**The Uproar**
In the Whitaker household, chaos had erupted. Not just a simple row, but a full-blown, house-shaking scandal! Anna Whitaker, formerly Anna Marshall and before that Anna Greenwood, was at her wit’s end. She screamed at the top of her lungs, hurling whatever came to hand—cups, plates, books—at her husband and his beloved relatives, ordering them to clear out and never darken her doorstep again.
The reason? Simple: her husband’s ex-wife.
No—not the ex-wife herself, but the endless reverence with which Mr. Whitaker and his doting mother treated her. The woman who had borne his precious, golden child—Princess Mira!—was practically worshipped as a saint.
Anna ranted, raged, and made gestures that would’ve scandalised a sailor. She was a one-woman revolution, fierce and unyielding. Not many would dare slap their mother-in-law mid-tantrum.
“Anna,” Mr. Whitaker pleaded, struggling for reason, “calm down and let’s talk this through properly!”
But Anna wasn’t in the mood for talking. She was in the mood for destruction. She roared like a tempest, spewing words no lady ought to know—at least, according to her husband and his mother.
And yet, it had all begun so beautifully.
Anna—then still Marshall, not yet Whitaker—had once been married to another man, with whom she’d had a daughter, Elizabeth. But when Elizabeth turned five, Marshall fell head over heels for another woman and walked out without a backward glance.
“You’re joking,” Anna had muttered to her best friend later, sipping wine numbly. “He *graciously* left me the flat—the one my father gave me for my eighteenth birthday! The one I moved into when we married!”
“But you two were happy, weren’t you?” her friend asked.
“He says he *fell in love*,” Anna scoffed. “Couldn’t live without her.”
“What a rat.”
Anna sighed. “It happens.”
Later, of course, she wept—once the shock wore off. She begged Marshall to reconsider, dangled their child in front of him, even tried to prove she was still desirable by flirting with his friends. Until their wives threatened to rearrange her face, and the men themselves fled at the sight of her.
Marshall made the mistake of coming back once—thinking they could talk like adults. Anna, mistaking this for reconciliation, sent Elizabeth to her grandmother’s and set the scene: candlelit dinner, silk nightgown.
Marshall didn’t bite. Instead, he asked her to stop humiliating herself. Told her it hurt to hear the things she’d been saying, to see her degrade herself. They talked for hours. Anna cried, threatened to drown herself in the bathtub—but Marshall didn’t flinch.
“Anna,” he said gently, “imagine staying with someone you don’t love, resenting them, taking it out on your child. Wouldn’t it be kinder to walk away?”
She had no answer.
Eventually, Anna reinvented herself—or tried to. Inspired by glossy-haired divorcees on social media, she plunged into self-help books, fitness, “empowerment.” A year later, she gave up, tossed the books, made peace with Marshall, even tolerated his new wife, Olivia. She went back to teaching—her real passion.
That’s when Mr. Whitaker swooped in.
For three months, he wooed her—showing up with flowers, courting her between tutoring sessions for his daughter, Mira. Sweet. Romantic.
Except—he never came alone. Every date included Mira. Even the cinema. Even the park.
Once, Anna brought Elizabeth along. The golden child screamed blue murder: *Why is SHE here? I don’t want her!* When Elizabeth tried to befriend Mira, the little girl punched her in the head.
Elizabeth, blinking back tears, whispered to Anna, “Can I go to Dad’s? Olivia doesn’t hit me.”
Anna slapped her thigh in frustration. Mira, watching, burst into giggles.
Three months later, Anna became Mrs. Whitaker.
“Wear our name with pride,” her new mother-in-law declared. And off they went on honeymoon—to Cornwall, with the whole Whitaker clan in tow. Even Mira.
Elizabeth? She stayed with her grandparents, then went to her dad’s. Different surname, different family.
Life settled—grey, tedious. Mr. Whitaker took endless leave to dote on Mira while his ex-wife remarried and had a new baby.
“No decent man tolerates another man’s child,” he sighed, implying Anna should be grateful he *allowed* Elizabeth in the house.
When Elizabeth started school, her father and Olivia bought her a tablet. Her grandparents gifted her a phone.
Mira threw a fit.
Grandma Whitaker swooped in, snatched the tablet from Elizabeth, and handed it to Mira. “She’s just a child,” she sniffed, though she despised spoiling children.
Later, when Elizabeth’s father asked where the tablet was, Anna mumbled excuses. Elizabeth, emboldened, blurted, “Mira took it!”
Her father’s voice turned to steel. “If my daughter’s property isn’t returned, I’ll report it as theft.”
The Whitakers grudgingly returned it—”just until things calm down.”
But Mira wasn’t done. Next visit, she wailed—no tablet. Grandma charged in, wrestling it from Elizabeth. In the tussle, Mira smashed it on the bathroom tiles.
“You idiot,” Grandma spat at Elizabeth. “Look what you’ve done.”
Anna, floating in delusion, barely noticed.
But Elizabeth wasn’t Mira. She didn’t scream, didn’t claw her way into Olivia’s bed. She adored her father, even grew fond of Olivia. Their home was calm, warm.
One evening, Elizabeth’s grandparents gave her a jewellery box—the first of many treasures, they said.
“Where’s *your* jewellery box?” her grandmother asked Anna.
“In the safe,” Anna muttered.
That night, all hell broke loose.
Mira’s mother dropped her off—again. The girl screeched, demanding Elizabeth be thrown out of *her* room. Anna, distracted, barely reacted—until she *remembered*.
She lunged for the safe.
Her gold necklace set—gone.
“Where is it?” Her voice was ice.
Her husband shrank. His mother chewed her lip.
Mira, trembling, blurted, “Daddy took it! Grandma told him to!”
Anna saw red.
She called Elizabeth’s father. “Come get your daughter. Now.”
Seven minutes later, he and a very pregnant Olivia arrived.
“Anna,” Olivia urged softly, “come stay with us tonight. Sort this tomorrow.”
Anna shook her head. “Just take her.”
She locked the door, turned to the Whitakers.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes to return what you stole. Or I call the police.”
They crumbled. The jewellery reappeared.
Later, Anna learned the truth: Mr. Whitaker’s ex-wife lived with his mother, renting out her own flat. *That* was why they were always underfoot.
By midnight, the Whitakers were gone. Anna sat amidst the wreckage, laughing until she cried.
A knock. Her neighbour stood there, holding a half-empty bottle of brandy and a plate of scones.
“I’m Natalie,” she said. “Heard the ruckus. Fancy a drink?”
Anna grinned. “Why not?”
They stayed up till dawn, watching *Gone With the Wind*, polishing off the brandy, then wine, then—somehow—whisky.
“My head’s going to kill me tomorrow,” Anna groaned.
“Worth it,” Natalie said. “We don’t celebrate freedom every day.”
And just like Scarlett O’Hara, Anna decided—tomorrow was another day.
**Lesson learned:** Some battles aren’t worth fighting. But the ones that are? Fight like hell—then toast to victory with good company.