You threw me out at fourteen, and now you expect me to care for you in your old age? Not a chance!
Emily Thompson didnt just drop her teacupit was like she shattered a fragile piece of the past, something she thought had long since faded. The porcelain exploded with a sharp clatter, scattering across the faded linoleum like remnants of a life that had lost its shine. A pool of cold tea spread slowly, tracing the outline of a nonexistent landstrange, foreign, filled with pain and broken promises.
*”How how dare you?”* Her voice trembled like a string stretched too tight. Every word carried the weight of all those years. *”I gave birth to you, fed you, raised you Youre my son!”*
*”You kicked me out,”* Daniel cut in sharply, his arms crossed like armor against old wounds. *”Thats the word that matters. Not raised, not loved, but get out.”*
Lean and weathered at thirty-five, he leaned against the doorframe, his gaze sharp as a knife. The woman who had once been his mother now felt like a stranger. His thick brows furrowed, his eyes cold, unforgiving.
*”My boy”* Emily tried to stand, but her knees gave way. She stayed among the shards as if part of her had broken too. *”You dont understand It was a different time Things were hard”*
*”Youve been saying that for years,”* Daniels voice wavered, but he clenched his jaw, swallowing angerand pain. *”Ninety-eight, the recession, gangs on the streets, no money And you thought a fourteen-year-old boy could survive alone? Now you need help, and you expect me to come running? No. It wont happen.”*
He pushed off the doorframe, pacing the tiny kitchen, the ceiling suddenly too low, the walls too close. This flat, where hed once lived, now felt like a strangers.
For Emily, it had all started with the crashthe one that broke her world overnight. Her husband, an engineer, hadnt been paid in months. She barely scraped by working at a market stall. Then, one day, Michael vanished. No note, no calljust gone.
Three days later, the police found his body near the railway tracks. “Accident,” they said. But Emily knew the truth. He couldnt take the weight of debt, the hopelessness, the shame of not being able to provide. Hed given up. Left her alone.
With a fourteen-year-old son. With nothing.
*”Youll stay with Gran,”* she told Daniel, packing his things into an old suitcase. Her voice shook with the lie she tried to pass off as hope.
*”For how long?”* he asked, tugging at his jumper sleeve like he was holding onto somethinganything.
*”Not long. Just till I sort things out.”*
He nodded. Silent. Gran lived in a village miles away. One bus a day.
Daniel remembered every detail. How his mother wouldnt meet his eyes. How tight shed squeezed his hand at the station. How shed pressed an envelope of cash into his palm and kissed his cheek in a hurry.
*”Ill come soon. Listen to Gran.”*
He took a seat by the window, watching the future blur past. Emily stood on the platformsmall, lost, alone. The bus pulled away, and she stayed behind. For good.
Gran, Margaret Hayes, lived in a crumbling house at the edge of the village. She hadnt been expecting himEmily hadnt even called. When Daniel knocked, the old woman squinted at him like she wasnt sure who he was.
*”Danny? Emilys boy?”*
He nodded.
*”Wheres your mum?”*
*”She said shed come later.”*
Margaret frowned but let him in. The house smelled of damp and forgotten things. A kerosene lamp sat on the tableelectricity was rationed.
*”Make yourself at home,”* she said, pointing to a sagging sofa. *”But dont think this is a holiday. Theres work to do.”*
And so his new life began. His mother never called. Never wrote. Never came. The first week, hed walk to the road, staring at the horizon. By the second, he stopped.
Gran was tough. She sent him to the village school, but the rest of the time, he worked. Chopping wood, hauling water, tending the garden. His hands, once soft from schoolbooks and games, grew calloused.
*”Youre not a guest here,”* shed say. *”Work if you want to eat.”*
He worked. And at night, he cried into his pillow, quiet so Gran wouldnt hear. And waited. Waited for his mum to come take him home.
A month passed. Then two. Six. A year.
One day, he found a letter in the postbox. Inside, a few scribbled lines from his mother:
*”Danny, Im sorry. I cant take you back. Ive got a new family now. He doesnt want another mans child. Stay with Gran. Ill explain someday.”*
Something broke in him that day. He tore the letter to pieces, let the wind take them. Then he went into the woods and screamed until his voice gave out.
*”Gran showed me your letter,”* Daniel said, watching his mother still sitting among the broken china. *”Not right away. Three years later. After I ran away.”*
Emily looked up, shocked.
*”I wrote to you So many times.”*
*”One letter, Mum. One. And it was the wrong one.”*
She shook her head. *”No, I sent money too, every month.”*
Daniel scoffed. *”Then Gran lied. Never saw a penny.”*
Something flickered in Emilys eyesunderstanding, too late.
*”God I thought you were ignoring me”*
*”I was angry,”* Daniel braced his hands on the table. *”Every day. Every minute. Do you know what its like to think your own mother threw you away?”*
Margaret Hayes was from a different time. She believed in hard work, discipline, no coddling. She never hugged him, never said kind words. But she fed him. Clothed him. Made sure he went to school.
And she hated her daughter. Emily, in her eyes, had always been selfish. Left the village, moved to the city, married poorly. Then dumped her son like rubbish.
*”Just like her father,”* shed mutter. *”All talk, no spine.”*
She intercepted Emilys letters at the post office. Pocketed the moneysmall sums scraped from a meagre wage. Told Daniel his mother had forgotten him.
*”Dont wait for her, Danny. Youve got no mother now. Just me.”*
He didnt believe her. At first. Then he did. The village hardened him. He grew strong. Smart. School was his ticket outnot back to his mum. Just away.
At seventeen, he ran. Took his things, his grades, and caught the bus. Before he left, Gran, in a rare moment of guilt, gave him that one letterthe only one shed kept.
*”She abandoned you,”* she said. *”But youre still my blood. Dont hold it against me.”*
The city didnt care when he arrived.
Daniel had twenty quid in his pocket and a vow never to return. He didnt go to his motherpride wouldnt let him. Instead, he took a job as a stock boy at the same market where Emily once worked.
He slept in the storeroom, between crates of potatoes and onions, the air thick with damp and dust. Every night, curled up on the cold floor, he dreamed not of comfort but of a future that felt as distant as the stars. He saved every penny, denying himself even a cuppa if it wasnt in the budget. His life was harsh, but faira brutal education in survival.
Evenings, he went to night classes at the polytechnic. There, under flickering fluorescent lights, he found refuge. His maths tutor, spotting his knack for numbers, pulled him aside one night.
*”Youll study here for free,”* he said. *”Because what youve got isnt just skillits fire. And I wont ignore that.”*
That fire got him into union a full grant. His first real victory. A small, stubborn triumph over a life that had tried to break him.
With a dorm room, a stipend, and a lab assistant job, he finally felt solid ground beneath him. He wasnt just survivinghe was living. The fog over his future began to lift.
Then, one day on a crowded bus, he saw *her*. His mother.
She hadnt changed muchjust shorter hair, deeper lines around her eyes. Daniel gripped the rail, watching the woman who
