Richard unlocked the front door just after six, shoulders aching from a day that had dragged in all the wrong ways. The house was quiet — not silent, but settled. Lived-in. Chloe had messaged him earlier: Going out with Mia. Back by ten.Text you later.
He'd replied telling her he would pick her up. Her response:
Really?
Yes. Have a good time and I'll be there at 10.
K, ❤️ u
He smiled despite himself. He could have sent his driver to collect her, but he wanted to be the one to show up. His relationship with his children had finally grown warm again, and he had no intention of letting that slip away.
From the sitting room came the unmistakable crash and orchestral swell of a superhero film mid–battle sequence. Richard loosened his tie, walked in, and found Drew sprawled across the sofa, face illuminated by the blue glow of the screen. A half-eaten bowl of crisps sat dangerously close to the edge of the coffee table.
"Which one is this?" Richard asked, leaning against the doorway.
Drew jumped slightly, then relaxed when he saw him. "Chrono-Man 4.The one where they finally fix the timeline. Kind of."
Richard raised an eyebrow. "Do they ever actually fix the timeline?"
"Obviously not," Drew said, grinning. "Then there'd be no sequels."
Richard chuckled and nodded toward the sofa. "Mind if I join?"
Drew shifted his legs automatically, making space. "Yeah, sure. You like these?"
"I used to," Richard said, lowering himself beside his son. "When I was your age, we had Starlance and The Black Sentinel. Terrible dialogue. Brilliant soundtracks. Effects that looked like someone had glued tin foil to cardboard and prayed the cameras wouldn't get too close."
Drew blinked in surprise. "Seriously?"
"Oh, absolutely." Richard gestured at the screen, where a CGI city folded in on itself like shimmering origami. "Back then, if a spaceship moved in a straight line without catching fire, we were impressed."
Drew laughed — a warm, unguarded sound Richard didn't hear often enough and he felt it deep in his chest. "So… you actually liked that stuff?"
"Loved it," Richard admitted. "Everyone does, I think. Every generation wants a bit of magic. A bit of 'what if.' Sci-fi, superheroes, time travel… It gives you room to imagine something bigger than your real life."
"Yeah," Drew murmured. "I guess it does."
They sat for a moment, the screen flashing between blue and gold light as the hero launched into another impossible leap. Drew leaned forward, absorbed. Richard watched him with a quiet tenderness — the ease in his posture, the soft concentration on his face, the way the world so often seemed too loud for him, except in moments like this.
A small boy once sat like that.
Same tilt of the head.
Same furrow in the brow when the music swelled.
Same instinct to tuck his feet under him, as if bracing against something unseen.
Richard felt the memory rise — unbidden, gentle.
Drew in a hospital blanket.
Tiny.
Red-faced.
A fist no bigger than Richard's thumb gripping his finger with surprising strength.
He could still hear his own laugh, shaky and disbelieving; still feel the way his heart had lurched, as if rearranging itself entirely to make room for this new, fragile existence.
He hadn't known then how much fear could accompany love.
How much wonder too.
The movie roared on, but the past moved quietly through him — faded like an old photo, soft-edged, memories that seemed almost sweet.
And for the first time in a long while, the memories didn't hurt.
They simply belonged.
Drew arrived on a rain-soaked morning in early spring, squalling and pink-faced. Richard held him with a reverence that bordered on fear — two children now, two lives he was responsible for. Two reasons to get everything right.
And for a time, he convinced himself he was.
His company was thriving, expanding at a speed even he hadn't anticipated. What had once been a modest, ambitious buildings management company now occupied three full floors in Canary Wharf. New contracts rolled in weekly; meetings stretched long into the evenings; investors kept wanting more. His company grew and grew, partnered with other companies, offered more services, employed more people.
He told himself it was necessary.
He told himself it was for the future of his family.
He told himself a lot of things.
But the truth was simpler, quieter, more uncomfortable:
Home didn't feel like home anymore.
The busier the company became, the less time he spent in the soft, chaotic world of nappies and scheduled feeds and Eleanor's increasingly sharp sighs. He would leave before sunrise, return after the children were asleep, and Eleanor — perfectly made-up even at midnight — would recount the day as though delivering a social report.
"Chloe had her piano lesson. Drew cried most of the afternoon. I'm absolutely exhausted — and the Harrington's are hosting a charity dinner next week. Do you think we could donate something substantial? It would reflect well on us."
Her smile was tight, bright, brittle at the edges. She never asked how his day had been. She never noticed the slump in his shoulders.
But she loved the perks of his success.
The parties.
The outfits.
The attention.
The world that swirled around wealth as if it were gravity.
And Richard… he was just playing his part in all of it.
The devoted husband.
The charming host.
The successful businessman with the perfect family.
If he ever paused long enough to think, the truth crept in like a draft under a door:
He was lonely.
Lonelier than he had been even before marriage.
He tried, sometimes, to bridge the distance.
He'd suggest a weekend trip.
A dinner out.
A night where it was just the two of them.
Eleanor always had reasons — a social event she couldn't miss, a new dress she absolutely needed to get fitted, a hair appointment, a headache, a gym session. Her calendar was full, every hour claimed, none of them by him.
When he did get her alone, she talked about people he barely knew, trends he didn't care about, gossip that left him feeling like he was drifting further from her with every word.
But the children…
The children were different.
Chloe, now five, would run at him the moment he stepped through the door. "Daddy, look at what I drew!" she'd say, proudly displaying crayon masterpieces in her little hands.
Drew, still a toddler, would toddle as fast as his chubby legs allowed, arms outstretched, face splitting into a grin.
These moments grounded him.
But they made the emptiness afterward more pronounced.
Some evenings, when the house had gone still, Richard would sit downstairs with a glass of scotch and try to puzzle it out — where the distance had begun, where it had widened.
Where he had gone wrong.
Where Eleanor had slipped out of his reach.
He found no answers.
Instead, he found himself slipping into routine — predictable, stilted, practiced. He knew which smiles Eleanor expected at parties, which topics made her beam for their friends, which reassurances kept her content. He played his part because it was easier than breaking character.
He didn't know how to fix what was broken.
He didn't know how to bend the marriage back into shape.
He didn't know if Eleanor even wanted to try to find their way back to each other.
He told himself it was better — for the children — to keep everything neat, intact, unexamined.
They seemed happy enough.
Chloe with her friends and her projects.
Drew with his soft toys and quiet curiosity.
The house bustled with cleaners, cooks, baby sitters; with the laughter of guests and the shrill excitement of social gatherings.
It was only Richard who felt the hollow underneath.
The only thing he didn't realise yet was how much that hollow would shape the years to come.
How much it would change him.
How deeply it would ripple into every choice he made — and how it would ultimately change his life.