**The Flat, or The Story of One Family**
Emily walked home from school slowly, wondering how to keep her mum from finding out about the failing grade. The best scenario would be if Mum wasn’t even home. Then Emily could hide her report card and say she’d forgotten it at school. But what about tomorrow? She couldn’t “forget” it every day. Mum would find out eventually.
*”I’ll hide it today and try to fix the grade tomorrow. Then she won’t be too angry,”* Emily decided, quickening her steps.
Mum reminded her daily—study hard. First, to not shame her father’s name—he’d been a professor. Second, to keep her mind sharp. Some illnesses ran in families. Her grandmother had Alzheimer’s. She’d died when Emily was two.
Emily slipped into the flat carefully, avoiding the door’s usual creak. Mum’s coat hung on the rack—she was home. Tiptoeing to her room, Emily tucked the report card under her pillow, exhaling in relief. She changed, then sat at her desk to study. She even reread the history chapter twice, yet Mum never came in. That wasn’t like her.
Peeking into the hallway, Emily listened. The flat was silent. Maybe Mum was ill, napping? Their home was large—high ceilings, wide windows in the heart of London. The furniture was dark, antique, imposing. The hallway, lined with wardrobes, stretched long and shadowy.
Then the grandfather clock in the parlour struck. Emily nearly jumped. Shaking off the fright, she crept toward the kitchen. Mum sat at the table, head resting on her folded arms.
“Mum?” Emily touched her shoulder.
Mum lifted her face, eyes red.
“Dad’s gone. During his lecture…” Her voice was hollow. She pulled Emily close, sobbing into her shoulder. Emily held tight, then broke down, too.
She skipped school the next day—no time to fix the grade. They went to the hospital, the morgue, where Mum brought Dad’s best suit and polished shoes. Then more places, all a blur.
At the funeral, crowds from the university gathered—colleagues, students. Emily barely recognised the man in the coffin. But Mum wept over him, whispering, *”How will we manage without you? Why did you leave us…”*
Afterwards, Mum stayed in bed for days, crying, refusing food. Emily cooked pasta or frozen meals. When supplies ran low, she asked for money.
“Take it,” Mum said, not even asking why.
Emily bought sausages, bread, two bags of pasta.
One evening, she came home to find Mum at the stove, making soup. Emily brightened.
“How’s school? What have you been eating?” Mum asked. Emily told her. “Forgive me. I forgot about you. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Dad’s department. They’ll give me work, won’t they? We must carry on.”
Mum looked frail, pale—nothing like when Dad was alive. But she wasn’t crying anymore. That was something.
The new department head, Dad’s former student, hired Mum as a lab assistant. With her unfinished degree, she couldn’t teach. The pay was meagre, so she took on evening cleaning shifts—a professor’s widow, scrubbing floors.
“It’s humiliating,” Mum sighed.
Emily often helped.
Money stayed tight. Mum sold her jewellery to colleagues, taking whatever they offered. Soon, even that was gone.
A neighbour offered to buy furniture. Mum refused.
“The flat won’t be the same without it.”
“Suit yourself. If you change your mind, my offer drops,” the neighbour huffed, leaving.
Emily asked why Mum prized the furniture but sold her gold.
“You’re too young to understand. These pieces are museum-worthy. Even in wartime, no one sold them.”
Then Mum told her how they’d come to live here.
She’d arrived from a tiny village to study, lodging in student housing. Dad, a lecturer, was much older. They hid their relationship. When Mum fell pregnant, Dad brought her home.
They married, though Dad’s mother disapproved, calling Mum unfit for their distinguished family.
“I nearly left. But Dad defended me. Argued with his mother. Then you were born. She quieted. One day, she went shopping and never returned. Dad searched everywhere. A neighbour found her at the station—she’d forgotten they’d sold the country house after Grandpa died. She forgot to turn off the stove, the taps. For two years, I cared for her, with you just a baby. By the end, she didn’t know any of us…”
When she died, Mum turned her room into Dad’s study. He worked tirelessly, publishing papers.
“You remember how kind he was? I loved him. Though the last years were hard. He earned his professorship, spent all his strength. Then—like his mother—he began forgetting. Mid-lecture, he’d blank on terms. Feared forced retirement. His heart gave out.”
When Emily was in sixth form, Mum brought Victor home.
“He’s moving in?” Emily scowled.
“He doesn’t drink, earns well. Life will be easier. No more cleaning.”
Emily avoided him, even eating separately. Mum said he’d divorced, left his flat to his ex-wife and daughter.
Once, Emily saw Victor stroking the furniture. She hinted he’d married Mum for the flat. Mum dismissed it, speaking of loneliness, love… Victor was younger than Dad, even younger than Mum.
For months, things improved. Mum smiled again, dressed well. Then she caught a cold. A lingering cough worsened. Emily urged her to see a doctor.
“I did. They gave medicine. No fever. It’ll pass.”
But Mum weakened. Hospitalised, tests found nothing. Treatments failed.
One morning, the phone rang. Victor answered. Emily listened from her doorway.
“I’ll come now,” he said.
“Who was it?” she asked.
He turned, calm, almost smug.
“The hospital. Your mum—”
“I’m coming.”
They were told Mum had a heart attack overnight. The nurse, asleep, missed her call.
“Alone now. Orphans. Oh, Vera…” Victor slurred later, drunk at the kitchen table.
Emily fled to her room, muffling sobs in her pillow.
At the funeral, only a few colleagues and the furniture-hawking neighbour came. All pitied Victor, Emily.
Days later, Emily overheard Victor’s phone call:
“Patience. Too soon… They’ll suspect…”
Spotting her, he hung up.
“Who called?”
“Loan sharks. I borrowed for Vera’s treatment. They want repayment—say sell the furniture. I told them no, not so soon after… Don’t worry, I’ll find the money.”
She almost believed him.
They coexisted, barely speaking. Victor drank nightly. Once, he lingered by her bed as she feigned sleep. Later, the phone:
“Soon… It’ll be over.”
Her pulse raced. Over—her life? Like Mum’s?
A knock interrupted. Victor shouted at officers in the hall.
“By whose authority? I’m registered here!”
“Warrant for your arrest,” said Nikita, a young constable. “You murdered Vera Dobson. Now you’re poisoning her daughter. We found toxin in an ampoule from your bin.”
Victor spat accusations, but they took him.
Nikita escorted Emily to hospital. Drips, medication—she recovered. Nikita visited daily.
“What can I bring?”
“Anything but homemade drinks,” she said.
Victor was convicted. Emily reclaimed the flat.
“What now?” Nikita asked.
“Sell it. The furniture, too. What if someone else tries to kill me?”
“Keep the flat. Sell the antiques. Restore, move forward. I’ll help.”
They sold some pieces, refurbished.
“You should stay,” she said as he left. “It’s safer with you here.”
In time, black stripes fade to white. They married, happy in the old central-London flat—minus the antiques. Emily didn’t miss them. She’d gained something far greater.
*”People are just people. They love money, but that’s nothing new… Humanity adores it, whether leather, paper, bronze, or gold. Ordinary people… It’s the housing problem that corrupted them.”* —M. Bulgakov
*”They say life’s striped—like a zebra. Black streaks of misfortune alternate with white. Yet poor Vera got a checked zebra—grief and joy placed like chess pieces.”* —Adapted from D. DontsovaAnd as Emily and Nikita watched the sunset from their window, she finally understood that home wasn’t about the furniture or the walls—it was about the people who filled it with love.
