My husband doesn’t know I schemed to get him while his first wife was dying

MOne of her sisters made a couple of snide remarks and I often wonder if she suspects me

y husband often says how grateful he is to be married to me. But I actually feel guilty. After all, I set out to steal him and his kids when his first wife was dying.

I’d moved back with my parents after years trying to persuade my fiancé to have a baby. I was 39 and worried I was running out of time to have kids, so I had to make a move.

I was at church with my mum and noticed an exhausted woman with a very clingy young son. Another woman told me that the mother had cancer and her son got upset leaving her. After the service, I took the mother some tea and our friendship began.

When she invited me for coffee to her beautiful town house, I told her about my break-up and she sympathised. She told me about her illness and, although I felt desperately sorry for her, I looked around and couldn’t help coveting her three children and her luxurious lifestyle. When her husband came in I felt even more envious. It wasn’t just his good looks or friendly chat, but the way he looked after her so kindly. There were no single men like him in town.

We soon became very close and I met her friends, enjoying my swanky new social life. One day she told all of us she was now terminally ill. She asked us to help look after her family. She was amazingly calm.

That’s when I first thought of their tragedy as my opportunity. Her husband and children were young. He might remarry. So why not me? I set about becoming indispensable to him and his children. I babysat so he and his wife could enjoy their remaining time together, shifted work around so I could keep her company during the day, made meals and took the kids out to play when she was exhausted. By the time she

died, I had made myself his main support. I suggested not getting a nanny, saying I could work from his house every afternoon so the kids were coming home to someone they knew. He was so grateful and I loved it, making delicious dinners and doing homework, though I always left shortly after he came home. I wanted him to miss me when I wasn’t there. But other than always looking my best, I didn’t know how to get him to look at me romantically.

Finally, I tried saying I was moving away for a new job. The children were so upset I stayed until bedtime, promising we’d always be in touch. Then he suddenly said he hadn’t realised how much I meant to him and begged me not to move away. We got married three months later, and the boys walked me down the aisle while my stepdaughter was my bridesmaid. Their little sister was born a year later and at last I have my family, husband and home. We have a shrine in the hall to his first wife, with photos and flowers. Sometimes I feel she’s watching me and I feel guilty my dream life came about through her tragedy. Did she guess what I was planning? One of her sisters made a couple of snide remarks and I wonder if she suspects me, but what have I done wrong, other than making a bereaved family happy?