**Diary Entry – A Bitter Heart**
It was Emily’s fifteenth year when her parents told her they were expecting another child. She stomped her feet, shouting,
“Mum, why do we need another baby? Decided to have one in your old age, did you? Am I not enough?” She seethed, already seeing the new baby as competition—another mouth to feed, another reason her parents’ attention (and money) would be divided.
Until now, Mum and Dad had indulged her every whim. But suddenly, all they talked about was cots, prams, and baby baths. What did she care about prams when she needed new boots? Emily wasn’t the prettiest girl—broad-faced, angular, sturdy—but she believed fine clothes would make her attractive. She dressed to hide her flaws and squeezed every penny from her parents. And now a sister would ruin everything.
Little Lottie arrived—a blue-eyed, golden-curled doll of a baby. Lottie would toddle after Emily, arms outstretched, only to be swatted away.
“Mum, take your Lottie. She’s in my way.”
Years passed. Lottie blossomed into a beauty, while Emily remained plain, unmarried, working as a village postwoman after leaving school. Then, at nineteen, Lottie fell for Anthony, a trainee staying in the village. He vanished after she fell pregnant.
“Keep the baby,” their mother said. “We’ll help raise him.”
Lottie had little Leo, but Emily’s scorn was relentless.
“You were always soft in the head, Lottie. Love? There’s no such thing. Look at me—I never fell for that nonsense. But you? You live in a dream. Now you’re stuck with that—” she sneered at Leo.
Emily took care to snipe only when their parents weren’t listening. Once, she hissed, “You should’ve left him at the hospital. Too daft to get rid of him properly.” Lottie wept but endured it.
Then Emily announced she was moving to London.
“I’m sick of you lot. I’ll live alone.”
At thirty, with no prospects, she’d had enough—all the attention went to Lottie and Leo. Maybe in the city, she’d find a man—someone older, well-off.
She found work on a construction site, hauling cement, learning plastering. She grew shrewd, pinching every pound, doing odd jobs with the other women. When asked about her family, she’d snap,
“They wronged me. Let them rot. I’ll not lift a finger for them in their old age.”
“Emily, you’ve a heart like a stale biscuit,” folks would say. “That’s no way to talk about your own.”
But no one pressed—Emily could twist anyone to her will.
Romance eluded her. Men fled when she demanded, “What’ll you give me in return for my affection?” One, George, told her bluntly, “You don’t know the first thing about love.”
She scoffed. “What, should I study the Kama Sutra for you?”
“It’s not about that. You wouldn’t understand.”
Later, Ivan planted a seed: “Your parents might leave the house to Lottie. She’s there; you’re not.”
Greed gnawed at her. She visited, pretending years of silence hadn’t happened.
“Hello. How’s things?”
Her mother sighed. “We didn’t even have your address.”
“Here I am,” Emily said, then cut to the chase. “What’s the plan with the house?”
Her naïve mother mentioned repairs. Her father saw through her. “A bit early to be counting our graves, isn’t it?”
Emily played innocent, but he warned, “Lottie and Leo won’t go wanting.”
She remembered that. Soon, she visited often, bringing Leo toys, books.
Colleagues advised, “Bring Lottie and Leo to the city. You’ll get a council flat.”
She persuaded them. Soon, Lottie and Leo moved in. At first, Emily barred Lottie from managing the home, then exploited her gratitude—bossing, belittling (but only in private). In public, she played the saint: “I took my sister in, sacrificed my peace.”
Lottie never complained. The city meant better schools for Leo, better doctors. She worked as a shopgirl; Leo thrived in school.
Emily’s moods swung like a pendulum. One moment civil, the next snarling that they’d ruined her life.
Then fate smiled on Lottie. At the clinic, Dr. Oliver—handsome, divorced—was smitten.
“Lottie, let’s marry,” he said at her next visit.
She laughed. “You’re joking.”
“Dead serious. You’re my destiny.”
Soon, Lottie and Leo moved in with Oliver, who adopted Leo. They bought a cottage, had a daughter.
Emily, left alone, grew bitter. She demanded repayment for “her kindness.” Oliver threw her out, later delivering the money with a warning: “Trouble them again, and you’ll regret it.”
Ten years passed. Their parents died; the house was split. Then Emily had a stroke.
Lottie and Oliver took her in. Lottie nursed her, bought special mattresses, tended her wounds. One day, Emily saw her reflection—a twisted, aged face—and wept. Shame filled her.
*They could’ve dumped me in a home. If it were Lottie, I would have.*
She cried silently at night, her stony heart softening—perhaps even repenting.
Now Emily lives with them, walking with a stick, speaking haltingly. At Easter, they visited their parents’ graves.
Late remorse, but better late than never.
