My name is VictorSmith, thirtyseven now, and I look back on those years as if they were a faded photograph. I had achieved everything I thought I wanteda respectable job, a solid apprenticeship in engineering, a modest twobedroom flat in Manchesterbut the one thing that still slipped through my fingers was a family of my own. Since my father’s sudden passing six years earlier, I had been sharing that flat with my mother, Eleanor, a woman whose expectations weighed as heavily as the stone walls of the house.
Eleanor had always imagined me settling down, marrying, and bringing grandchildren into the world, so she pressed me to finish my studies with a proper trade, to find steady work, and eventually to announce the arrival of a partner. I took her wishes to heart, earned my qualifications, secured a job at the local steelworks, and finally felt the pressure ease.
It was then that I met Rosamund, a shy girl from a nearby village who was still a university student when we first spoke at the town market. Her family was not welloff, but that mattered little to me. My mother, however, frowned on the match, declaring that Rosamund was not suited to our standing. I chose, for the first time, to follow my own heart, and we began courting.
A few months later I brought Rosamund home and told Eleanor that we intended to live together and that she was carrying my child. My mother muttered that Rosamund was merely using the city as a refuge, but I pressed on. Rosamund moved into our flat, and though Eleanor received her with reluctance, over time she came to tolerate the young woman’s presence. Rosamund proved herself a capable housekeeper, and the tension in the house began to ease, even if Eleanor still seemed poised to stir trouble.
When our daughter, Ethel, was born, the joy in our modest home was palpable. Yet Eleanor, perhaps out of habit or fear, asked for a paternity test. We obliged, though I never doubted that Ethel was mine. The results, confirmed in pounds sterlingpriced laboratory paperwork, left no room for doubt: I was indeed her father. Still, my mother refused to accept Rosamund as part of our family and even suggested that I should end the relationship and hand the child over to her.
Anger surged through me, and I made the decision to leave my mother’s house, taking Rosamund and little Ethel with me. Since that day I have kept only a thin thread of contact with Eleanor, convinced that her selfishness eclipsed any maternal affection she might have had. It saddens me that she could never welcome Rosamund into our lives, but I have no desire to compromise with a heart that would not bend. The memory of those strained months remains sharp, a reminder that sometimes love must be defended against even those who gave us life.
