fingers closed around yours at once.
Warm.
Shaking.
There.
Maddy watched the two of you, then sighed.
“Come on then. Let’s go before either of you does something else legally interesting.”
Tom looked at her.
“I’ve had quite enough legal interest for one day.”
“Good. Keep that energy.”
You looked back once more before leaving.
At the judge’s bench.
At the witness box.
At the door.
At the room that had heard the worst things and somehow not collapsed beneath them.
Then you walked out with Tom on one side and Maddy on the other.
And this time, when the door closed behind you, it did not feel like something ending.
It felt like something finally, finally letting you leave.
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How much time do you spend on writing your stories? They are so great, but it must be hard to find enough time between family and work to create these parts without being interrupted 😳
I’ve got insomnia unfortunately and I also am fortunate to work only 3 days per week and sometimes less. My job pays well as I work on penalty rates mostly Saturday and Sundays as well as public holidays and the occasional Friday evening.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
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