The receiver slammed down with a finality that echoed in the cramped kitchen. “Don’t you dare ring me again! Understand? Never!” Margaret Davies sank onto the wooden stool beside the table, her hands trembling faintly, heart thudding against her ribs.
“Mum? Whatever’s happened?” Across the small passage, Sophie peeked out from her room. “Who was it?”
“Nobody,” her mother rasped. “Nobody rang.”
Sophie moved closer, seeing the pallor beneath the familiar lines of Margaret’s face. “Mum, you’re shaking! What happened?”
“Your father turned up,” Margaret whispered. “After all these years… Wants to see me, talk. Says he misses us, regrets everything.”
“Dad rang?” Sophie sat down quickly, taking her mother’s chilled hand. “What did he want?”
“He wants forgiveness. Wants me to let him come. Says he’s ill, that the doctors…” Margaret trailed off, wiping a sudden tear. “Too late, Sophie. Far too late for all that.”
“Mum, tell me what really happened back then. I was so little, I only remember he left and never came back.”
Margaret stood up, walked to the window. Rain spattered the pane, droplets tracing slow paths downward.
“You were seven. Kept asking where your dad was, and I didn’t know what to say. Told you he was away with work, that he’d be back soon. But I didn’t know where he was myself.”
“He just left? Without a word?”
“Not just left. He…” Margaret pressed her lips together. “He betrayed us. Me, you, our home. There was another family, Sophie. Another wife, other children. And he chose them.”
Sophie digested this in silence. Thirty-two now, her childhood memories of her father were shadowy, like figures seen through fog.
“He used to say he loved us,” Margaret continued quietly. “Came home every day, played with you, read you stories. Then I found out he had another daughter, three years older than you. A wife who thought herself the lawful one. Who hadn’t a clue about us.”
“Good Lord, Mum… How did you find out?”
“Stupidly. He fell ill, was in hospital. I went to visit, and there was this woman sitting there with a girl. And the girl screamed, ‘Daddy!’ and he hugged her and kissed her. I knew then. Just stood there in the doorway. He saw me and went ghostly pale. That woman, Louise, looked from him to me, asked, ‘Who’s this, Edward?’ And he said nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“What happened then?”
“The conversation was brief. She told me they’d been married eight years, the flat was in her name, her daughter carried his surname. And me? I was the daft, besotted one. We never married. He always said the registry office was nonsense, that love mattered. He gave you his name, yes, but I had no papers, no hold on him.”
Sophie stood and embraced her mother. “Mum, why didn’t you tell me before? Why wait?”
“Why burden you? Your childhood was hard enough as it was. I worked alone, money was tight, rushed you round doctors when you were poorly. Thought I’d tell you when you were grown. Then time passed, you made your own life, married. Why rake over old wounds?”
“Did he try? Ever? To get in touch?”
“He tried. Came round those first months, lurking by the windows, begging to talk. I wouldn’t open the door. Sent letters, sent money. I sent them back unopened, unspent. Proud fool I was. Thought I could raise a daughter alone, didn’t need that sort of a man.”
“And now he’s reappeared.”
“Now, yes. Ringing this past week. Says Louise has passed, their daughter’s grown, married, that he’s alone. Wants to see you, meet the grandchildren. Says he’s very ill, that he hasn’t long.”
Sophie stepped back, thoughtful. “Mum… perhaps we should hear him out? I don’t remember him properly. Maybe he really is sorry?”
“Sophie!” Margaret turned on her sharply. “What are you saying? Twenty-five years! Twenty-five years he forgot we existed! And now, when *he’s* suffering, he remembers?”
“But he’s rung more than once. It must matter to him.”
“Matter!” Margaret laughed bitterly. “Matters that he clears his conscience before the end. Makes dying easier. What good does that do us? What does his regret give *me*? My youth back? Wipe away your childhood tears when you asked where Daddy was?”
Sophie sat at the table, resting her head in her hands. “Mum, I forgave him years ago. Sorted myself out as a teen. Knew anger was pointless. You have to live.”
“You can forgive, you’re young. I can’t. I remember every day, every sleepless night. Slaving on two jobs to keep you clothed and fed. Remember you crying when kids at school called you names for having no dad. Your graduation, with no one but me to see you walk. Walking you at your wedding… no father to give you away.”
“Mum, but we managed! Look at us. I’ve a good family, healthy kids, my own work. We built our house. Maybe it *was* better without him?”
“Maybe it was. Doesn’t mean I have to forgive him. Let his conscience gnaw at him. Let him learn that not everything in life can be mended.”
The phone shrilled again. Margaret froze, her eyes meeting Sophie’s.
“Don’t answer, Mum.”
“Don’t intend to.”
It stopped, only to start anew a minute later.
“Maybe it’s not him?” Sophie ventured uncertainly.
“It is. I know the voice. Older, but I know it.”
“Mum… what if he truly is dying?”
“We all die, Sophie. Some with a clear conscience, some with it still stained.”
The calls ceased. Mother and daughter sat in the quiet kitchen, lost in their own thoughts.
“Know what, Mum? I *will* see him,” Sophie announced suddenly. “I want to look him in the eye, talk. Maybe he’ll tell me something about my infancy. When we were together.”
“You must be mad!” Margaret sprang up. “What’s the point? He’s a stranger!”
“Not a stranger. My father. A bad one, perhaps. But my father. And I have a right to see him.”
“You have that right. But don’t ask me to understand it. I won’t, and I don’t want to.”
“Mum, I’m not asking you to meet him. I’ll go alone. Find out what he wants, what’s truly happening. Maybe he *is* a changed man.”
“Men don’t change at sixty, Sophie. They stay as they always were. Only older and slyer.”
“Alright, Mum. Let’s leave it. You’re upset, and I need to see to the children. They’ll be home from school soon.”
Sophie kissed her mother’s cheek, picked up her bag.
“Only… don’t be foolish,” Margaret pleaded softly. “Think hard on it.”
“I will, Mum. I promise I will.”
Once Sophie left, Margaret sank into her armchair, picking up an old photograph. A younger
The ache of Victor’s betrayal had long settled within her like stone, leaving Helen Peters standing alone at the window years later, realizing that her heart had become a fortress mortared by pride and pain, forever closed to reconciliation even as opportunity crumbled beyond repair.
