Unloved
From childhood, Edwina detested her name. It felt old-fashioned, like something from her grandmother’s time. When she grew older, her mother confessed the truth—there had been a woman in her father’s youth, a dazzling, vivacious Edwina he had loved deeply. She had spurned him and married another.
“Then he met me. And when you were born, he gave you her name. He never forgot his first love,” her mother said calmly.
“And you don’t resent him?”
“No. He loves you and me. People always remember their first love. One day, you’ll have one too.” Her mother stroked Edwina’s hair.
“Was his Edwina as plain as I am?” the girl snapped.
“What nonsense! Remember the tale of the ugly duckling? And if you truly hate your name, you can change it when you’re older. What would you prefer?”
Edwina stood before the mirror, trying on names like dresses, but none fit. With a sigh, she accepted that a new name wouldn’t make her beautiful. Still, she doubted anyone would love her as her father had loved his Edwina. Mousy hair, small eyes, a sharp chin—plain as porridge.
Her father loved drink almost as much as her. On his way home from work, he often stopped at the pub, returning jovial with sweets or coins for Edwina. She saved them, buying what she pleased.
He drowned the year she finished school—drunk, slipping into the river after a child’s stray ball. Her mother cursed him for leaving them, but Edwina mourned bitterly.
“You can’t stay here,” her mother insisted. “Go, perhaps you’ll marry.”
So Edwina left. She dreamed of becoming a doctor, but her village schooling wouldn’t suffice. She enrolled as a nurse, drawn to the crisp white uniforms.
Her dormmate, Margot, was everything she was not—a striking brunette with curls, dark eyes, and a figure to turn heads. Edwina watched her with envy, while Margot basked in the contrast.
Then Margot met Paul, a handsome engineering student. Edwina’s heart seized the moment she saw him. He often waited while Margot studied, sighing impatiently.
“Take Edwina to the pictures,” Margot would dismiss him.
He never asked.
“Why refuse him?” Edwina fumed.
“He’s not serious. Find someone simpler,” Margot advised.
One evening, Paul arrived to an empty room—save for Edwina’s sizzling bacon-laced potatoes, a scent that lured half the floor.
“Join me,” she offered.
He devoured it eagerly. “You’d make a fine wife,” he said afterward, leaning back like a well-fed cat.
When Margot skipped a cinema date, Edwina stepped in. She clung to his arm, inventing stories that made him laugh. In the dark, she feigned fright to seize his hand.
Afterward, she fed him again—bacon, mash, pickles, and wine. Drunk, he dozed against her, mistaking her for Margot in the night.
“Forgive me,” he muttered at dawn. “Don’t tell Margot.”
Three weeks later, she knew she carried his child.
“Quick work,” Margot sneered. “He won’t marry you.”
Paul shrugged. “Your problem.”
Edwina bore the girl alone, expelled from the dorm. A kind landlady, Mrs. Rose, took her in. Life was hard, but she scraped by—nursing by day, injections for cash by night.
Paul drifted in occasionally with gifts, curiosity flickering at the pram. Then Mrs. Rose died, leaving Edwina her flat—a stroke of luck.
Years passed. Paul proposed—not for love, she knew, but for the roof. She accepted.
Then he changed—distant, distracted. She learned of the singer he adored, a blonde with a throaty voice and legs for days. He left without remorse.
Edwina endured, raising their daughter while juggling debts and night shifts.
Years later, the singer appeared at her door. “Take him. He’s in hospital—drunk, broken. I’m leaving.”
Edwina refused—at first.
But duty nagged. At the hospital, she found Paul frail, grey. The doctor pressed: “He’s still her father.”
She brought him home, tended his wounds, endured his complaints.
“Where will you go?” she asked once he improved.
“Don’t cast me out,” he begged, weeping. “You’re the best woman I’ve known.”
She almost laughed. The once-handsome boy was now a broken man. And she? Still no queue of suitors.
As their daughter prepared to marry, Edwina weighed loneliness against the ghost of love.
Her hand lingered on his shoulder. He kissed it, lips damp with tears.
“I’ll make supper.” She stood abruptly.
“Fry potatoes?” he asked. “Like you used to?”
She paused.
Then walked to the kitchen.
