I’m Lucy, Not Lottie
Lucy beamed with joy—she’d passed all her exams! Not straight A’s, but good enough to make Mum and Dad proud. Pushing open the front door, she heard her mother’s familiar voice… and someone else’s—hoarse, distant, like a ghost from the past. Slipping quietly into her room to avoid interrupting, she froze when she caught the words:
“I’m telling you for the last time, Lottie,” Mum snapped.
A thud in the hallway—Dad was home for lunch. Lucy peeked out and locked eyes with a woman in a faded white headscarf. Her face tugged at something deep in Lucy’s memory. Where had she seen her before? A shadow of a recollection pricked painfully at her mind. That woman with the sticky, probing gaze. The one who’d once called her “Lottie.”
“Hello, Lottie. Hello, my girl,” the stranger said.
“Leave, Lottie,” Dad muttered firmly.
“I’m going, I’m going… See you soon, sis,” the woman tossed over her shoulder before disappearing.
Lucy stood stunned.
“Dad, who was that?”
“Mum’s friend.”
“But she called her ‘sis.’”
“Girls say that sometimes… I suppose.”
But Mum’s uneasy glance and the thick silence in the house said otherwise. This wasn’t just a friend. This was part of their secret.
Two days later, Lucy ran into Lottie again.
“Well, hello, Lottie,” the woman said, stepping too close.
“I’m not Lottie. I’m Lucy.”
“Do you remember me?”
“I don’t… You’ve visited Mum.”
“Visited Mum? I *am* your mum, Lottie… Your real one.”
Lottie grabbed her hands, words tumbling out—pleading, desperate. And Lucy, without understanding why, followed.
“Come in, sweetheart,” the woman led her to a dingy little room. “This is where you lived till you were two… Remember?”
A wave of memories crashed over Lucy: grimy floors, chewed cigarette butts, someone shouting, kicking the door, tiny her scavenging for scraps. Fingers—filthy—forcing into her mouth. She bit down, hard. Blood. Fear. Tears. Cold. *Lottie*… that’s what they called her then.
A rough voice yanked her back:
“Tanya, out gallivanting again? Brought the money?”
A drunk man swayed in, eyes bleary.
“Who’s this? A present for me?” He reached for Lucy.
She yanked open her bag, thrusting cash at him.
“Take it. Just don’t come back. Not to us, not to Mum, not to Dad. I remember everything. And you’re *nothing* to me.”
“Lottie—”
“My name is *Lucy*!”
She ran home, choking on tears. Shaking, feverish, she crumpled into Mum’s arms.
“Mum, I went to her… I remembered… the grease… the dirty hands… I bit them—”
“Oh, my girl,” Mum rocked her like a child.
Then came the truth.
Two sisters, Lottie and Emily, adopted together from care. Lottie was sweet at first, until she changed—smoking, stealing, vanishing, then returning pregnant. The father unknown. Their parents forgave her. Emily, still at uni, stepped in… and took the baby.
Lottie became Lucy.
Lottie lost custody but kept demanding money to stay away.
Lucy became theirs—by love and by law.
Lottie still turned up sometimes. Crying. Begging.
“Lottie, my girl—”
“I’m Lucy. Sorry, Aunt Lottie.”
Mum never turned her away.
“She’s family. Maybe I’m her last lifeline to something better.”
One day, Eddie—the man with the filthy hands—showed up sober.
“Lottie’s in hospital. It’s bad.”
They went.
“Forgive me, love,” a pale, clear-eyed Lottie whispered. “Thank you for living. Thank you for being mine… even for a little while.”
“It’ll be alright. Just hang on. We’ll get you out.”
But she didn’t make it.
Later, Lucy saw Eddie again—still sober.
“I quit. Because of her… Sorry, Lottie—”
“I’m Lucy.”
“Listen… I’m not your dad, but I know where he is. Want to see?”
He led her to a handsome man’s grave. There, an elderly woman spotted Lucy.
“His daughter?”
“I think so…”
“I’m your grandmother.”
Now Lucy has two graves. Two lives: one she escaped, one she grew into.
She visits those who gave her life. Tells them her story. Promises to live well—and keeps that promise.
