I was Eliza, not Liza.
Eliza glowed with joy—she had passed all her exams! Not with straight top marks, but well enough to make Mum and Dad proud. Pushing open the front door, she heard her mother’s familiar voice—and another, distant and muffled, as if from another time. Slipping quietly into her room to avoid interrupting, she caught the sharp words:
“I’m telling you for the last time, Margaret…” her mother said bluntly.
A knock in the hall—her father home for lunch. Eliza peeked out and locked eyes with a woman in a threadbare white shawl. Her features tugged at something deep and unsettling. Where had she seen her before? A shadow of memory pricked sharply, unwelcome. That woman, with her sticky, searching gaze. The one who had once called her “Liza.”
“Hello, Liza. Hello, daughter,” the stranger said.
“Margaret, leave,” her father said tightly.
“Go on, go on… See you soon, sister,” the woman muttered before disappearing.
Eliza stood stunned.
“Dad, who was that?”
“Mum’s acquaintance.”
“But she called her ‘sister.’”
“Friends sometimes say such things… I suppose.”
Yet her mother’s troubled glance and the heavy silence in the house told another tale. This wasn’t just a stranger—she carried their secret.
Days later, Eliza met Margaret again.
“Well, hello, Liza,” she said, stepping too close.
“I’m not Liza. I’m Eliza.”
“Do you remember me?”
“I don’t know… You’ve visited Mum.”
“Visited? I’m your mother, Lizzie… Your real mother.”
Margaret seized her hands, whispering frantically, pleading. Without understanding why, Eliza followed.
“Come in, my girl,” the woman led her into a dingy little room. “You lived here till you were two. Remember?”
A wave of memories crashed over her: the filthy floor, half-eaten cigarette stubs, shouting, a door kicked open—and tiny little her, trembling, searching for scraps. Fingers, filthy and rough, forcing into her mouth. She bit—hard. Blood. Fear. Tears. Liza… that had been her name then.
A harsh voice jolted her back.
“Mags, you’ve been wandering again? Did you bring the money?”
A drunken man swayed in, eyes glazed.
“Who’s this then? A gift for me?” He reached for Eliza.
She yanked out a handful of notes from her bag.
“Here! Just don’t come back. Not to us, not to Mum, not to Dad. I remember everything now. And you—you’re nothing to me.”
“Liza—”
“My name is Eliza!”
She ran home, choking on tears. Shivering with fever, she curled up at home until her mother found her.
“Mum, I went to her… I remember… the grease… dirty fingers in my mouth… I bit…”
“My girl…” Her mother rocked her like a child.
Then came the truth. There had been two sisters in the orphanage—Margaret and Anne. Adopted together. Margaret was kind at first, but then… she changed. Smoking, stealing, vanishing, returning—pregnant by a stranger. Their parents forgave her. Anne, still in university, took the baby. Liza became Eliza. Margaret lost her rights, still demanding money in return.
From then on, Eliza was theirs—by love, and by law.
Margaret returned sometimes. Wept. Begged.
“Liza, my girl—”
“I’m Eliza. Sorry, Aunt Margaret.”
Her mother endured it.
“She’s my sister. Maybe I’m her last tie to anything good.”
One day, Jack—the man with the filthy fingers—came.
“Margaret’s in hospital. It’s bad.”
They went.
“Forgive me, love,” a pale, sober Margaret whispered. “Thank you for living. For letting me have you… even for a little while.”
“It’ll be alright. Just hold on. We’ll pull you through.”
But she didn’t survive.
Later, Eliza saw Jack again—sober for once.
“I quit. Because of her… Sorry, Liza.”
“I’m Eliza.”
“Listen… I’m not your father, but I know where he is. Want to see?”
He took her to a handsome man’s grave. An elderly woman found Eliza there.
“His daughter?”
“I think so…”
“I’m your grandmother.”
Now Eliza tends two graves. Two lives: one she fled, one she grew in.
She visits those who gave her life, telling them her stories. She promises to live well—and keeps that promise.
