My mother, Helen, had always taken Marks side, my stepfather. One night the strain finally snapped inside me and I swore I would bring it all to an end.
For as long as I could remember I lived with Helen and my little sister, Poppy. My grandmother, Eleanor, lived just down the road in Stockport and would drop by often. I have no memory of my birth father at all, but the face of Poppys dad, Mark, is burned into my mind.
At first Mark was polite, but once he moved in he and Helen seemed to erase me from their world. He would often raise his hand against me. I wept in secret, too ashamed to tell Helen, until the day she saw with her own eyes the way he struck me.
That night they erupted into a furious argument; Helen turned on Mark and he vanished from our lives for good. From then on it was just the three of us, and we clung to a fragile happiness. Eleanor frequently watched over Poppy while we tried to piece things together.
When I finished school I chose to stay in Manchester for university, even though a place abroad had called to me. I couldnt abandon the family that had become my whole world.
One evening Helen suggested we sell both our cramped flat in Manchester and Eleanors tiny cottage in Stockport, and put the money into a threebedroom maisonette in Salford. That way well all live together and still have room, she said. We agreed, handed over the deeds, and moved in. I claimed a bedroom for myself, Poppy stayed with Eleanor in the downstairs flat, and Helen took the third room. For a while, it felt like peace.
It was there that Helen met our new neighbour, George, a widower about her age who lived next door. He lingered in the hallway, offered a friendly smile, and soon began to give Helen the attention she had never known. She seemed to blossom under his gaze.
Later Helen invited her brother, Uncle Robert, to stay with us while he looked for a new place. He offered to rent out his own flat, and we welcomed him, hopeful for extra income. But Roberts jokes turned sour, his insults cut deep, especially aimed at me. Arguments flared, and Helen invariably sided with him.
I grew restless, the walls closing in. I booked a room at a university hall in Liverpool and prepared to leave. Helen didnt protest; she seemed relieved, as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders now she no longer had to choose between me and Uncle Robert. Yet the relief rang hollow in my chest. How could a mother trade her own child for the comfort of another man?
