Margaret Wilkins shook a crumpled sheet like a battle flag, voice shrill as whistling kettle steam. “Unwanted! An unwanted daughter!” Her eyes burned brighter than the electric fire. “My own flesh, dragging our name through filth! How shall I show my face at the Women’s Institute?”
Charlotte, known as Lottie, stood trembling in the kitchen doorway, eyes swollen beacons. “Mum, please,” she whispered, a mouse caught by a hawk. “Can we just… talk?”
“Talk?” Margaret’s pitch climbed, near shattering fine bone china. “Walked out on Nottingham Uni! Still faffing about in temp work! And now *this* tangled mess?” She jabbed a finger towards the window. “Caught up with heaven knows who! The whole Close is buzzing!”
Next door, twitching net curtains betrayed Mrs. Evans peeking. Margaret spotted her. Rage boiled over like a forgotten cloudburst. “See? The entire Close knows! Twenty-five years I poured into you! Every sacrifice, every shilling! And this… this is my reward?”
Lottie retrieved the fallen paper; official marriage forms, trembling under her fingers. “Mum, I’m… he makes me happy,” she managed, the words thin as fog. “James Thatcher… he cares…”
“*Cares*?” Margaret’s laugh was harsh, brittle; breaking glass on stone. “Separated? A child already? Ten years your senior? Barely scrapes a living! He reeks of opportunism!”
“That’s unfair! James works! He has a garage… proper MOT and repairs…”
“A *garage*?” Margaret snorted. “A glorified lock-up! Fancy a life smelling of engine oil and rubber dirt beneath your fingernails?”
Lottie sank onto a pine chair, legs gone to water. She’d rehearsed this moment, crafted gentle words. Reality felt warped, like trying to walk on shifting pavement. “I’m twenty-five, Mum. Not a child.”
“Exactly!” Margaret stabbed the air. “At your age I was wed to your father! Working at the council offices! Saving for our deposit! And you? Drifting. Murky connections.”
“Dad left us too,” Lottie murmured, the instant regret tasting sharp as vinegar.
Margaret’s face bleached white. Fury radiated like sudden frost.
“How *dare* you! Your father died in the lorry crash on the A1! He never abandoned us!”
“Sorry… I didn’t mean…”
“Oh, you meant it!” Margaret paced the lino like a caged animal. “Fancy walking my path? Left high and dry with a babe? This James wrecked one family already!”
“They parted mutually,” Lottie countered weakly. “It just… wasn’t right.”
“Wasn’t right!” Margaret thumped into the opposite chair. “With you it’ll magically be ‘right’? See the bind you’re in? A child from before! Maintenance payments! What scraps remain for you?”
Lottie rubbed her temples. A blunt ache sat heavy in her chest. Visions of joyful dress-shopping vanished like smoke. “Where did you even find him? Some dodgy pub backroom?”
“Emma Bryant’s engagement party. Remember?”
“Emma Bryant!” Margaret threw her hands skyward. “That flighty piece? Three engagements fallen flat? Fine company you keep!”
“Mum, what’s Emma got to do with it? James knew the bride’s brother. He tagged along…”
“‘Tagged along’!” Margaret’s face hardened. “Men like that don’t drift. They hunt. They prey on soft-hearted girls like you!”
Lottie shot upright. “Stop! You don’t even know him!”
“Why should I?” Margaret rose too. “I see the state of you! Wandering like a ghost, thinner than a rake, shadows like bruises. *This* is your joy?”
“I lost weight worrying!” Lottie’s voice cracked. “I knew you’d be like this.”
“And rightly so! Didn’t raise you to hand your life to the first ne’er-do-well!”
The doorbell’s chime sliced the silence. Both froze. Knuckles whitened.
“Him?” Margaret hissed.
Lottie nodded. “He was coming round.”
“NEVER! He shan’t cross my threshold!”
“Mum, *please*. Just meet him. Maybe you’ll see…”
“Never!”
Another ring, insistent. “Lottie? It’s me, James.” A resonant bass, muffled by the door.
Lottie’s eyes pleaded. “Five minutes?”
Margaret wavered. A dreadful curiosity won. “Fine. Five minutes. Then gone. Forever.”
Lottie unlatched the chain. A tall man, mid-thirties, stood framed. Wind-tousled dark hair, eyes shadowed like deep water. White roses in his grip.
“Good evening,” he said, stepping into the narrow hall. “Mrs. Wilkins? James Thatcher.”
Margaret’s gaze scoured him. Sturdy jeans, a weathered bomber jacket, hands roughened by labour. Exactly as imagined. “Evening,” she clipped, arms tight.
“These… for you.” James offered the flowers. “Lottie talks about you often.”
“Save your charm,” Margaret snapped, yet took the bouquet. “Kitchen.”
The small kitchen table became an arena. James projected calm, but Lottie saw tension coiled in his shoulders.
“So. You wish to marry my daughter.” Margaret skipped niceties.
“Yes. I love her.”
“Love. Can you provide?”
“Yes. Steady work. Decent wage.”
“In a lock-up.”
“An MOT centre,” James corrected gently. “Three mechanics work under me.”
“Pay child maintenance?”
Lottie flushed crimson. “Mum!”
“I do,” James stated evenly. “Always will. My son.”
“Precisely. What slice remains for Lottie?”
“Mrs. Wilkins, I get your fear. But I cherish her. Wish to care for her, not exploit her.”
“Smooth talker. What of the first wife? Cherished her too?”
James paused, gathering thoughts like scattered spanners. “Married young. Impulse. Oil and water. She craved champagne budgets; I was fixing my first Transit. Constant friction. We chose peace over war.”
“I see. With Lottie… different?”
“Yes. Because we fit.”
Margaret turned to the small kitchen window. “Lottie, step into the hall. A word with your beau.”
Reluctantly, Lottie left. Margaret fixed James with an assessing stare.
“Listen well, young man. Lottie’s my only child. My world. Hoped she’d find comfort. Security. What do you bring?”
“Faithfulness. Family. My heart.”
“Words. Feathers. Where will you live? My spare room?”
“No. I rent a flat. Two bedrooms. Lease transferred jointly.”
“A *rented* flat. Splendid. When’s the mortgage?”
“Savings pile up for the deposit. Expect to borrow within a year.”
Margaret shook her head, a slow pendulum. “A year. Maybe. What if it fails? Lottie drifting in rented rooms forever?”
“It won’t fail.” Steel entered James’s tone.
“Certainty? Why?”
“Regulars. Steady custom. No booze, no betting. Every penny home.”
“Wife number one likely thought the same.”
James sighed. “Mrs. Wilkins, your worry… it’s natural. Grant me the chance to prove my worth to Lottie.”
“And if you fail? She stumbles back, shattered? A child in tow?”
“I won’t fail.”
“Promises weigh nothing.”
Lottie edged back in. “Done?”
Margaret looked
Evelyn Pemberton lay staring into the darkened room, an oppressive weight of doubt settling upon her chest, thick and suffocating as the quiet house around her, a silent testament to the irrevocable change and the ever-present, chilling fear that her reluctant blessing might yet lead her Katy astray into shadows she could not reach.
