Of course she was only pretending
“Emma, do you think we ought to visit your mum? She hasnt seen us in ages”
Emma glanced up from her mobile, giving her husband a quick look. William lingered in the kitchen doorway, his shoulder propped against the frame, eyes soft and gentle with that expressionthe one that always made Emma want to bolt for another subject.
“Shes fine,” Emma said with a flick of her hand, returning to the screen. “I rang her the other day.”
“But she was in hospital, wasnt she? With her heart, you said so yourself.”
William didnt move, just waited. Emma knew his stylenever press, just remain until she spoke. Normally it worked. But not tonight.
“Will, it was nothing,” Emma sighed, laying her phone asideignoring him any further would be outright rude. “She was pretending. Cant you see? I hadn’t been to see her for two months, so she put on her big act. Rang me up, voice all frail, gasping’Come over, Emma, Im so unwell.’ I rushed there, and next day she was right as rain.”
“Pretended to be ill?”
Williams voice was gentle, just questioning, but even so it stung.
“You don’t know her like I do. Shes always done thisfrom when I was little. Hand to her chest, sighing and groaning. Then you find out all she wanted was attention.”
William frowned slightly; Emma had learned long ago what that little crease between his eyebrows meantnot anger, more confusion. Hed come from a family of warmth, reliable weekends, and grandmum baking Victoria sponge on Sundays. She couldnt explain it to him.
“Lets talk about the weekend instead,” Emma stood, approaching him, resting her hands on his chest. “We could go to that new restaurant, couldnt we? Please, Will
He laid his hands over hers, but the crease remained. Emma knew he would squirrel away this conversation, close it up in a drawer in his mind, and one dayat the worst momenthed bring it back out. But for now, she leaned in, kissing him on the corner of his mouth.
Later, when William left for a work dinner, Emma settled in the bedroom with a booka trendy novel, all about complicated women and tangled relationships everyone seemed to be discussing. She read a page, then another, but found she couldnt remember any of it. The words slipped away like rain on glass.
Her mum floated before her eyes
A tiny flat in the outskirts of Croydon. Wallpaper peeling in the hallway, coming unstuck years ago and still hanging in a sad droop. The lino in the kitchen worn thin near the oven and sink, places her mum stood every day, busy with endless stews and porridge. The curtainsdear Lord, those curtains. Emma bought her new ones for every birthday, and still mum wouldnt hang them, saving them in the wardrobe for some mythical special occasion that never arrived.
And her mum herself. Grey, faded, always in those washed-out frocks. No matter how many times Emma took her shopping for nicer things, good quality, mum thanked her and stashed them in the cupboard with the curtains.
Emma slammed the book shut, staring at the ceiling.
The wedding. That was when she truly burned with shame. Williams guestshis business partners, their wives in proper dresses, hair perfect, nails polishedand her mum, in her best suit, convinced she looked smart, but actually dressed in cheap polyester from the market. Emma saw the way they exchanged glances, how one woman bent to whisper and both peered at her mum. Her mum never noticedher happiness was blinding, eyes brimming with tears. Her joy was unbearable.
Thats the brides mum,” someone said, and the word “mum” held a note that still made Emma shiver, even now, after eight years
Shed escaped. University, work, the job, William. Bought herself a flat in a good area, drove a decent car, holidays on the continent. Shed built every brick of her life, and now
All these years and still embarrassed by her mumashamed before her husband, who came from privilege. Ashamed in front of friends, at work. So she shut her mum out.
Emma shook her head, shooing those thoughts away.
She wouldnt give in to feeling. Not tonight
Six months zipped past. Every time William mentioned visiting her mum, Emma found a reason. Too busy at work, too tired, horrid trafficCroydon could take hours with roadworks. William nodded, but something new grew in his eyes, a silent question hed never ask aloud. Emma would paste on a smile, change the topic to holidays or the bathroom refurb, and William would drop it. Until next time.
The phone rang on Saturday morning. Emma saw “Auntie Dorothy” flash across the screenmums sister. She let it ring out. It rang again; Emma flipped the phone face down. On the third ring something shivered through hera bad premonition. She picked up.
“Emma,” Auntie Dorothys voice was muffled, strange. “Your mums gone. This morning her heart”
Emma listened without retaining it. Words about recent months, about treatments, about her mother hiding it all, never wanting to worry her. Asking every day, “Did Emma call? Is she coming?” The words drifted up through deep water, losing shape. Her legs went spongy. Emma sank down to the floor in the hallway, letting the phone tumble onto the oak boards.
William appeared instantly, scooped her up by the elbows, took the phone away. Emma watched his face shiftfrom concern to understanding, from understanding to something brittle and bitter. He listened to Auntie Dorothy speak, jaw tight, knuckles whitening on the mobile. He understood everythingthe six months of excuses, the lies, the shame Emma prized over her own mother.
After that, everything became a coloured hazedriving to Croydon, unfamiliar faces, voices. William arranged everythingfarewell, funeral, the lot. Emma existed nearby, but behind glass, completely separated from reality.
She surfaced in her mothers flat, kneeling on the threadbare carpet, clutching an old grey dressits colour drained from years of washing. The fabric stank of cheap perfume, and that scent broke something final inside her. Sobs wrenched from her throat, desperate and undignified, hiccuping and keening. Emma rocked herself back and forth, gripping the dress as if it could conjure her mum back.
“I was just ashamed of her,” Emma sobbed when William sat beside her. “Do you see? I was ashamed. I didnt visit her on purpose. I was even afraid to bring you here. And she all this time, she was ill. I thought she was just pretendingto manipulate me, Will. But she was really ill. She waited for me. Every day”
Emma buried her face in the faded dress, shoulders shaking so hard William scarcely held her together.
“I could have come over. Any day. Two hours in the car, just two. And shed have known I loved her, shed have known I cared”
William pulled her close and didnt speakjust held on tight whilst Emma suffocated on her shame and the ache of truth arriving far too late.
Weeks crawled by, each one blurring into the last. Every Sunday Emma drove to the graveyard, sat by the new mound, talked to the silence. She asked forgivenessagain and again in broken record loops. Once, she bumped into Auntie Dorothy, who lingered a few feet away, hesitant.
“Your mum never blamed you,” she whispered, soft as moss. “She hoped youd come. But she never blamednever spoke a cross word. Always said, ‘Emmas busy, Emmas got work, a family, no time.'”
Emma just stared at the grey stone with her mothers name.
“Let it go, Emma. Forgive yourself. Thats what she wouldve wanted.”
The road home stretched endlessly. Emma gazed out at passing houses, hedgerows, streams of trafficthinking that now, shed trade it all. The flat, the career, every bit of her constructed life, down to her last pennyfor one more evening. One more talk. To hold her mum, and say the words unsaid. Words she never managedThe first time she did it, Emma brought tulipsher mums favourite, she remembered too late. Each stem trembled in her hands as she set them on the soft grass, speaking halting hellos and apologies to the air. The words sounded pitiful against the wind. She waited for some sign, some shiftjust a magpie hopping among the stones and her shadow stretching long behind her.
The ritual became habit: flowers, rain or sun, sharing fragments of her day and all the things she wished shed told her mum when it mattered. Gradually, her voice grew steadier. She talked about Williams new job, the broken tap, the silly things her son said at breakfast, threading memories with new beginnings, letting herself laugh at stories her mum would have loved.
On a pale spring morning, Emma knelt again among the clover. She pressed her palm to the cool stone and whispered, “Im here, Mum.” She didnt ask for forgiveness anymore. She didnt wish to rewrite the past. Instead, she promised to rememberto keep slices of her mother alive in dinners cooked the old way and curtains set aside for one day. She promised to welcome, not run from the imperfect parts.
Driving home, Emma finally turned toward William, who took her hand without a word. And in the silent space between them, Emma felt something newtender, hard-wonan ache that held the shape of love. Her mum was gone, but the act of remembering brought her close enough to touch. Emma rolled down the window, letting the breeze sweep out what she could no longer hold, and for the first time in months, she closed her eyes and let the world rush past, ready to begin again.
