When I married their father, he used to say he wanted a big family.
“A loud house,” he would laugh. “A table that’s never empty.”
Well, he got his wish.
Six children in ten years.
For a while, our home was exactly what he had imagined. Chaos, laughter, toys everywhere, backpacks by the door, and homework spread across the kitchen table.
But somewhere along the way, the noise stopped feeling like joy to him.
He started staying out later. Spending more time on his computer. Taking longer “business trips.”
One night he sat across from me at the kitchen table and said the words that shattered everything.
“I think I need a different life.”
A few months later, he packed a suitcase.
He had met someone online. She lived overseas. Within a year, he was gone—living in another country with a woman he barely knew.
And just like that, I was alone with six children.
And a mortgage.
