Getting The House Back

There had been many changes in her life that she could not control but this change will be very much intentional

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Barbara Watson had never wanted B to sell the house. It was her husband George who had insisted that the market was about to slump, and that if they didn’t sell now, put a little nest egg away for their future, and rent somewhere while they looked for a nice little cottage to retire to, then they’d probably make a huge loss that they would always regret.

Number eighteen, Park Lane. Oh, how Barbara had loved that house. The trouble was, she had loved George too. Loved him enough to be guided by his judgment, and to believe everything he told her. She’d believed him when he’d said he was going away on business trips, believed him when he’d said he was only sleeping in the spare room to save her from being kept awake by his snoring, and believed that all their assets should be transferred into his sole name for tax reasons.

George had not loved her. He had conned her. Barbara, she now realised, had been a fool.

His so-called business trips had turned out to be weekends away with his secretary, young enough to be the daughter they had never had. And moving into the spare room, she had been forced to admit, simply meant he no longer wanted to share her bed.

Putting everything into his name however had not worked when it came to the divorce. She had come away with a very fair financial settlement, one that the judge felt reflected the length of their marriage and her status as a loyal and dependent wife. But all she had ever really wanted was the house, and that was long gone.

Now Barbara shivered on the pavement and gazed at the house that, until two years ago, had been her beloved home for more than forty years. She had been tricked into letting it go. That surely couldn’t be right.