Eleven Maltesers and Joni Mitchell

The packet felt light. He set it back, reached for another, felt its weight between thumb and forefinger. This one had substance. At least ten. Maybe twelve.

He didn't look when his hand dropped to the lower cabinet by the gun-metal silver Bosch fridge—tall but not quite tall enough for what it served. His fingers found the bowl exactly where it needed to be. Everything in this kitchen was exactly where it needed to be, his wife's masterful work of turning spaces into homes.

The carnations were still alive on the table, improbably. Pretty pinks and creams his wife said she hated—carnations were petrol station flowers—but these ones were the best she'd ever seen. Their fading beauty seemed to inspire care. He sat down beside them.

It was 10:17 PM. He was learning not to eat after 7 PM—the 16:8 intermittent fasting that gave his body time to rest, to feel hunger before feeding again. Circadian rhythms. Letting the land lie fallow. But the Maltesers were in his hand before he remembered. He'd start again tomorrow.

Both earbuds in. First time in weeks.

He tipped the Maltesers into the peach-white plastic bowl. Counted without meaning to. Eleven.

His phone glowed.

3 new job alerts

He swiped them away and opened Spotify instead.

The tumble dryer rumbled in the utility room, comforting. It was running now, before 10 PM, so it wouldn't annoy the neighbours. The daily battle to keep on top of the laundry with eight people's worth of clothes.

He queued up Joni Mitchell—Big Yellow Taxi, 197,794,604 plays—and pressed play.

He'd heard it covered before but never her voice. One of the jazz newsletters he subscribed to had recommended her. Questlove's rationale: if Prince is listening to it, then I'm listening to it.

The first Malteser crunched between his teeth. That was what he was after—the crunch, then the chocolate and malt dissolving. The particular sweetness of something earned by waiting until everyone else was asleep.

Joni's voice filled his ears.

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

Three years, eleven months, and sixteen days since they'd returned to the UK. The small house given by a kind lady at a church who'd been told of their need. The kids settling into schools. His wife turning the house into a home. Him doing the work of being present, keeping watch.

Give me a baby lest I die.

Rachel said what Sarah was thinking. The barren womb is only that until it isn't. And until it isn't, it won't stop crying out for a baby.

You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

He reached for another Malteser. Crunched it. Reached for another.

The job alert was still there when he checked his phone. He opened it.

Communications Manager – £45K – Central London – Immediate Start

He'd been a communications manager once. Back when "potential" was a word people used about him without the prefix "wasted."

He closed it.

Looked down at the bowl. Seven Maltesers left. He hadn't realized he'd eaten four already. Wasn't savoring them the way he'd intended.

The inside of his cheeks ached slightly from ulcers that were healing. The kind that only healed with sleep. A sign he needed more rest.

Joni sang about museums and tree museums and charging people a dollar and a half to see them.

His youngest had asked him yesterday what he did for work.

"I'm home with you," he'd said.

"But what's your job?"

How do you explain to a four-year-old that your job is witnessing? That someone has to see them grow?

"I take care of things," he'd said finally.

She'd nodded, satisfied. Children were good at accepting things.

It takes a village to raise a child. But when you're cut off from family support on both sides—for reasons the world wouldn't understand—you have to become the village. You and your wife have to build the village you need.

Someone has to pay the price to be there. For the emergencies. The appointments. The Tuesday afternoon when school rings. The Thursday morning fever. The constant presence that modern life demands and then calls wasteful.

All the outside world sees is "nothing bad happened." They see the time spent as waste that could have been better served elsewhere.

Like Judas, they speak these things not because they care, but because of what they seek to steal.

The tumble dryer stopped.

He pulled out both earbuds and the house rushed back in—clock ticking, fridge humming, radiator cooling.

He walked to the utility room, opened the dryer. The condenser thing was full of water. He pulled it carefully, carried it to the sink, tipped it. Warm water with that thick plastic smell.

The slow cooker sat on the counter. The boys had remembered. Diced onions, sliced courgettes, peppers, chopped carrots, and the frozen mince on top. Tomorrow morning he'd turn it on low. By 5 PM it would be dinner.

That was the plan.

Plans never survived first contact with the family, but you made them anyway. The alternative was chaos.

His phone glowed again.

WhatsApp from Sterling.

Did you know Mr Whippy drivers make £35K a year? Only busy 4 months but they pay you to stay on. Decent gig if you need something flexible.

Sterling was his old colleague, the one who'd stayed in the career they'd both started. Sterling sent him job listings sometimes. Opportunities, he called them. Lifelines, was what he meant.

He didn't respond.

Sterling meant well. They all meant well—the people who asked when he'd get back to "real work," who suggested his wife could go part-time so he could pursue his career.

They didn't understand that this was the work. That he'd traded the parking lot for the paradise and was now living with what Joni warned about: people calling it wasted space.

Sterling's name itself was the irony—glittering like success but not quite gold.

He made cinnamon water. Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon in hot water, no sugar. It tasted like medicine and discipline. He drank it slowly while the carnations tilted toward the window.

His wife hated carnations but admitted these were the best she'd ever seen. That was marriage—making space for something because it mattered to someone you loved.

Be still and know that I am God.

The verse came unbidden. His father used to quote Scripture like court rulings—definitive, inarguable, heavy with divine authority.

In quietness and rest you will find your strength.

Isaiah 30:15. The world demanded noise, activity, visible productivity. But the Kingdom worked differently.

The cinnamon water cooled in his hands.

The Open University prospectus was still bookmarked. He could finish the degree he'd started before the children came in rapid succession. He could take online courses in digital marketing or project management.

He could.

But the twins were three and needed someone steady. The five-year-old still had nightmares. The oldest was navigating secondary school in a country that kept insisting was "home" even though she barely remembered it.

Someone had to be the steady thing.

The business deals he'd been making—sweat equity arrangements, consultation work for startups—those would pay off when the twins started school and he and his wife had more time.

But not yet.

Instagram was bright and sunny, always. Facebook was a highlight reel of people who'd figured it out—careers, renovated kitchens, family holidays.

He'd learned to tune them out. The algorithm still tried, serving ads for executive coaching and courses on building your personal brand.

Build a life you don't need a vacation from, one ad promised.

He had. It just didn't look like what anyone expected.

He finished the cinnamon water, rinsed the cup, set it in the dish rack.

10:34 PM. Time for bed before midnight. Learning the rhythms of this season, moving with them instead of against them. His wife had been in bed since nine-thirty, her body more attuned to circadian truth than his had ever been.

He was learning.

Joni Mitchell's superpower seemed to be being herself. Not being anything other than herself. Simple to hear, not easy to do. The temptation was always to be anything other than yourself.

Daily paying the price to walk the steps, to tend the field, to watch over the flock. To allow the sands of ambition to slip through the hourglass of us, not self.

This time wasn't for him.

This time was what it cost to keep his weapons sharpened, whetting the blade across the rock, watching sparks fly free.

The hallway was dim, lit only by streetlight through the small window. The positive affirmation poster had fallen again, covering the mirror. He didn't bother fixing it. Aspirational phrases worked for people whose lives had space for aspiration. His was full of presence.

His graduation photo hung by the mirror—him in cap and gown, his parents on either side, faces bright with pride and expectation. That was before. Before the disappointment. Before they'd told him he was wasting his potential. Before they'd driven him and "that woman" and "all those children" out of the country they'd migrated to in order to make home.

Next to it, one of the children's drawings had fallen. He picked it up carefully.

"Our Famly," it said in Eliana's Reception-year letters. Family misspelled but recognizable. Ten stick figures holding hands across a too-small house. The twins were circles with legs—all-consuming need with tiny feet. The oldest daughter had a crown. He was the tallest figure, holding everyone together.

He looked at both pictures.

Then he took down his graduation photo and hung Eliana's drawing in its place.

The paper was emotional landfill. The children brought home drawings and certificates for "good sitting" and "sharing kindly" faster than he could process them. Too many children for the space they lived in. The house bursting with their noise and needs and constant, relentless presentness.

But the deals he'd been making—sweat equity arrangements with people who believed in what he was building, the portfolio of stories, the tribe he'd gather—those hadn't closed yet. Everything was soon. Everything was almost. Everything was wait a little longer.

So he waited.

And while he waited, the only thing he had was this: pressing in tight, holding on to the ones he loved, while the world tried to tear them apart with its questions about ambition and its metrics for success.

Eight children. Each pregnancy a lightning rod for comments: was your TV not working, you should get the snip, what a waste of potential, you're an embarrassment to your children, a failure in life.

But when the world keeps trying to tear you apart, the only thing you've got left is to press in tight and hold on for as long as you can.

When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will bear me up.

Psalm 27:10. The verse he'd learned as a child. The one proving itself true with every level of pressure.

He'd chosen this. Chosen them. Chosen presence.

And it had cost him everything the world said mattered.

His parents. His career trajectory. His reputation. The version of his life where he became someone people could brag about.

What he'd gained was harder to measure on a CV.

Eight children who knew their father would be there. A wife who'd turned a small house into a home. The quiet work of building a village from nothing, of being faithful in small things while the world demanded visible greatness.

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

John 12:24. He was learning what death looked like—not dramatic, just the daily choice to let the self that wanted applause die so something else could grow.

Coal being pressed into diamond.

Or so he hoped.

The bedroom was dark. His wife's breathing was slow and steady—someone who'd learned to sleep through anything because she had to.

He undressed quietly, set his phone on the nightstand without checking it.

Tomorrow there would be more job alerts.

Tomorrow Sterling would send another message.

Tomorrow the slow cooker would turn his prep into dinner, and the twins would need witnessing, and the five-year-old would have another nightmare, and the oldest would need help navigating the cruelty of girls who'd decided she wasn't English enough.

Tomorrow he would choose again.

But tonight, he'd already chosen.

He slid under the covers beside his wife, felt her shift toward him without waking. The house settled around them—eight children sleeping in rooms too small for their dreams, carnations surviving against expectation, Eliana's drawing of ten stick figures holding hands across a kingdom they'd made from refusal and tenderness.

Outside, somewhere, someone was paving paradise.

But not here.

Not tonight.

He'd broken his fast—eaten Maltesers after 7 PM—but kept the harder discipline. The one that said this moment, this presence, this choice to lie down beside his wife before midnight and trust that the narrow way leads somewhere worth going, even when no one else can see it.

When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will bear me up.

Tomorrow he'd start the fast again.

Tomorrow he'd choose again.

Tonight, he'd listened to Joni Mitchell sing about paradise and parking lots while eating Maltesers from a peach-white plastic bowl—crunching them, then realizing he'd eaten more than he meant to, his cheeks aching slightly from ulcers healing with sleep—and he'd chosen, again, to live as if this was the paradise and everything else was the parking lot.

Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it.

He was walking it.

One evening at a time.

That was enough.

That had to be enough.

And by grace, it was.