“It’s your own fault you’ve no money. Nobody forced you to marry and have children,” my mother spat in my face when I begged for help.
At twenty, I married Edward. We rented a cramped one-bed flat on the outskirts of Manchester. Both worked—he on construction sites, me in a chemist’s. We scraped by, dreaming of saving for our own place. Back then, anything seemed possible.
Then came Oliver. Two years later, William. I took maternity leave; Edward picked up extra shifts. Still, even with overtime, wages vanished into nappies, formula, doctor’s visits, utilities, and—of course—rent. Half his pay vanished into that alone.
I’d watch our boys and wake each morning gnawed by dread: What if Edward fell ill? What if we were evicted? What then?
Mum lived alone in a two-bed terrace. Gran, too. Both in the city centre. Both with spare rooms. I wasn’t asking for a palace—just temporary shelter. Until the boys were older. Until we found our feet.
I suggested Mum move in with Gran: they’d share one flat; we’d take the other. Space enough for me, Edward, and two little ones. She wouldn’t hear it.
“Live with *her*?” She scoffed. “Have you lost the plot? I’ve a life, you know. Gran would drive me spare. Sort yourself out—just leave me be.”
I swallowed it. Phoned Dad instead. He’d remarried, living in a spacious four-bed. Gran was *his* mother—surely he’d take her in? But no. “The kids need their space,” he said. “No room at the inn.”
Desperate, I rang Mum again. Sobbing, pleading just for a temporary roof. And that’s when she hissed:
“You chose this. No one made you wed or breed. Wanted to play grown-up? Now live with it. Solve your own mess.”
The words struck like a live wire. Phone clutched in my hand, kitchen walls closing in—how could the woman meant to be my rock say such things? All I’d asked was a corner. A shred of sympathy.
Next day, Edward and I weighed options. The only hand extended came from his mum, Margaret. A cottage in the Cotswolds. A spare room. She’d even mind the boys while we worked.
But fear coils in my gut. It’s not the city. No proper clinic. No decent school. Barely a bus route. What if we move—and never escape? What if the boys grow up with doors slammed shut before they’ve even tried them? What if I wither there, cut off from everything?
Yet choice is a luxury we lack. Mum’s washed her hands. Gran’s too frail. Dad’s rewritten his family script. So here I stand: step into the void—or grasp this stranger’s kindness, though it comes from his side, not mine.
The bitterest pill? Not the poverty. Not the grind. But knowing those who share our blood stand furthest when the ground gives way. And my terror isn’t for me—it’s for Oliver and William. That they’ll learn, too young, how it feels to be ghosts in their own family’s story.
