My Ex Husband Wants Me Back

The Accident

Eighteen months after Mara signed the divorce papers, she returned to the bookshop where she had worked before she married Adrian.

The shop stood on a narrow street near the centre of the city, pressed between an old bakery and a tailor’s store with a faded red sign above the window. Its wooden shelves reached almost to the ceiling, and the bell above the door chimed whenever someone stepped inside. The scent of old paper and coffee from the bakery next door had not changed.

Everything else had.

Before Adrian, Mara had loved working there. She spent her days recommending novels to strangers, helping children choose their first chapter books, and arranging the front display whenever Mrs Rowan thought the window needed more colour. The pay had never been much, but it had been hers. The shop had been part of her life in the simple way a place became important after years of familiar faces and ordinary mornings.

Then she met Adrian.

At first, he had liked that she worked there. He came into the shop with flowers and waited outside after closing. He told Mara that he loved the way she spoke about books as though their characters were real people who deserved to be understood.

After they married, his feelings changed.

He never ordered her to quit. Adrian rarely gave an order when he could make someone believe that his choice was also theirs. He told Mara that she no longer needed to stand behind a counter all day. He said that his wife should enjoy the life he could give her. He reminded her that people would find it strange to see the wife of Adrian Moretti working while he had more money than she could ever spend.

Eventually, Mara left the bookshop.

For years, she called it her decision.

Returning after the divorce had made her admit that it had not been.

Mrs Rowan hired her back without asking too many questions. She had taken Mara’s hands between her own, looked at her tired face, and told her that the shop had missed her.

Mara had cried in the stockroom after that.

Now, on a wet Tuesday morning, she stood near the front window, placing a stack of new books onto a display table. She chose a children’s story with a red dragon on the cover and set it in the centre because Noah had told her that morning that dragons made people curious.

Her phone buzzed inside her bag.

Sarah’s name appeared on the screen.

Do not forget to collect Noah at three. I have a meeting at work and will not get there in time.

Mara smiled and typed a quick reply.

I will be there before the bell rings.

Sarah answered a moment later.

Thank you. He is looking forward to you collecting him.

Mara slipped her phone back into her bag.

Noah was five now. He was growing too quickly, his trousers always seeming a little shorter at the ankles no matter how recently Sarah bought new ones. Every morning, he left for school with his backpack hanging from his shoulders and a kiss pressed against Mara’s cheek. Every afternoon, he searched for her face at the school gate before he looked anywhere else.

Mara never wanted him to doubt that she would be there.

Mrs Rowan came out from the back room carrying a box of new releases. Her silver hair had slipped loose from its clip, and she looked as though she had already spent the morning arguing with the delivery company.

“You are putting the dragon in the centre again,” she said, setting the box on the counter.

Mara looked up with a faint smile.

“Noah said it belonged there.”

Mrs Rowan’s expression softened.

“Then Noah has good taste.”

“He does.”

Mara lifted another book from the box and placed it beside the dragon. For a little while, she lost herself in the work. She arranged the display, straightened the shelves near the entrance, and helped an elderly woman choose a mystery novel for her husband.

The afternoon passed more quickly than she expected.

When Mara checked the time, it was already quarter past two.

She gathered her coat and bag.

“I am going to collect Noah,” she told Mrs Rowan.

Mrs Rowan nodded toward the rain streaking down the window.

“Take your umbrella. The crossing near the school gets slippery when the weather is like this.”

“I will.”

Mara stepped outside and opened her umbrella.

The rain was colder than it had been that morning. Water gathered at the edge of the pavement, and cars moved slowly through the traffic, their tyres sending pale sprays toward the curb. Mara walked quickly, one hand around the handle of her umbrella and the other holding her bag against her side.

She pictured Noah waiting at the school gate.

He would probably have his raincoat zipped all the way to his chin because Sarah always made sure he was warm. He would look impatient for a few seconds, then spot Mara and smile as though she had been gone for much longer than a day.

The thought made her walk faster.

The pedestrian light at the next crossing turned green.

Mara stepped off the pavement.

She had reached the middle of the road when she heard tyres screech against the wet street.

At first, the sound did not make sense.

Then someone shouted.

Mara turned her head.

A dark car had come too quickly around the corner. The driver slammed on the brakes, but the road was slick with rain. The car slid forward, its headlights bright through the grey afternoon.

For one suspended second, Mara could not move.

The front of the car struck her.

Pain exploded through her side and shoulder as she was thrown onto the pavement. Her umbrella flew from her hand. Her bag slipped from her shoulder and landed somewhere beyond her reach.

The sky above her spun.

Rain struck her face.

She tried to breathe, but her chest would not seem to work properly. A sharp sound came from her throat, and then the pain became too large to understand.

People were shouting.

Footsteps rushed toward her.

Mara heard a man’s voice close by, firm and urgent, telling someone to call an ambulance. Another voice answered. A hand hovered near her shoulder without touching her.

She could not see who it belonged to.

The pavement was cold beneath her cheek. Her eyes moved toward the blurred shape of the traffic lights, but the colours ran together. All she could think of was Noah.

He was waiting for her.

She tried to say his name.

No sound came out.

The darkness moved over her before she could fight it.

The man who had reached her first remained beside her in the rain.

He knelt near her motionless body while the driver who had hit her stood several steps away, shaking and pale. Two men in dark coats came toward the crossing from a black car that had stopped nearby, but the man raised one hand without looking at them.

“Keep people back,” he said.

His voice was low, but nobody argued.

One of the men opened Mara’s bag carefully, searching for identification while the other spoke to the emergency operator. The man kneeling beside Mara looked at the name on her identification card.

Mara Moretti.

His expression changed.

Not with recognition of her face.

With recognition of the name.

The ambulance arrived minutes later.

Paramedics moved quickly around Mara, checking her breathing, lifting her onto a stretcher, and covering her with a blanket against the rain. The man stepped back only when they needed room, but his eyes never left her.

As the ambulance doors closed, he stood alone at the roadside, soaked through by the rain.

Then he looked toward the man beside him.

“Find out where they are taking her,” he said quietly.

The black car waited at the curb with its engine running.

He got inside only after the ambulance had disappeared into the traffic.