A Promise of Home: A Mother’s Plea for Her Ill Daughter

“Son, you’ll have the house. Just promise me, for pity’s sake, look after your poorly sister. You mustn’t abandon her,” whispered the mother.

“Listen to me, son…” her breath barely carrying the words.

Each syllable cost her dearly. The illness was stealing her away without mercy. She lay in bed, frail as a ghost. To James, she scarcely resembled the woman who’d raised him – once tall, full of vigour, with a warm smile that lit up their cramped flat in Birmingham.

“Son, I’m begging you, don’t cast Emily aside… She needs watching over. She’s not like others… but she’s ours. Promise me…” Her grip on his wrist tightened with shocking strength. Where did a dying woman find such force?

James winced. His gaze flicked toward his elder sister Emily, now in her forties, curled in the corner of their council flat, humming tunelessly as she dressed and redressed a porcelain doll. She beamed as if anticipating a birthday party, not their mother’s final hours.

James had built a good life: his own construction firm, a Range Rover, a riverside house in the Cotswolds. Yet there was no room for Emily there. His children flinched at her odd mannerisms, and his wife Margaret called her “that daft woman,” though Emily never harmed a soul.

“Well… you know… I’ve got my own family now… and Emily’s…” James mumbled, tugging at his mother’s weakening grasp.

“Son, your father’s house goes to you… But I’ve secured Emily a three-bed flat. It’s all settled.”

“Where’d the money come from?!” James and Margaret exchanged glances, faces brightening despite themselves.

“I tended old Mrs. Wilkins from number twelve… brought her meals, her pills… Kindly soul, she was. Never thought she’d leave me her place. I put it in Emily’s name, so she’d always have shelter. But you must mind her, I beg you… The flat’ll pass to your bairns one day… Who knows how long she’s got…”

They said their goodbyes. By morning, she was gone.

Emily seemed not to grasp she was now alone. James took her in temporarily while arranging builders for “her” flat.

“Why’s she need three bedrooms? She can bide with us. We’ll let the flat out,” he told Margaret eagerly.

At first, Margaret tolerated it. Emily kept to herself, arranging teacups for her dolls or folding worn jumpers with puzzling devotion. Still, her vacant smiles unnerved Margaret. “She’s harmless today, but what if she turns?” she’d hiss.

“Bear with it,” James urged. Yet within six months, with a solicitor’s help, he’d transferred both the family home and Emily’s flat into his name, coaxing her signature with sweets and vague promises.

From then, Emily’s life became torment.

While James worked, Margaret tormented her – locking her in the spare room, serving dog biscuits on chipped china, shrieking until the simple woman wept. One afternoon, Margaret slapped her. Emily, terrified, wet herself.

“Not just dim, but incontinent too? Out of my house!” Margaret screeched, shoving a bin bag of clothes into her arms and slamming the door.

“Where’s our Em?” James asked that night, pulling back the duvet.

“Gone!” Margaret snapped. “Pissed herself like a toddler, then flounced off with her handbag. As if I’d chase her!”

James froze, then flicked on the telly. “Well, if she’s gone… Found tenants for that flat, by the way.”

Dawn found him sleepless. Where would Emily go? She’d the sense of a toddler. When exhaustion took him, his mother haunted his dreams – corpse-pale in her oak coffin, wagging a finger. “You promised me, son…”

The nightmare returned weekly, gnawing his resolve. After two months, he rang his godmother, Agnes.

“Conscience pricking you, Jamie?” Agnes spat. “Thank God I checked your mum’s grave. Found Em there, half-frozen, clutching that doll. She’s safe with me now – not that I want her flat. You live with what you’ve done. Pray your mind stays sharp enough to remember it!”

“Enough, Aunty,” James muttered, hanging up with shaky relief. At least she was cared for. Life could continue.

Emily died eight weeks later – the same wasting sickness as their mum. James missed the funeral; “contractor meeting,” he claimed.

Ten years on, James lies bedridden in a care home, joints screaming, guilt screaming louder. Margaret visits monthly with papers to sign – first the house deeds, then the business. Only after scrawling his name does he realise: she’s stripping him bare.

The weeping starts then, great heaving sobs echoing in the sterile room. “Forgive me… forgive me…” he whispers to ghosts who don’t answer.

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A Promise of Home: A Mother’s Plea for Her Ill Daughter