The Estrangement: Shadows of the Past
It’s been two years since Margaret Caldwell last spoke to her daughter, Eleanor. A year ago, without warning, Eleanor stopped returning her calls. She changed the locks on her flat in a small town along the River Thames and made it painfully clear she no longer wanted her mother under her roof. Margaret still can’t come to terms with the rift, and her heart aches every time she thinks of her daughter.
“Two whole years without a word,” Margaret sighs, her voice trembling with unspent emotion. “Ellie’s carrying on with her life—posting photos online, chatting with friends. But not a peep to me. She’s a grown woman now, with a three-year-old daughter and a husband, living in their own place. I’ve always been strict—with myself, with others, and with Ellie too. Parents should set high standards. I wanted her to do well in school, help around the house, take pride in her appearance.”
Margaret never softened, not even after Eleanor started her own family. She visited regularly, but each trip turned into an ordeal. “How can anyone live in such a mess?” she’d huff, rearranging cupboards as if Eleanor were still ten. She’d point out unwashed dishes, scold her for neglecting the child, and never hesitated to criticise her son-in-law: “Oliver’s hopeless, always skint!” Margaret believed only she could tell her daughter the hard truths, even if it stung.
Then, a year ago, everything changed. “I rang Ellie, just like usual,” Margaret recalls, her eyes darkening with hurt. “Mentioned how my niece’s little girl was already reading at four. Ellie suddenly snapped, ‘Why must you compare them?’ I was baffled—how couldn’t I, when the difference was plain as day? That was our last proper talk.” Soon after, Margaret learned her daughter had changed the locks and barred her from visiting. “I told myself it was a passing mood,” she says. “Thought she’d come to her senses and apologise. But she never did.”
Months dragged on, the silence growing heavier. In late July, it was Margaret’s birthday. She waited for Eleanor’s call, but the phone stayed silent. “Couldn’t even wish her own mother a happy birthday!” she exclaims bitterly. The next day, she cracked and rang from a new number. “I told her, ‘If you won’t speak to me, then give up my flat!’” she remembers, her voice tight with anger.
Here’s the rub: six years ago, before Eleanor’s wedding, Margaret signed the flat over to her. “Oliver was earning peanuts,” she explains. “I wanted to help them—I could afford to. But now she’s turned her back on me, so let her find somewhere else!” Eleanor fired back: the flat was legally hers, the paperwork flawless, and no one had the right to evict her. “She said it was *her* home now, that I’d no claim to it,” Margaret fumes. “Where’s the justice in that?”
Margaret stands by her decision. “If she’s so independent, let her prove it!” she declares. “She can find a new place, since she’s forgotten her mother.” But deep down, the pain gnaws at her. She remembers raising Ellie, teaching her to be strong, dreaming of closeness. “I only ever wanted what was best for her,” she whispers, eyes brimming. “Why did she push me away?”
Eleanor, for her part, stays silent. Perhaps she’s tired of the endless criticism. Perhaps she just wanted to shield her family from what felt like suffocating interference. But Margaret refuses to accept it. She waits for her daughter to reach out—though with each passing day, that hope fades like morning mist over the river.
