**A Family Secret**
I woke at the sound of hushed voices in the flat. It was still dark outside. Five-year-old Lily crept out of her room and saw people in white coats gathered around her mother’s bed. Emily lay motionless, her eyes closed.
“Mum, Mum,” Lily whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Mum, wake up.”
She watched as they lifted Emily onto a stretcher and carried her out. Her father, James, stayed behind. The night before, Lily had heard her parents arguing—something about a woman named Grace. She knew Grace was her mother’s sister, long gone. There was even a photo of her at Granny Margaret’s cottage in the countryside.
Lily didn’t understand why they fought, only that Mum had cried and Dad had raised his voice. Now, something terrible had happened.
“Dad, what’s wrong with Mum?” she sobbed.
“It’s her heart, love,” James said, rubbing his temples. “She mustn’t get upset. Go back to bed—it’s too early. I’ll wake you for school.”
Emily had collapsed in the night, unable to call for help. James, for some reason, had woken and found her unresponsive. Panicked, he rang for an ambulance.
That morning, he rushed Lily to the nursery before heading to work. “Hurry now,” he urged. “Change your shoes and go straight in. I’ll fetch you this evening—we’ll visit Mum at the hospital.”
At work, exhaustion weighed on him. Rita, the dispatcher and his mistress of two years, sidled up to him. She was young, pretty, and sharp—after one too many drinks at the office Christmas do, he’d ended up at her flat. Emily had no idea, though she must have suspected.
James was a lorry driver, often away for days. Just yesterday, he’d returned early but lingered with Rita. Emily, walking home from her job, ran into Nadine, a colleague from James’s transport firm.
“Your husband got back yesterday,” Nadine remarked. “Forgot to hand in his logbook.”
Emily froze. “He’s not home yet.”
Nadine faltered, realising her blunder. “Oh, perhaps I was mistaken,” she muttered before hurrying off. Everyone knew about James and Rita.
That evening, Emily confronted him.
“Where were you? You came back yesterday.”
“Who told you that?” he snapped.
“A little bird,” she shot back.
The fight spiralled. They dredged up every grievance, their voices carrying to Lily’s room. She never interrupted—Mum had told her not to. But this time, it was worse.
Emily pressed until James admitted the affair. Maybe if he’d lied, she wouldn’t have ended up in hospital.
Later, he collected Lily from nursery, and they visited Emily. She lay pale under an IV, managing a weak smile for Lily but none for James.
He’d already decided. He’d leave Emily—Rita was pregnant and wanted him to move in. But the doctor had warned him: no stress for Emily.
Days passed. Granny Margaret arrived, shooing Lily to her room for a private talk. At first, it was calm, then angry—something about Grace again.
Emily came home, frail and forbidden to work. Margaret offered to take her and Lily to the countryside. Fresh air, quiet. But Lily was confused.
“What about Dad?”
“Love, he won’t be coming with us,” Emily said softly. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
James had packed his things before Emily’s discharge. “Take your belongings and go,” she’d told him. “I’ll file for divorce. And Lily was never really yours.”
He moved in with Rita and vanished from their lives.
The cottage was peaceful. But one day, Lily overheard Granny and a neighbour, Mrs. Thompson.
“James found himself a younger, healthier wife,” Margaret muttered. “She’s already borne him a child. Emily’s not well—short of breath, weak.”
Lily saw how her mother struggled, how she often stared at Grace’s photo on the wall, sighing deeply. Once, a tear rolled down her cheek.
Years passed. Emily grew weaker. Lily, now in secondary school, helped Granny, determined not to upset Mum.
“You rest,” she’d say. “I’ll manage.”
“You’re my clever girl,” Margaret would murmur, hugging her.
Then, one afternoon, Mrs. Wilkins stopped them in the lane.
“Goodness, Margaret—your granddaughter’s the spitting image of Grace at that age!”
Lily dug out old photos and saw the resemblance. But she said nothing.
Soon after, Emily collapsed again. The ambulance came, but this time, she didn’t return.
Granny held Lily tightly. “She’s gone, love.”
They visited the grave often, leaving wildflowers. Margaret’s gaze often drifted between Grace’s and Emily’s photos.
At sixteen, Lily finally asked, “Granny, why do I look like Aunt Grace and not Mum?”
Margaret, unwell that day, patted the bed beside her.
“You’re nearly grown now,” she said. “It’s time you knew.”
She explained that Emily and James couldn’t conceive. Then Grace and her husband, Thomas, died in a car crash—their vehicle had skidded off a sharp bend. Lily, just two, had been staying with Margaret. Emily and James took her in.
Lily gasped. “Grace was my real mother?”
Margaret nodded. “But Emily loved you as her own.”
There was more. James had been driving the lorry that night. Exhausted, he’d missed a sign, clipped Grace’s car, and fled. He confessed to Emily, and they buried the truth.
Lily was stunned. She had two mothers—yet both were gone.
Years later, she became a doctor, married a colleague, and brought Margaret to live with them. She even saw her great-grandsons, Oliver and Henry, before Margaret passed.
They buried her in the village, beside the family she’d loved.
