Eleanor surveyed her reflection, adjusting a grey tweed suit. Today Charlotte turned thirty. The first birthday in eight years they’d celebrate together.
“Mum, ready?” Charlotte called from the hall. “The car’s here.”
“Coming!” Eleanor responded, yet remained motionless before the glass.
How Charlotte had transformed… Once only jeans and trainers, now elegant dresses and heels. Worked for some foreign firm, earned more than Eleanor’s entire career’s wages. And engaged to that… what was his name… Oliver.
“Mum!” Charlotte’s voice sharpened.
Eleanor sighed and moved towards the entrance. Her daughter stood framed in the doorway, a beige dress outlining her figure, hair neatly styled, make-up light. Beautiful. Always had been, even at sixteen when she’d dropped out and fled home.
“You look smart,” Eleanor stated flatly.
Charlotte smiled, a shadow flickering in her eyes. “Ta. You too. That suit suits you.”
Silence hung thick in the car. Charlotte gazed out at the grey London streets blurring past, while Eleanor journeyed back through roads not taken. If the girl had listened then. If she hadn’t tangled with that Robert, twenty years her senior. If she hadn’t vanished off to London with him, abandoning school, college, everything.
“Remember what I told you?” Eleanor broke the quiet. “Told you it wouldn’t end well. That he’d toss you aside once bored.”
Charlotte turned. “Mum, not today, please? It’s my birthday.”
“Not intending to spoil it. Just stating facts. I was right though, wasn’t I?”
“Yes. Quite right. So what? You want me wracked with guilt forever for being young and foolish?”
Eleanor fell silent. Did she want that? She wasn’t sure. Knew only those eight sleepless years, phoning Scotland Yard, hospitals, scouring through contacts. Knew the first scribbled note arrived after eighteen months: *Lena alive and well*.
The Mayfair restaurant was all polished steel and low light. A large table hummed with guests – Charlotte’s colleagues, some friends, fiancé Oliver and his well-heeled parents. They rose politely as Eleanor entered.
“My mother, Eleanor,” Charlotte introduced.
Eleanor nodded curtly, sinking into the chair reserved for her, beside Oliver’s mother – an elegant woman in her late fifties, draped in silk.
“Your daughter’s remarkable,” she murmured. “Oliver’s utterly smitten. Says girls with such grit and purpose are rare.”
“Purpose found her early,” Eleanor replied. “Too early.”
Oliver’s mother sensed the edge and floated to another topic.
Laughter bubbled around the table. Charlotte smiled, shared office anecdotes, accepted crystal gifts. Eleanor sat quietly, answering polite questions minimally, observing.
Here her daughter leaned into Oliver; he whispered amidst the clinking cutlery, a blush warming Charlotte’s cheeks. Decent chap, Eleanor conceded. Doctor. Good family. Charlotte landed lucky. Could have married earlier, married properly, if she’d just listened then.
“Lotte, wedding plans!” piped a friend. “When?”
“Autumn,” Charlotte beamed. “Quiet ceremony, just the absolute nearest.”
“Where will you live?”
“Oliver bought a flat. New build, three beds. Dream home, really.” Charlotte’s eyes shone.
Eleanor involuntarily recalled her cramped postwar council flat, where Charlotte had slept on the lumpy fold-out in the lounge, complaining for privacy. “Finish school, go to uni, work,” Eleanor would say then. “Then you’ll have your own place.” But the girl wouldn’t wait.
“And tiny humans?” pressed the friend. “Plans?”
Charlotte glanced at Oliver. “Oh yes. Desperately. Boy or girl…” She smiled. “Going to be the best mum ever.”
“Never doubted it,” chimed Oliver’s mother. “You’ve such instinct, such grasp of people. Invaluable for raising children.”
Eleanor choked slightly on her wine. Instinct? The girl who’d shackled herself to a married bloke at sixteen?
“Mum? You okay?” Charlotte leaned in, worry etching her face. “Some water?”
“Fine.” Eleanor dabbed her eyes with a napkin.
Presents piled: jewels from Oliver, a Corsican holiday from colleagues, a designer handbag. Eleanor presented a small pendant on a delicate chain – simple, but good gold. Chosen a week prior with deliberate care.
“Cheers, Mum. It’s lovely.” Charlotte fastened it, peering into a compact mirror. “Really lovely.”
“Wear it well,” Eleanor murmured.
As the evening dimmed, Oliver raised his glass. “Friends, a word for our birthday girl. Charlotte… she’s incredible. Trod a rocky path, tripped as we all do, but picked herself up. Strong. Clever. Kind. Honoured she’ll be my wife.”
Applause rippled. Charlotte blushed, kissing him lightly.
“And particular thanks to Eleanor,” Oliver continued. “For raising such a daughter. Know there were rough patches, but you held onto what matters – love for each other.”
A knot tightened in Eleanor’s throat. Love? What love? Eight years not knowing if her child breathed. Eight years stewing in fury and hurt. And when Charlotte finally surfaced, returning like a ghost, Eleanor couldn’t just embrace her, murmur, “Good you’re home.” Only criticism spilled out.
Later, by the kerbside glow of a streetlamp, Charlotte saw her mother home.
“Ta for coming,” she said softly. “Meant a lot.”
“Didn’t have much choice, did I?” Eleanor responded.
“Mum… Can we see each other more? Not just occasions. For tea. A proper natter.”
“Chat about what?” Eleanor asked, weary.
“Oh, life? Work? The future? I want you to know me *now*. Not just remember that daft sixteen-year-old.”
Eleanor studied her daughter. Beneath the sodium light, Charlotte’s face looked startlingly young.
“Alright,” Eleanor conceded. “Come Sunday. I’ll do pancakes.”
Charlotte hugged her fiercely, a sudden child again. “Deal. Love you huge, Mum.”
“Love you too,” Eleanor whispered.
Climbing the stairs, the weight pressed down. Forgiveness wasn’t a switch flicked. Charlotte had shrugged off the barbs, the cold years, lightly as breathing. But Eleanor couldn’t release the terror of the vanishing – the calls to A&E departments echoing in endless night, the shameful murmurings to neighbours about a daughter *gone off*.
The flat yawned, silent and hollow. Eleanor filled the kettle, retrieved the photo album. Charlotte: first day of infants’ school, enormous white bow, clutched asters; nursery graduation, frilly white frock, serious plaits; thirteen, eyes already holding grown-up shadows.
Then, the last: hunched over homework, scowling, a month before London. Eleanor had pushed hard then, hired tutors. “Good grades, good uni, decent job, decent man,” she’d hammered. And all had come to pass, hadn’t it? Just via a longer, thornier road.
Eleanor closed the album. Tomorrow she’d ring Charlotte. Say she was proud. Say she was glad about Oliver. Say she longed to be a proper grandmother.
And forgiveness… Perhaps time would manage that. Charlotte was right – couldn’t live shackled to the
She pulled the thick duvet close as the kettle whistled tomorrow’s promise, fingertips hesitating over the phone before dialling Imogen’s number, her voice thick but determined as she spoke of pride and eager grandmotherly tales, all while the photograph album lay open on the sideboard beside cooling tea, a silent witness to the trying, the sincere, trying effort that filled the too-quiet flat – an effort she prayed, clutching the receiver, was not too late.
