I recall that drizzly autumn day as young Edward argued with Mother at our Hackney window. “Oh, leave off, Mum!” he snapped, turning sharply from the cars below. “Must you harp on? I’ve explained myself countless times!”
“Explained?” Margaret cried out, wringing her hands. “What explanation is worth abandoning your own flesh and blood for some stray widow and her youngsters?”
“She is not stray! Eleanor is my wife!” Edward clenched his fists, voice trembling with anger. “And those children are mine now! Mine, do you hear?”
I sat silently at the kitchen table opposite Sophie, twisting a teaspoon. Tears fell into my cooled tea. I wasn’t sobbing – they simply overflowed, like the rain outside.
“Yours?” Mother gave a harsh, bitter laugh. “Have you gone quite mad? You have blood kin! A sister barely walking after her accident! A mother who sacrificed her life for you! Yet you run off to strangers!”
Edward sank onto the sofa edge, rubbing his face with a weary hand. He was bone-tired of these rows.
“Mum, try to see reason. I’m a grown man of thirty-two. I deserve a life of my own.”
“Your own life?” Margaret pleaded, taking his hands. “Edward, love, what life can you have with a divorced woman and another man’s children? You’re young, handsome, with good prospects. Find a fresh young girl, have babies of your own…”
“I want no other children!” He snatched his hands away. “Max and Alice—they *are* mine. Young Max called me ‘Dad’ yesterday. Understand? Someone called me Dad for the first time!”
Sophie sniffled and stood, limping slowly to her brother. “Edward,” she asked softly, her voice fractured, “what about me? You know I shan’t manage without you. Since the accident, you’re my only hope. Mum’s pension, what little she has… Who will help if you don’t?”
He held her close, stroking her hair. “Sophie, sweetheart, I’m not dying. I’ll only be a borough away. I’ll still help, course I will. But I have my own family now.”
“That family was always here!” Mother burst out. “*We* are your true family! Your blood!”
“Eleanor’s expecting,” Edward murmured.
Silence fell, thick and heavy, broken only by the mantel clock and the downpour outside.
“What did you say?” Mother paled, sinking into her armchair.
“Eleanor is with child. Our child. See now why I must stay?”
Sophie pulled away, staring at him wide-eyed. “How far along?”
“Five weeks now. The doctors say all is well.”
“Dear Lord…” Mother covered her face. “Whatever have you done, son? Whatever have you done?”
Margaret had been a nursery school teacher for thirty years. She adored children, but the image she held of Edward’s future offspring wasn’t from a divorced woman with two babes already. She’d dreamt of a good girl from a respectable family.
“Mum, what’s so terrible?” Edward tried to embrace her. “You’ll finally have a grandchild. Isn’t that grand?”
“Grandchild from whom?” She recoiled. “From a woman who sprinted into one marriage already? Who bore two others? Who *is* she, this Eleanor?”
“She’s a nurse at St. Thomas’s, paediatric ward. A kind, decent woman,” Edward insisted. “Her children are lovely, well-mannered.”
“And their father?” Mother pressed.
“Died serving in the Falklands. Eleanor was only twenty-two, left with two tiny ones.”
“Ah,” Margaret nodded bitterly. “So she needed a fool to support them all. And found one.”
“Mum!” Edward exploded. “Enough! I am no fool! I’m a grown man who chose a woman out of love!”
“Love?” Mother paced. “What do you know of *love*? Sat home all these years, worked, looked after us. No experience with women. The first one comes along and leads you by the nose.”
Sophie returned to the table, resting her head in her hands. Since the accident, headaches came often, and family rows made them blinding. “My head splits,” she whispered. “Must you shout?”
“Sophie, forgive me,” Edward touched her brow. “No fever? Took your pills?”
“I did. No relief.”
“We’ll see the doctor tomorrow,” he promised.
“Tomorrow?” Mother scoffed. “You’ll have no time tomorrow. Other duties now. Taking these *other* children to school, helping with lessons.”
“Max is eight, Alice is five. They are not ‘other’,” Edward repeated dully. “We’ll see the doctor tomorrow.”
“And the day after? Next week?” Margaret persisted. “When that woman of yours starts to show, she’ll need constant care. You’ll have no time left for Sophie.”
“I will. I’m not moving to the moon. Just Camden.”
“Just Camden!” Mother mocked. “You used to live through the wall. Sophie takes ill at night, knocks—you’d run through. What now? Treat her over the telephone?”
Edward slumped back against the sofa, defeated. The argument circled endlessly. Mother refused understanding, Sophie wept, and he felt guilty simmering beneath his anger.
“Edward,” Sophie asked suddenly, “might I meet your Eleanor?”
“Why?” Mother eyed her suspiciously.
“I’d like to see her. Understand what makes her special.”
“Certainly,” Edward brightened. “Let’s meet tomorrow. A café perhaps, or visit our place.”
“Your place?” Mother frowned. “Where’s that?”
“Rented a two-bed flat in Camden. Plan to buy a three-bed later, more space for the children.”
“With what funds?”
“My savings. Eleanor will sell her one-bed flat.”
“Ah, clear as day,” Margaret nodded stiffly. “So she needs your money too. It all fits.”
“Mum, stop!” He sprang up. “Keep this up, and I simply won’t visit!”
“Won’t visit your own mother? Your poorly sister?” Her voice cracked. “How can you say such things?”
“I *can*! I’m sick of hearing vile things about my wife!”
“Wife…” Mother shook her head. “Wed, are you even?”
“Registry office next week. Church wedding after the baby’s born.”
“Church wedding? In church?”
“At St. Paul’s Cathedral. Eleanor’s devout.”
“Children christened?”
“Of course. We attend Sunday services together.”
Margaret fell quiet. She believed herself, though attended church rarely, praying more at home. But if Eleanor took the children to worship, perhaps she wasn’t altogether lost.
“Edward, what is she truly like?” Sophie asked. “Tell us properly, without anger.”
He sat beside his sister, taking her hand. “She’s gentle. Quiet, steady. Calm. Respected at work. Even difficult children warm to her. Max and Alice are well-raised. Eleanor managed alone five years after… after her loss.”
“Is she pretty?” It mattered strangely to Sophie.
“To me, very. Not a film star, mind… but luminous. Kind eyes, a warm smile. When I come home, she greets me at the door, truly glad just I’m there.”
“And weren’t *we* glad?” Mother’s voice was small.
“You were. But differently. Glad I came to help, talk, bring money. She’s glad *I’m there*. Just me. See the difference?”
Sophie nodded. After the accident, when doctors said she’d never fully mend, she’d felt a burden. To everyone. Even beloved Edward. She imagined his visits came from duty, or pity.
“Edward, how do the children regard you?” she asked.
“Max was jealous of me at first.
Edward stepped out into the settling drizzle, the weight of their wary acceptance mingling with the fragile hope blooming in his chest, knowing the difficult work of weaving two families together had only just begun under the grey Manchester sky as he walked towards his own new hearth.
