**A Broken Bond: The Shadow of the Past**
It’s been two years since Eleanor Whitmore last spoke to her daughter, Emily. A year ago, without warning, Emily stopped answering her calls. She changed the locks on her flat in a quiet riverside town near the Thames and made it clear she no longer wanted her mother in her life. Eleanor still can’t accept the rift, and her heart aches every time she thinks of her daughter.
“Two years without a word,” Eleanor sighs, her voice trembling. “Emily carries on—posting online, meeting friends. But not a single call or text for me. She’s a grown woman now, with a three-year-old daughter and a husband. They’ve built their own life. I was always strict—with myself, with others, and especially with Emily. I believed a parent should set high standards. I wanted her to study hard, keep a tidy home, take pride in herself.”
Eleanor never softened, not even after Emily married. Her visits became something to endure. “How can you live in such chaos?” she’d scold, rearranging cupboards as if Emily were still ten. She’d point out unwashed dishes, chide her for neglecting the child, and never hesitated to criticise Emily’s husband: “Thomas is hopeless, always skint!” Eleanor believed she alone had the right to speak the truth, no matter how harsh.
Then, a year ago, everything changed. “I rang Emily as usual,” Eleanor recalls, her eyes darkening. “I mentioned how my niece’s little girl could already read at four. Emily snapped—‘Why must you compare them?’ How could I not, when the difference was plain? That was our last conversation.” Soon after, Eleanor learned Emily had changed the locks and barred her from the house. “I thought it was just a phase,” she says. “I waited for her to apologise. She never did.”
Months passed, the silence growing heavier. On Eleanor’s birthday in late July, the phone never rang. “Not even a call for her own mother!” she exclaims bitterly. The next day, she borrowed a phone to ring Emily. “I told her, ‘If you won’t speak to me, then give back my flat!’” Her voice quivers with anger.
Six years earlier, before Emily’s wedding, Eleanor had transferred the flat to her name. “Thomas barely earned a penny,” she explains. “I wanted to help. But now she’s turned her back on me—let her find somewhere else!” Emily shot back: the flat was legally hers, the paperwork sound, and no one could force her out. “She said it was her home now, that I had no right,” Eleanor fumes. “Where’s the justice?”
Eleanor insists she was right. “If she’s so independent, let her prove it!” she challenges. “Find a new place if she doesn’t appreciate her mother.” But deep down, the pain gnaws at her. She remembers raising Emily, teaching her strength, dreaming of closeness. “I only ever wanted what was best,” she whispers, tears welling. “Why has she shut me out?”
Emily remains silent. Perhaps the years of criticism wore her down. Perhaps she simply needed space to protect her family. But Eleanor won’t accept it. She waits for her daughter to reach out—though with each passing day, the hope fades like morning mist over the river.
*Some wounds never heal. Pride keeps them open.*
