The faucet leaked, a steady plop every few seconds. He knew he'd get around to it, eventually, but some things you couldn't fix. Like a marriage. He didn't know how to fix what was already broken beyond repair, though.
Even through the blinds, the flash from the pesky reporter's cameras shone brightly like fireflies. The somber house illuminated every few moments, at about the same speed that the faucet leaked.
Allan whispered, hoarsely, "Stop..." but it was lost in the clamors from outside. He couldn't face them. The moment he stepped outside, they'd have his picture. And Allan's red, weepy face would end up on the cover of some tabloid magazine. Annabel certainly would see it, and she'd laugh... at him, his misfortune... but mostly at him. She'd liked to laugh at him, lately.
He'd preferred to cry, lately.
Because the moment she stepped out of his life-it was more like went out with a bang-everything he'd known had disintegrated. He had no wife. He had no son. Oliver wasn't even his, if her last words to Allan were anything to go by.
"Oh, and before I go...," She turned her head towards him and smiled pointedly, "Oliver isn't your son." Pushing her blond curls behind her ear, Annabel pulled tiny tot Oliver outside and slammed the door. She did not look back.
Anything she didn't like was left in their (now his) house. That included Allan himself, along with everything that was more than a month old. So he'd sifted through the mountains of clothes and cosmetics, each garment new and foreign to him. With all the money she'd earned herself, she bought whatever she wanted without him keeping tabs.
But she couldn't buy a new husband, not until she'd gotten rid of the old one. And now it had happened, model "Sweet Ann" ditched and divorced her John Doe husband in favor of acclaimed actor Leon. Oliver had always looked more like him than Allan, in hindsight.
There was an ache in Allan's body that wouldn't go away. He was tired of moping, tired of sobbing, and tired of being tired. He had to get away. Somewhere, anywhere, without posters of her smooching her boyfriend and holding their child's hand...
Allan suddenly lifted his head from the dining room table. The reporters still clamored outside, and the sink still leaked, but there was hope.
He knew where he could go.