The Apartment, or The Story of One Family
Emily trudged home from school, wondering how to keep her mother from finding out about the failing grade. It would be so much easier if Mum weren’t home at all. Then she could just hide the report card and say she’d forgotten it at school. But what about tomorrow? She couldn’t “forget” it every day. Sooner or later, Mum would find out.
*Today I’ll hide it, and tomorrow I’ll fix the grade. Then she won’t be too angry,* Emily decided, quickening her steps.
Mum reminded her daily how important it was to do well in school—first, to uphold the family name. Her father had been a distinguished professor. And second, to keep her mind sharp. Some illnesses ran in families. Her grandmother had suffered from dementia and passed when Emily was only two.
She eased the front door open, careful not to let it slam. Mum’s coat hung on the rack—she was home. Emily tiptoed to her room, stashed the report card under her pillow, and finally exhaled. After changing, she sat at her desk to work on homework, rereading a history passage twice. Still, Mum never came in. That wasn’t like her.
Emily cracked the door and listened. The flat was silent. Was Mum ill, asleep? Their home was spacious, with high ceilings and tall windows in the heart of London. The furniture was heavy, antique, and dark. The hallway, lined with wardrobes, stretched long and shadowed.
Then the grandfather clock in the parlour chimed. Emily startled, then steadied herself—just Grandfather’s old clock. She crept down the hall and peeked into the kitchen. Mum sat at the table, forehead resting on folded arms.
“Mum?” Emily touched her shoulder.
Her mother lifted her head, eyes red-rimmed.
“Dad’s gone. Right in the middle of his lecture…” Her voice was hollow. She pulled Emily close and wept into her shoulder. Emily held on—then, at last, she broke too.
The next day, she didn’t go to school, didn’t fix the grade. There was no time. They went to the hospital, the mortuary, where Mum brought Dad’s best suit and polished shoes, then elsewhere.
The funeral was crowded, mostly faculty from the university where Dad had taught and chaired his department. Emily barely recognised him—the man in the coffin was a stranger. But Mum wept, murmuring, “How will we manage without you? Why did you leave us…”
Afterwards, Mum stayed in bed for days, crying, refusing meals. Emily cooked pasta or dumplings. When they ran out, she asked for money.
“Take it,” Mum said without asking why.
Emily bought sausages, a loaf of bread, and more pasta.
One evening, she came home to find Mum at the stove, making soup. Emily brightened.
“How was school? What have you been eating?” Mum asked. Emily told her. “Forgive me. I forgot about you. But it’s all right. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Dad’s department and ask for work. They won’t refuse me, will they? We must carry on.”
Mum was gaunt, pale—nothing like herself from when Dad was alive. But she wasn’t crying. That was something.
The new department head, Dad’s former student, gave Mum a lab assistant job. With only an unfinished degree, she couldn’t teach. The pay was meagre, so he offered extra work—cleaning the offices after hours. She accepted but scrubbed floors only when the professors had left.
“The professor’s wife, mopping floors,” Mum sighed.
Emily often stayed to help.
Money remained tight. Mum sold her jewellery to colleagues, accepting whatever they offered. Soon even that was gone.
A neighbour came, eyeing the furniture. Mum refused.
“This flat wouldn’t be the same without it.”
“If you change your mind, my offer won’t be as generous,” the neighbour sniffed before leaving.
Emily asked why Mum prized the furniture but had sold her gold.
“You’re too young to understand. These pieces are antiques—museum quality. Even during the war, they weren’t sold.”
Then Mum told Emily how they’d come to live here.
She’d arrived from a small village to study at the university, lodging in a dormitory. Dad had been a lecturer, much older. They’d hidden their affair. When Mum fell pregnant, Dad brought her home.
They married, though his mother disapproved, finding Mum unworthy of their distinguished name.
“I nearly left, but your father stood by me. He fought with his mother. Then you were born, and she quieted. One day, she went to the shops and never returned. Dad searched the city. A neighbour found her at the station—she’d forgotten they’d sold the cottage after Grandad died.”
“She’d leave the gas on, the taps running. I had to watch her every moment—and you were so small. Two years of it. By the end, she didn’t know us…”
When she died, Mum turned her room into Dad’s study. He worked tirelessly, publishing in scholarly journals.
“You remember how kind he was? I loved him. But those last years… Becoming professor took everything. And I was still young.”
“He began forgetting things, like his mother. Mid-lecture, he’d lose his words. Terrified of forced retirement. His heart gave out,” Mum said.
Emily was in sixth form when Mum brought Victor home.
“He’s moving in?” she asked flatly.
“He doesn’t drink, earns well. It’ll be easier. I won’t have to clean the department anymore.”
Emily disliked him, avoiding him, even eating separately. Mum said he’d divorced, leaving his flat to his ex-wife and daughter.
Once, Emily saw him stroking the furniture. She hinted that Victor married Mum for the flat and antiques. But Mum spoke only of love, the hardship of being alone… Victor was younger than Dad, even younger than Mum.
For months, all was well. Mum smiled again, dressed nicely. Then she caught a cold—a cough that lingered, worsened. Emily begged her to see a doctor.
“I did. They gave me medicine. No fever. It’ll pass.”
But Mum grew thinner, weaker. The cough wracked her. She was hospitalised.
Victor made broths and cordials, sending Emily to deliver them. But Mum worsened. Doctors couldn’t pinpoint the illness.
One morning, the phone rang. Victor answered. Emily listened.
“I’ll come at once,” he said.
“Who was it?” she asked.
He turned sharply—not startled, almost pleased.
“The hospital. Either your mother’s worse or…”
“I’ll go with you,” she said, dressing quickly.
At the hospital, they learned Mum had suffered a heart attack overnight. The nurse, asleep, hadn’t responded in time.
“Just us now. Orphans. Oh, Veronica, why did you leave us…” Victor slurred later, drunk at the kitchen table.
Emily fled to her room, muffling sobs in her pillow.
Only a few attended the funeral—two colleagues, the furniture-hawking neighbour. All pitied Victor, Emily.
Two days later, she returned from school to overhear Victor on the phone:
“Be patient. Too soon… They’ll suspect…”
He hung up, catching her stare.
“Who called? Suspect what?”
“A loan, for your mother’s treatment. They want repayment—say to sell the furniture. I told them it’s too soon, Veronica’s just buried. Don’t worry. I’ll find the money.”
She almost believed him.
Now they lived as strangers, Victor drinking nightly. Once, he lingered by her bed as she feigned sleep.
“It’ll all be over soon…”
Her pulse pounded. Over—how? Like Mum?
Later, a knock. Victor shouted in the hall:
“You’ve no right! I’m registered here!”
“A warrant for your arrest,” a voice replied—Nick, the young constable she’d confided in days prior.
“You’re accusing me of what?”
“Murdering Veronica Dobson. Now attempting the same with her daughter. We’ve evidence—an ampoule from your flat contained a toxin.”
Victor was taken. Nick escorted Emily to hospital. Drips, medicine—she improved. He visited daily.
“Need anything?”
“Anything but cordial.”
Victor was convicted. Emily revoked his tenancy.
“What now?” Nick asked.
“Sell the flat and furniture. Before someone else poisons me.”
“Keep the flat. Sell the antiques—they’re worth plenty. Redecorate. I’ll help.”
She agreed. They sold some pieces, kept others. Nick and friends repapered the walls.
“I should go. You’re tired,” he said.
“Where do you live?”
“A hostel.”
“Stay here. There’s room. I feel safer with you.”
Light follows darkness. Within months, they married, happy in their old London flat—though stripped of antiques. Emily didn’t miss them. She’d gained something far greater.
*Years later, as Emily rocked their first child to sleep in the same sunlit nursery where her father’s study once stood, she finally understood that home wasn’t in the furniture or the walls, but in the love that filled them.
