It was shortly after midnight when the telephone rang. I reached for the receiver, and my eldest daughter’s voice sliced through the silence. “Mum, it’s Kyra. I need your help. Thomas has thrown me out. I’m coming to the house first thing tomorrow. I’m not leaving you and Dad with no home to go to.”
“Kyra, listen carefully. You’re not our daughter anymore. This house doesn’t belong to you.”
“What?” she shrieked. “What do you mean? You *promised* us a home. I’ve a right to that flat! Where else am I supposed to go?”
“I gave it away to Ellie,” I said, my voice steady. “She’s the only daughter we’ve left. You’re not welcome here. You’ve lost everything.”
The dial tone hissed in my ears as I hung up. After what she’d done, those words were the only justice I could deliver.
A chill ran down my spine as I gazed out the window, my thoughts drifting back to the morning it had all begun. Another phone call, years ago, had shattered everything. I had leapt from bed when the ringtone shattered my sleep.
“Hello?”
A stifled sob on the line made my breath catch. “Margaret, it’s Ellie.”
“Ellie, this is the ungodly hour. What’s wrong?”
“Mum… today they’re doing the surgery. I’m so scared for Liza. Promise me you and Nicholas won’t abandon her. Don’t send her to an orphanage. Please.”
My sister, Ellie, had always been a living contradiction—chaotic, brilliant, and tragically self-destructive. But this was a new level of desperation. I clutched the phone hard, my fingers trembling.
“Why now, Ellie? What’s happening? Where are they placing you?”
She had lugged her burdens onto us for years, but this time, it was a child to add to the pile.
“I’ve no guarantees my body will survive,” she whispered. “Just promise you’ll care for Liza. Promise me, Margaret.”
By the time we arrived at the hospital, it was too late. Ellie’s little girl, Liza, sat curled in the corridor, a fragile shadow of a child. I knelt beside her, pulling her into my arms.
“Mummy will be sleepy when they do her mummy thing, love. No pain.”
The surgeon confirmed what I feared. Ellie was gone. We swaddled Liza in our arms and returned home, the weight of her grief heavy in the house.
Kyra, now sixteen, met us at the door, her face a mask of indifference. “Tell her she can’t stay in *my* room,” she demanded.
“Not this again,” Nicholas muttered.
But Kyra was unyielding. Each time Liza was placed in her shared space, Kyra would fling the girl’s belongings into the hallway. To avoid further war, we moved into the living room, giving Liza our old quarters. She was an orphan, stateless, her father’s identity a mystery we’d never unraveled. Eldest or youngest, in our hearts, they were both our daughters.
Years passed. Kyra graduated, married a well-heeled older man named Thomas, and fled to their grand estate. Then came her first of many requests: Liza was banned from her wedding.
“No,” I said, my jaw set. “If Liza isn’t there, we won’t be either.”
Kyra’s threat to resign from the family struck deeper than she could know. I booked us a coastal retreat in Cornwall, a final act of defiance. Liza, ever the optimist, danced around the room, shouting, “We’re going on holiday!”
She thrived in our care, excelling at university to become an architecture student—like her mother Ellie, the town’s admired artist. Nicholas often joked about Liza’s true father, hinting at a well-known local, but I never dwelled on it. She was ours.
Then came the day Nicholas collapsed. His heart failed, and the only drug that could save him cost a fortune—a price Kyra refused to pay. I called her.
“Thomas bought me a luxury car,” Kyra hissed. “You’ll have to take out a loan, I suppose.”
The line went dead. Heartbroken, I returned to Liza, who had a solution.
“Sell Mummy’s flat,” she implored. “I can’t live in it. Offer it at a discount, and the deposit could save him.”
We sold the property, paid the fee, and saved Nicholas. Within weeks, he was recovering. As thanks, we transferred the flat to Liza, a debt we could never repay.
The phone rang last night. Kyra, backhanding the door after Thomas cast her out. “We only have one daughter now,” I snapped, hanging up.
Liza married a farmer, a man named Stewart, with land and livestock in the Cotswolds. She insisted we visit often, though we preferred our little cottage nearby. Nicholas and Stewart bonded over fishing trips and farm work. Liza’s plans for a jam factory were coming to life, dreams her mother Ellie would have adored.
As I sit here now, reliving this day, I wonder how I could have raised a daughter so selfish, so blind to love, while another—born into nothing—became the soul of our family. Kyra’s name is a ghost, spoken only in passing. Liza, though… she is the reason we still laugh, still hope. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
