Long ago, in a quiet corner of England, Emmas mother often brought home new “uncles”Emma could remember three. None stayed long. They’d drift away, leaving her mother in tears, clutching her tight, whispering, “Dont fret, love. Our luckll turn.” Then shed wipe her eyes and hurry off to work.
The last one lingered a fortnight, but when the drink ran dry, he grew sullen. One morning, he vanished, taking her mothers pearl earrings from the jewellery box. Her mother never reported it. “My fault,” she muttered, as if blaming herself made it easier.
For five years, peace settled over their little flat in Leeds. Emma dared to hopejust the two of them, simple and steady. But when she turned fifteen, her mother fell in love. She gushed about him: so kind, so clever, so devoted. Emma was glad. Maybe, at last, her mother had found happiness.
The first time Mum brought Thomas home, Emma liked him too. A man near forty, neatly dressed, sipping a single whisky at supper. He joked dryly, spoke gently. When Emma excused herself to bed, she imagined finding him at the breakfast table. But an hour later, the front door clicked shut. Gone.
Yet by morning, her mother was alight again. “Works at the council,” she beamed. “Proper respectable. Says well move in with him after the weddingonce youve finished school. His flat needs doing up first.”
Emma watched her mother glow, younger somehow at thirty-six, as if love had sanded away the years of weariness.
They married just before term began. Emma, buried in GCSE revisions, barely noticed Thomas at first. Hed ask if she needed help; shed thank him and decline. Polite, always knocking before entering her room. Slowly, she grew easy around him. Over supper, shed chatter about school dramas, and hed listen, genuinely interested.
Her mother bloomed. Thomas spoiled hernew earrings, then a gold chain. The year slipped by. When the lease ended, he suggested Emma join them. “Plenty of space.” But shed just turned seventeen, itching for independence. Thomas waved off her worries about money. “Well sort it.” Enrol at the local college, he said. Hed help her find work afterward.
Before they left, Thomas pressed a small velvet box into her handsa graduation gift. A delicate locket. Emma adored it, checking her reflection for days.
Her mother had hesitated. “A bit much, isnt it?”
Thomas had chuckled. “Who else will spoil her?”
Then they were gone, and Emma had her own life. At first, she visited often. Later, less so. Sometimes her mother dropped by with groceries or cash; sometimes theyd bump into each other in town. Everyone busy, always rushing.
College was a thrill. Shed visit on weekends, sharing stories over Sunday roasts. One evening, Thomas announced a work transfera year abroad. Her mother would go too. “Well send money,” they promised.
At the train station, her mothers eyes welled up. Emma laughed. “Mum, Im nearly eighteen. Ill be fine.” Hugs, laughter, then the clatter of the departing train.
They returned for just two days at Christmas, laden with gifts. Then, months later, a callthe assignment extended. Two more years. Thomas would come back to sort the flat, rent it out. Her mother couldnt leave work.
Emma came home from lectures to the sound of shuffling in her room. Thomas stood there, boxes in hand.
“Hello! Youre early.”
“Ah, Emma. Just making space.”
He stared. Shed changed. No longer a girlcurves, makeup, a womans poise. She tossed her bag down. “Ill change, then fix supper.”
In the hallway mirror, he caught a glimpse of her undressing. Soft, roundedhe shook his head. Nonsense thoughts.
Over dinner, they traded news. She made up the old bed for him. Later, lying awake, she heard him pace. The image in the mirror haunted him.
She turned a page in her bookand there he stood in her doorway. Strange stare. Just a towel around his waist.
“Did you need something?”
Three days later, he left. Emma shoved the memory deep. But three months on, he returnedand it happened again.
Shame coiled in her gut. Then worse. The test strips blue lines.
She rang him six times before he called back.
“Miss me that much?”
“Im pregnant.”
“Bloody hell. How?”
Promotions dangled before him; this could mean prison. “Listen. Ill send money. Sort it. And for Christs sake, keep quiet.”
She clutched her head. The scandalexpulsion, stares. If anyone learned who the father washer mother would crumble.
A week later, Thomas arrived with cash and an address. A cottage in the Lake District. “Stay there. Youll need parents consent for a clinic. Go to a wise womantheyre about up there.”
Terrified, weeping, she agreed.
The cottage was a bleak stone husk. She found the key under a rock. Days later, trembling, she knocked at a crooked door in the woods.
A toothless crone glared.
“What dyou want, sinner?”
Emma burst into tears. The old woman relented, handing her water.
“Please I need”
“Say it plain, girl. You want me to murder your babe with my own hands?”
Emma fled. The hags cackle chased her.
Alone. Godforsaken.
Meanwhile, Andrewjust freed after two years for manslaughterhad returned to the village. Back when hed been a medic, hed stepped into an alley to stop two lads assaulting a girl. One punch, a bad fallthe lad cracked his skull on the kerb. Turned out his dad was some bigwig.
Now, on a misty dawn, Andrew checked his fishing nets. The river bend was still, the water silver. He liked the quietjust him, the fish, the sunrise.
Then a figure blocked the light. A girl, arms outstretched, stepping toward the cliffs edge.
He plunged in just as the bundle hit the water.
Emma stepped back. Free. Her old life waited.
Thena cry? Her daughters wail?
“No” She tore off her coat, leaped.
Andrew, already wrapping the baby in his jumper, heard the splash. The girl dove, surfaced, dove again. Panic would drown her. He waited, then swam.
She fought as he dragged her ashore. One sharp tapjust enoughand she went still.
Back at the cottage, he warmed milk in a nipple-pierced bottle (his grans, from lamb-feeding days). The baby slept. He bandaged the cord, then turned to Emma, unconscious in his bed.
She woke to ammonias sting.
“Who?”
“Andrew.”
Memory flooded back. She lunged for the baby. “Give her to me!”
Baffled, he laid the child beside her.
Emma sobbed. “Im sorry I lost my mind.”
Later, over stew, they talked. Andrew frowned. “You cant hide forever. The babe needs registering. Whos the father?”
She spilled it allthe stepfather, the shame, the hags cottage.
The next day, Andrew called in a favoura councilman hed once fished out of the river. By evening, a registrar arrived.
She blanched at Emmas birth date. “Shes under eighteen.”
The solution? A quick registry-office wedding. Andrew grinned. “Fancy being Mrs. Dawson, love?”
That night, they toasted with watered wine. Emma called her mother.
“Hello? Mum Im married. Had a baby girl. Well visit soon.”
A stunned silence, then a shriek. “Emma! Where are you?”
“Not now. Im safe. Ill come when I can.”
She hung up.
A year later, they drove to Leeds in Andrews Land Rover. Her mother scanned every car, not expecting them.
“Mum?”
They embraced, wept.
“Thomas was so sorry to miss you,” her mother said. “Called away for work.”
Emma and Andrew exchanged a glance. Just as well.
That evening, as her mother cooed over little Rose, Emma caught Andrews eye across the room. He winked.
Their luck, it seemed, had turned at last.
