“I won’t go!” Alice screamed, slamming her bedroom door with finality.
“Look at Miss High-and-Mighty!” hissed Margaret Smith, tightening her dressing gown. “Lives under my roof, yet dares lay down the law.”
Fifteen-year-old Alice’s world shattered two years earlier when her father died in a crash. Though her parents were divorced, her mother Helen couldn’t bear the grief. First came tears, then the bottle, then ambulances. Silence followed. Her heart simply stopped.
Social services didn’t take Alice. Her father’s aunt, Elizabeth Brown – a stern, silver-haired woman – took custody. Yet within six months, Elizabeth discarded her like a hot potato: “Alice is uncontrollable, refuses to listen, hates living here. My husband objects anyway. Margaret has space.”
So Alice entered her stepmother’s home. Margaret Smith was her father’s second wife – the very woman who’d made Helen weep years before. Alice had loathed her from afar. Now they shared a roof.
“Dinner?” Margaret grunted, rapping a spoon against a pot.
“No,” Alice replied curtly.
“Suit yourself. Don’t go hunting crisps either. I didn’t buy any.”
The house was old but spacious and comfortable – her father’s renovations lingered: espresso-hued kitchen cabinets, beige parlour wallpaper, even a new boiler. Yet an invisible chill seeped into Alice’s bones.
“Let’s speak plainly,” Margaret snapped one day, out of patience. “I don’t love you, you don’t love me. That’s mutual. But I gave your father my word: you stay. Study, I’ll cook, we’ll keep this place clean. But no commands, no playing poor little orphan Annie. I’ve swallowed enough bitterness in my life.”
Alice clenched her fists, silent.
“My own mum died at seven,” Margaret added. “Dad drank. I worked three jobs from fifteen. Your father chased me, mark you. So hold no grudge for him.”
An uneasy truce settled.
Words grew sparse; glares sharper. They never openly fought, but tension hung thick as fog.
One afternoon, Alice returned from school to a note on the table:
> “Gone to York to see my sister. Back next week. Money’s here. Buy potatoes, cook yourself. Remember the cat feeds by schedule. M.”
No “love you,” no “take care.” Just cat, potatoes, schedule. Stung, Alice felt the emptiness swallow her: cold kettle, television dark, dust motes frozen mid-air. Fear gripped her throat.
“What if she never comes back? What then?” she whispered into the void.
She crept into Margaret’s room, opened drawers… and found photographs. Margaret as a girl in pigtails. Then a young woman in scrubs. With Alice’s father. With Alice herself – a three-year-old nestled on Margaret’s hip. And Margaret’s smile… real.
Alice sank onto the bed, weeping – sorrow, resentment, panic twisting inside her.
—
Days without Margaret dragged yet felt strangely… weightless. Alice blasted music, ate directly from pans, curled with the cat on the sofa. Yet freedom brought a hollow ache – something essential absent.
By day four, boredom crept in. Day five, unease settled.
On day six, Margaret returned.
Alice was studying at the kitchen table when the front door slammed.
“Your cat’s gone stark raving mad,” Margaret shouted from the hallway. “Yowling like a banshee. You did feed him?”
“Yes. To schedule,” Alice muttered, rising.
Seeing her stepmother, she froze. Margaret looked exhausted – heavy bags, pale face, clutching… an envelope.
“Look what I brought,” Margaret said softly, extending it. “It’s about your mother.”
Alice’s breath caught. “Mum?”
“Your mother has a sister. Married a Welshman and relocated. She’d been searching for you, but… I met her in York. She left you a letter and photograph. Says you can write.”
Alice’s hands trembled. She tore open the envelope. Inside: a woman faintly resembling Helen, posing with a husband and daughter. On the reverse, neat handwriting:
> “Sweet Alice, we knew nothing of your sorrow. Come to us – I am waiting. Remember, you’re not alone.”
“Why did you bring this?” Alice asked, bewildered.
“Because everyone deserves family. Your choice. I’m… not your mother.”
An unexpected candour cracked between them.
“You… try?” Alice repeated, faintly mocking.
Margaret snorted: “Course I do. Notice I didn’t turf you out? Even when you hogged the bathroom like Cleopatra.”
Both laughed – awkwardly, stifled. Shared laughter nonetheless.
A week later, Alice wrote to her aunt: she’d stay with Margaret. Afterwards, she sat pondering deeper truths.
One evening, Alice ventured: “Margaret… You’re not such a terrifying stepmother.”
Margaret arched an eyebrow: “Oh? Am I suddenly Gandalf the Benevolent?”
“No. More… a witch with a heart. Like in stories. Mean first, then kind.”
“Right. Dried frog’s legs for dinner tomorrow.”
Laughter echoed again.
—
Two years passed.
Alice graduated school with honours. At her ceremony, Margaret wore an emerald suit, pride shining in her eyes. They’d argued, clashed, yet mutual respect endured.
Months later in court, petitioning to adopt Alice, Margaret declared:
“I’m not her birth mother. But grant me this status. So she knows she has a home, forever.”
Alice wept openly in the courtroom.
Later, Margaret grumbled setting plates: “Alice! Undersalted the stew again?”
“Mum, I tried!”
Both froze at the unfamiliar word. Mum. Margaret glanced away… then offered a wry smile.
“Tried, she claims. Very well – forgiven today. You cook tomorrow.”
—
Five years later, Alice married Daniel, her university sweetheart – warm, dependable, endlessly patient. Their son Oliver arrived a year later: huge eyes, a smile stretching ear-to-ear.
Alice endured a gruelling labour. Margaret sped from her village, bulging carrier bag overflowing with country vegetables, wearing a commander’s expression.
“Hand me Oliver. Rest – you’re shattered,” she ordered, cradling her grandson like she’d done it lifelong.
A hospital neighbour asked Alice: “Your mum?”
“Yes,” Alice smiled. “Absolutely.”
Evenings now echoed with three voices:
“Where are Ollie’s socks?”
“Who leaves empty bottles in the sink?”
“Oliiiiver! Come to Granny!”
A guest once asked Margaret: ”
“Is it?” Margaret snapped, her weathered hand instinctively tightening around Oliver’s tiny wrist as if shielding him from the question itself, “love’s never been measured in blood, only loyalty.”
