My name is Andrew. After my mum passed away, my father eventually remarried. His new wife brought with her two daughters, Emily and Charlotte, both with very English names and mannerisms.
Time moved on, and we all matured. Then tragedy struckmy father died in a car accident.
To my surprise, my stepmother proved herself a woman of dignity. She left the family flat to me.
That flat was your mothers, she said softly. It should belong to you now.
All she asked was for Emily and Charlotte to stay in my flat until they finished university. She herself returned to her cottage in a quiet Yorkshire village. I agreed, thinking it was the least I could do.
Emily and Charlotte couldn’t have been more different, but they shared a single hope: to find a husband who owned his own place.
Suddenly, my life became strangely idyllic. Emily would cook a hearty English breakfast each morning, and Charlotte pressed my shirts until they were crisp. The sisters vied for my attention, each doing little things to impress me.
Then, in the space of two months, they each gave birth to my daughters. When my stepmother learned Emily and Charlotte were both pregnant, she flew into a storm of outrage. But the sisters stood firm; abortion was out of the question. They both insisted on keeping their children.
I weighed my options. It dawned on me that paying a third of my salary in child support for eighteen years would be crippling, so I decided to purchase a flat with a mortgage, hoping to sort things out.
I swapped my family flat for two studio apartments, then placed the remaining funds as a deposit on a modest mortgage for myself.
Each studio went to Emily and Charlotte, on condition they signed away their claims to child support. I settled into my new place, living quietly for several years.
Then, four years later, an enforcement notice landed at my workplace, informing me of a massive backlog in child support payments.
I confronted Emily and Charlotte. They laughed in my face. “You just handed us these flats!” they sneered. Theyd botched the contract on purpose.
So there I was, without my parents’ flat, stuck paying mortgage and child support. I was barely scrapping by.
My stepmother revelled in it. “Serves you right! You got exactly what you deserved!”
Emily and Charlotte blocked me from seeing my daughters. I had to borrow money to pay off my arrears and took them to court to reclaim my visitation rights. I won.
At work, I pulled my boss aside for a personal chat, asking that he pay most of my wages off-the-record. Now my child support payments were much smaller.
Each Friday, I collected my daughters for the weekend, returning them to their mothers on Sunday. I spoiled thembought whatever they liked and took them to every English holiday activity I could find. Emily and Charlotte constantly protested, scolding me for indulging their kids.
I paid a couple of lads to keep an eye on my sisters, constantly reminding them that children from prior relationships would hinder their chances at marriage.
One day, in front of a child welfare officer, I collected my daughters from my stepmothers place, insisting their mothers had neglected them. I filed for child support myself, taking sole custody. My girls stayed with me, and for once, I felt like a proper dad. When they saw their mothers, theyd dart over to hug me, frightened their mums would whisk them away. Id read them stories about wicked mothersnot unlike fairy tales from our own culture.
By the time Emily and Charlotte realised what was happening, I had remarrieda blissful union.
I offered them a deal: return the studio flats, and Id let their daughters live with them again. They quickly agreed.
Now, my life is comfortable. I rent out two flats and have finally paid off my mortgage in full.
I refused to let myself be outwitted, and in the end, I got the better of my cunning sisters, all according to proper English justice.
