She drags herself home from work just past midnight, utterly drained, hungry, and seething. How many times has she sworn to quit this godforsaken shop? The darkness outside her flat dances past midnight as Veronica, barely lifting her feet, fumbles the key into the lock. Even the metal seems to resist, unwilling to let this exhausted shadow of a woman back inside. “Drained” would be too kindshe feels like a broken machine, gears ground to dust, wires burnt out. The hunger is sharp and gnawing, the anger thick as tar, filling her from within.
“How much more?” pounds in her temples. “Wheres the limit? When do I finally snap?” This funeral march of a question plays nightly, a year now since her life became hell under the sign of “VinoWorld.”
Veronica works there, this cursed shopan aquarium of alcohol and human flawsfrom eight in the morning till eleven at night. A prison. Relentless, soul-crushing. The owner, a greedy spider named Archibald Whitmore, spins webs of CCTV cameras, his gaze through the lens burning her back like hot iron. Sitting? A privilege punished with hefty fines. “Sitting means youre not working!”this motto is branded into every cashiers mind. By evening, her feet burn, swollen and throbbing, begging for mercy.
And those crates Heavy, clinking coffins of bottles they, the women, must unload themselves. Fifteen minutes to scarf down foodthen back to the front line, the counter, where not-always-sane customers wait. She must smile. Smile at drunks, at boorish blokes half-cut, at screeching women. Smile when she wants to sob from exhaustion or scream from rage.
Her coworkers call her the epitome of patience, an iron lady nothing can break. Few last longer than six months. Staff flow like a river, slipping the hook of this hellish fishing net, vanishing. Veronica endures. Because behind her isnt just empty air. Behind her stands the meaning of her lifeher son, seven-year-old Stephen. She desperately needs the money. Those grubby, vodka-stinking notes, the only thread tethering them to a normal life. Where else could she go? Their town, once bustling and industrial, now quietly dies. The lumber mill and chemical plant, former lifelines for thousands, stand as gloomy monuments to a dead era, guarded only by dust and ghosts.
Crossing the threshold, Veronica barely shrugs off her coat before freezing at muffled voices from the kitchen. Her heart clenchestrained by constant dread. Then memory serves up a fragment of that mornings talk with Mum: “Veronica, love, dont forgetAunt Irenes coming tonight.”
Aunt Irene. Mums older sister. From Manchester. From another, bigger life. Five years since they last saw her.
The kitchen smells of fresh tea and homemade pie. The two sisters, silver-haired and lined with age, sit at the table bathed in warm lamplight. The light falls on Veronica, on her gaunt face, dark circles like bruises.
“My darling!” Aunt Irene rises first, a woman with soft features and kind eyes. “Look at you, poor lamb, worn to the bone!”
She hugs her niece, and for a moment, Veronica is enveloped in a long-lost feeling of safety, of childhood warmth. They fuss over her, feed her until shes full.
Then Aunt Irene, sipping tea, looks at her squarely, no-nonsense:
“Veronica, sweetheart, how much longer? Look at yourself! Youre burning alive in that hellhole. Pack it in and come to us. Manchesters bigopportunities everywhere. Well find you decent work. And” She pauses. “Life isnt over. Youre only thirty. Young, beautiful. Who knows? You might even find happiness. Anythings possible.”
The words drop into silence like stones into mud. Inside, Veronica coils tight with bitter, compressed experience.
“No, Auntie. Ive had enough,” she rasps, voice frayed. “Two tries at happiness. Two loud, bright failures. Enough. In two months, on holiday, I promiseStephen and I will visit. Just a week. Circus, theatre, funfair. He dreams of it.”
She kisses her aunts cheek, pleads exhaustion, and heads to her room. Stephen sleeps peacefully, his steady breath the only calm in her storm. But Veronica, despite her fatigue, cant sleep. The visit has dredged up long-buried feelings.
Her mind, like a cruel demon, methodically drags out the very memories shes spent years forgetting.
…She was eighteen. A gold-medal student, desperate to be a doctor, she enrolled in medical college in Manchester, living with Aunt Irene. Studies came easy; she thrived. One day, her group toured the universitys anatomy museum. Amidst the silent exhibits, her heart suddenly raced. She met Him. Arthur. A final-year dentistry student, charm and confidence personified. He saw herthe shy girl with a chestnut braid and sky-blue eyesand was smitten.
He was perfect. Brilliant, sharp-suited, witty, gallant. A knight from romance novels, sweeping her into a fairy tale. They dated barely a month before he introduced her to his parents and proposed. Veronica floated on cloud nine.
His parents, successful dentists with their own clinic, threw a lavish wedding. On her side: just Mum, Aunt Irene, Uncle, their son and wife, and one college friendwho doubled as witness. No fatherhed died years ago; Mum never remarried, devoting herself to her daughter.
The newlyweds got a luxury flat in the city centre, furnished impeccably. Arthur aced his degree, joined the family business. Earned loads, more each month. Traded his car for a flashy import. Life seemed perfect. At nineteen, Veronica had Stephen. College was over.
Then something shifted. First, Arthur worked late. Then vanished overnight. Then days. Always with ironclad excuses. She believed. Desperately, blindly.
Until one day, pushing the pram, she stopped at a café for water. And saw. Him. Her husband. Her knight. At a table with a sleek blonde, gazing at her with the same adoration hed once saved for Veronica. Frozen, she watched as he leaned in and kissed hertender, passionate.
The scene at home was ugly. He didnt apologise. He explained.
“Veronica, look at me!” he said, almost indignant. “Im successful! I have everything! Did you really think men in our circle stay faithful? Everyone does it! Mistresses are standard. Being loyal? A joke. Suck it up. Youre smart.”
And she did. Five long, humiliating years. Too ashamed to return to Mum broken, disgraced. Waiting for him to wake up, shed the macho act, become the Arthur from the museum again.
But everything has limits. Even her patience
She left. Packed Stephens things and her meagre belongings, returned to Mum with nothing. Their fancy flat, by some legal sleight-of-hand, was in his mothers name. The car, the garagehis fathers. Aunt Irene begged her to sue, but Veronica was deep in depression. She knew: theyd hire top lawyers, shred her, leave her bankrupt. Arthur didnt fight child supportsmall mercies. The sums were laughable. His fathers accountant likely showed only a fraction of his real earnings.
“So thats it? The end?” Mum asked, staring at her hollow-eyed daughter, aged a decade in years.
With Stephen in nursery, Veronica started work. At that damned “VinoWorld.”
But youth demanded its due. Her wounded heart still craved love, her bodywarmth. A year later, she met Him. The Second. Gregory. Tall, broad, a roguish grin. Owned a small bar he grandly called a “bistro.” Local loudmouths flocked there. He worked till 3 a.m., reeked of expensive tobacco, booze, and easy money.
“This ones real,” naive Veronica thought then. “No fake aristocrat like Arthur. This time, Ive found loyalty.”
Painfully wrong. The rose-tinted glasses shattered fast. The honeymoon ended explosively. Most nights, Greg stumbled home wasted, stinking of cheap perfume and other womena scent she learned to recognise instantly.
Fights began. Screaming, smashed plates, tears. They broke up, reunited, bound by some toxic thread. Two years of this. Two years of humiliation, empty promises, drunken remorse. Then one night, watching Stephen sleep after another of Gregs benders, she knew: Enough. Final.
She left. Again. Disillusioned with life, love, men, herself. Soul scorched barren. She drew a thick line under romance. No dates, no illusions. Just work. Home. Son. And quiet, grey despair. Tonight, Aunt Irenes talk of fresh starts and moving has ripped open half-healed wounds.
Aunt Irene left, but made Veronica promise: this summer, shed visit with Stephen.
She kept her word. The train hummed beneath them as Manchesters skyline rose in the distance, Stephen chattering excitedly about the circus theyd see, the big red tent already visible near the station. Veronica held his hand tightly, her heart a tangled knot of dread and hope. Aunt Irene waved from the platform, her smile warm and sure, and for the first time in years, Veronica didnt feel the weight of failure pressing down. She breathed indeep, slowand let the cold northern air fill her lungs. The past was still there, scarred and silent, but it no longer owned her. That evening, as Stephen laughed under flashing lights, chasing cotton candy dreams, Veronica sat beside her aunt and whispered, hoarse but clear, Maybe maybe Im not finished yet. And she almost believed it.
