Jealous Heart

   
   
Margaret glared across the aisle as the bus pulled out. There she sat a new born on her knee and a child of about a year asleep in a pushchair. Her fingers were ringless. She looked about nineteen or twenty at most. Why her and not me her soul screamed; why her?  
   
Bitch, she thought, her heart aching, what right does that unmarried little chav have to breed when decent people like her and her husband Steve had been trying, fruitlessly, for years? They’d exhausted every penny of her grandmother’s inheritance and their savings all to no avail.  
   
She looked again at the girl who was staring out of the window wistful and forlorn. She should be joyous, giving all her attention to her kids. Ungrateful, undeserving cow!  
   
Arriving in town the girl arose and, holding the baby in the crook of one arm, steered the pushchair clumsily towards the door.  
   
‘Here let me help you’ said Margaret. She felt a deep need to be close to these beautiful children even if just for a moment. On the pavement she handed control back to the yonderly mother who mumbled scant thanks.  
   
Margaret’s resentment exploded ‘you know if I had those two beautiful children I’d be ecstatic not like you, you miserable little cow’ she spat.  
   
The girl recoiled deeply shocked and tears welled. Turning she hurried away sobbing.  
   
Trembling with righteous indignation Margaret sat on a bench to calm herself pushing aside an old newspaper.  
   
   
                                          “Local Soldier Killed in Afghanistan”  
   
   
She picked it up staring, utterly horrified, not at the photo of the handsome soldier but the inset picture of the young woman holding her children.  
   
   
                                       “Leaves Young Widow and Two Infants.”