“You no longer exist in this family,” Eleanor’s voice rang with fury. “Understand? You are no longer part of this family!”
“Eleanor, calm yourself,” Michael attempted to interject, but his wife cut him off.
“Be silent! Your silence all these years told her she could do as she pleased!”
Genevieve stood in the doorway of the sitting room, gripping a travel bag. Her face was pale, lips trembling, yet her gaze remained defiant.
“Very well, Mother. As you wish.”
“Don’t call me Mother!” Eleanor spat. “I have one daughter, and it isn’t you!”
Michael sank heavily into his armchair, covering his face with his hands. Genevieve looked at her father, willing him to speak just one word in her defence. But the man was silent.
“Papa?” she called softly.
“Genevieve, isn’t this too harsh, perhaps?” Michael finally lifted his head. “Let us speak calmly.”
“Speak about what?” Eleanor snatched a photograph from the table and hurled it to the floor. Glass shattered into fragments. “She has shamed us! The whole parish is gossiping!”
Genevieve glanced at the broken frame. It was a picture from last New Year’s Eve – a happy family, smiling faces. Now it seemed a cruel mockery.
“Mum… Eleanor,” Genevieve corrected herself, “it’s not my fault this happened.”
“Not your fault?” her mother took a step closer. “Carrying on with a married man! Destroying another family! And now bearing his child!”
Genevieve instinctively pressed a hand to her stomach. She was only a few weeks along, yet the news had swept through their small market town.
“I love him,” she whispered.
“You love him!” Eleanor mimicked cruelly. “A forty-year-old man with three children! What on earth do you possess to make him leave his wife?”
Genevieve paled further.
“He loves me. We will live together.”
“Where?” her mother sneered. “Here? In my house? Do you imagine I would allow you to bring that… that creature under my roof?”
“Eleanor, enough,” Michael intervened. “She is still our child.”
“Ours?” His wife turned on him. “I bore no such daughter! Raised her, sent her to university, helped her find a position. And what does she do? Takes up with the first man who looked her way!”
Genevieve set the bag down.
“Richard isn’t just anyone. We’ve known each other over a year.”
“Oh, over a year!” Eleanor threw up her hands. “So, a full year you lied to me! Said you were working late, while dashing off to your fancy man!”
“I didn’t lie, I simply…”
“Simply concealed the truth? That is a lie!”
Michael rose from his chair and moved to the window. Outside, rain drizzled; low, grey clouds pressed down on the roofs of neighbouring cottages.
“Genevieve,” he said without turning, “what does this Richard say? Is he truly divorcing?”
“Of course he is,” Genevieve answered. “He’s filed the papers.”
“Filed the papers,” Eleanor repeated. “After he’s already smashed the family. Leaving children fatherless.”
“They had no love,” Genevieve tried to explain. “They lived like strangers for years. Richard says he married for convenience, not love.”
“Naturally he says that!” her mother laughed bitterly. “All married men sing that tune! Don’t love the wife, never wanted the children, married under duress! Then, once they’ve had their fill with the mistress, they crawl back home!”
“Richard is different,” Genevieve said stubbornly.
“They are all the same!” Eleanor snapped. “Think I don’t know life? How many such tales have I heard? Promising the moon, then vanishing when the baby comes!”
Genevieve flinched.
“He knows about the baby. And he’s thrilled.”
“Thrilled? Then where is he now? Why isn’t he here with you? Defending his beloved?”
“He… he’s away on business. Returns next week.”
“How convenient,” Eleanor scoffed. “Away on business just when everything came out.”
Genevieve dropped her eyes. She too had wondered at Richard’s timing, explaining away his departure as unavoidable. Doubts began to gnaw.
“Eleanor, perhaps we shouldn’t rush to judgment?” Michael pleaded. “Give Genevieve time to sort things out.”
“Sort things out?” Eleanor looked at her husband as if he were mad. “She’s already decided for us all! Pregnant by a married man! Now the whole county knows Michael Somov’s daughter is entangled with another woman’s husband!”
“We don’t live together yet,” Genevieve murmured. “Not yet.”
“Oh, not yet! But the child exists! Born out of wedlock! Do you grasp what that signifies?”
Genevieve lifted her head.
“It signifies I shall be a mother. And I care not a jot what the neighbours think.”
“You care not?” Eleanor clutched her chest. “But *I* care! I live here, I work here! They’ll all talk about me now! Say I raised her poorly!”
“Mum, it’s the twenty-first century…”
“The twenty-first century!” Eleanor interrupted. “Think folk have changed? A gossip then, a gossip now! Especially in a town like ours!”
Michael moved from the window and sat back down.
“Genevieve, have you considered how you’ll live? Your job pays little. Raising a child costs pounds.”
“Richard will provide,” Genevieve replied.
“Will he?” Eleanor echoed. “And if he doesn’t? Changes his mind? If his wife takes him back?”
“She won’t. They were apart a year already.”
“A year apart, yet he only files for divorce now?” her mother asked sceptically.
Genevieve fell silent. She too had wondered why Richard delayed, his talk of sparing the children feeling less firm now.
“You see,” Eleanor said. “You can’t answer. Because it isn’t true. He’s lying to you, like they all lie to their mistresses.”
“He doesn’t lie!” Genevieve flashed. “We love each other!”
“Love!” her mother snorted derisively. “At your age, you should be using your head, not following your passions.”
“Eleanor, don’t be cruel,” Michael requested.
“Don’t be cruel? She’s shamed us, and I mustn’t be cruel? Look at her! Twenty-six years old, carrying on like a reckless girl!”
Genevieve picked up her bag.
“Very well. I understand. I shall leave and shame you no more.”
“Go,” Eleanor said coldly. “And do not return until you’ve come to your senses.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I have no daughter.”
Michael rose.
“Eleanor, what are you saying? She is our child!”
“Our child would never break another home!” his wife retorted sharply. “This one… is a stranger to me.”
Tears pricked Genevieve’s eyes. She turned towards the door.
“Genevieve, wait,” her father called.
She stopped, her back to him.
“Perhaps it truly isn’t wise to rush? Think again. This man… he’s much older. He has another life, other responsibilities.”
“He loves me,” Genevieve repeated.
“Loves you,” Michael sighed. “And what then? When the love fades?
Spotting Olivia arranging lilies behind the counter of the florist, Agnes watched the woman’s stoic face sag into weary disbelief as she whispered the news of the baby, her only reply a bewildered murmur that cut through the rain-lashed street: “But he begged me just this morning—said he’d never leave,” and the vase slipped from Agnes’ numb fingers, shattering on the floor like her fragile certainty.
