The Unexpected Family
“What a grand place,” said Emily, her university friend, as she wandered through all four rooms. “I had no idea you were such a wealthy bride.”
Eleanor weakly sank into an armchair. “Why did you come? The deans office knows I was ill.”
Emily flopped onto an old leather sofa, which creaked pitifully. Eleanor winced. The house was full of antiques her family had collected over decades. “Well?” she urged, eager to lie downshe felt dreadful.
“Well,” Emily drawled, “Our head student, James, asked me to check on you. He found out I live nearby. You know how fussy he is. Wanted to know if you needed anything. Youre all alone now.” She couldnt hide her envy. “Though in a flat like this…”
Eleanor struggled to stand. “Thanks for visiting, Emily. Tell James I appreciate his concern, but I dont need anything.” Emily rose reluctantly, following her to the door. But she couldnt resist one last remark: “Id love to live in a place like this. Throw parties. You lot are so lucky.”
Eleanor, uninterested, asked, “Whos you lot?”
Emily blurted, “The blessed ones. Not of this world.”
With a curt “Goodbye,” Eleanor shut the door.
She lay down, but sleep wouldnt come. As far as she could remember, she had lived here all her life with her grandmother, Margaret. A strict woman, Margaret had instilled etiquette earlyFrench, German, and proper English were mandatory. She could switch languages mid-conversation, expecting Eleanor to keep up.
Eleanor had no memory of her parents. Her grandmother spoke sparingly of her “ungrateful daughter,” whod had Eleanor with a man named Alexander. Hed lured her mother into some commune, where, three years later, they died in a fireduring a ritual or mere gathering, no one ever clarified. Eleanor didnt ask. She hadnt known them, so she felt no grief.
Few visited: Zara the seamstress, an elderly doctor named Harold, Margarets friends Elizabeth and Archibald, and her long-time suitor, Peter, a retired jeweller.
Eleanor grew up among them. Starting school terrified herso much noise! But she adjusted, learning to live in two worlds: her grandmothers and the one beyond their old flats walls.
Trouble struck unexpectedly. Margaret, who never bought street food, suddenly brought home mushrooms. “I walked past and fancied some. Remembered the mushroom soup our cook, Seraphina, used to make at the country house.”
The soup was divine. Eleanor had seconds. Then Margaret fell ill first, then Eleanor. They called Harold, but his phone was deadhe was at his cottage. Margaret refused an ambulance for hours, trusting only him. But when she fainted and Eleanors vision blurred, she dialled 999, unlocked the door, and collapsed on the threshold.
Now, with her grandmother gone, Eleanor had to move forward. But how? Her stipend wouldnt cover the flats upkeep. Returning to university was uncertainrecovering from deaths edge took time. And money.
Peter helped briefly, buying a few antiques (cheating her, though she didnt mind). But the flats costs loomed. Then she remembered: it had once been a shared tenancy, later granted to her great-grandfather for his service to the country.
She decided to take in lodgersthree would pay well. She only needed her own room. But finding decent tenants, preferably women, proved hard. Online ads brought calls: migrant workers, families, giggling students asking if “guests” were allowed.
When interest waned, she considered an agencyuntil she saw a young woman with two children on the High Street. A five-year-old gnawed a stale biscuit; a baby wept in her lap. The woman sobbed into her phone: “Michael, why? The children are starvingIve no milk left. Where can we go? No one will take us in. Let Vera live with us, just give us a roomwe wont bother you. Michael” The line went dead.
Eleanor couldnt walk past. She crouched beside her. “I overheard. Do you need help?” Handing her a tissue, she learned the woman, Hope, had been thrown out by her husband. “No money, nowhere to sleep. My milks gone.”
An hour later, the children slept, fed. Hope shared her story: orphaned at twelve, shed lost her parents to drink. After care, she returned to their derelict flat, sold it for a pittance, and ended up on the streets. An elderly landlady took her inuntil her grandson, Michael, arrived. “Charming, weak with women. I fell for it. We lived in his flat, had Maisie, then little Simon. Then he met Vera. Now were here.”
Eleanor offered a room. “Stay. Well figure the rest later.”
But plans changed. Next came Anthony, an elderly man evicted by his daughter-in-law after his sons death. Shed tricked him into signing over his home, then remarried and cast him out. Eleanor found him in her stairwell, dragged into the cold by a neighbour.
Lastly, Paul, a blind young man, cheated by his guardian and left penniless. Eleanor saw him tormented by youths tossing breadcrumbs like a cruel game. His lips trembled, but hunger kept him there.
Now, Eleanors flat brims with life. Hope cleans at a shop; Paul minds the childrena natural storyteller. Anthony, a former chef, turns simple meals into feasts.
Eleanor doesnt regret a thing. Shes never alone. Each evening, her door opens to her unexpected, chosen family.
Sometimes, the people we find mend the holes left by those weve lost.
