Forever I dreamed of having the perfect life. The perfect wife, the perfect job, the perfect house: a perfect, happy family who I could rely on. Never did I realise my life would completely change after gaining what I had always wanted; never did I think it would be the cause of my life’s destruction.

My wife, Sarah, the one and only light in my life. Until she was the one who diminished it. The one who, despite everything, gave up all of our stuff, our money and our future for one small bet. Gambling can eat a person alive, and the competitiveness in her only fuelled her only desire to win big. Aurora’s brightness was now shadowed by Sarah’s darkness, her own mother pushing her away like she was nothing. I tried to protect her from this as much as I could, but I failed. I failed at the one thing I thought I could do, and I let Sarah gamble away the rest of our lives to try and uphold her reputation and honour. Her boastful ego and pride made her lose.

For the first time in her life, she had realised she was never going to always win. A game of poker gone wrong, she would try and excuse her actions, whereas in reality, she had lost. And there was nothing wrong with that. But she broke out in a fit and rage of temper, nearly murdering one of her opponents by pushing him over on to broken glass. Ended up hospitalised. And Aurora watched as her mum fought a whole gang of men, watching her chances at having advice over boys, gossiping about the latest celebrity news, shopping with her mother for days on end: all disappear.

We still visit Sarah sometimes; it’s best for Aurora not to completely push her out of our lives, but she was manipulative and sometimes made her daughter cry. I limited the amount of times we saw her and eventually Aurora got used to never seeing her mother. The poor excuse of a mother, who destroyed her future because she was too much of a sore loser.