“Hi! I’m here about the room!”
Standing at the door of Joan Harper’s flat was the definition of a plain Jane—faded jeans, a threadbare T-shirt, scuffed trainers, and a nondescript canvas tote slung over her shoulder. Her fair, wavy hair was tied back in a simple ponytail, and she wore no makeup at all. The only striking feature was her eyes—large, bright blue, and startlingly clear. Joan gave her a quick once-over, then stepped aside with a nod.
“Come in.”
“Right then, love,” Joan said, setting the rules with her usual briskness. “No wasting electricity or water, keep things neat, and absolutely no guests. Got it?”
The girl gave a polite smile. “Yes, of course.”
Polite, Joan thought, unusual these days—probably from the countryside.
She introduced herself as Emily Taylor. She’d come from a family farm in Yorkshire to study veterinary medicine.
“So you’ll be treating pigs then?” Joan asked.
Emily didn’t even blink. “Pigs, cows, horses—cats and dogs too. Animals get sick just like people.”
“Hmph. Plenty of sick people around here too,” Joan muttered under her breath.
Emily turned out to be the perfect tenant—quiet, clean, and surprisingly good in the kitchen. Her pancakes, in particular, were a revelation: golden, airy, and dangerously addictive. Joan often found herself sneaking seconds. They even began spending evenings chatting over cups of tea. All was well… until Joan’s son came home.
Michael had just returned from six months in Scotland. Tall, broad-shouldered, and strikingly handsome (“Takes after his father,” Joan liked to say), he had always been the apple of her eye.
Joan insisted on calling him “Michel”—a quirk of hers he endured with a tight smile. She had raised him alone, and in her mind, he belonged entirely to her. So when she caught him sitting at the kitchen table with Emily—chatting, laughing, devouring pancakes, and stealing glances—her heart sank. Is this what he’s into? A farm girl?
From that moment, Emily could do nothing right. Her cleaning wasn’t thorough enough. Her voice was suddenly irritating. Even her perfect pancakes? “Overrated.”
What really stung Joan was the way Michael looked at her—with admiration, affection, a softness he’d never shown his mother.
“He’s mine,” Joan hissed to her friend Margaret over tearful phone calls. “That little fox has bewitched him!”
Though Joan scoffed at superstition, jealousy gnawed at her. She toyed with ways to discredit Emily, but without looking bitter. For a fleeting, shameful moment, she even considered something drastic.
God forgive me, she thought, crossing herself when the idea of poison flickered in her mind.
Then it happened—Michael proposed. An actual ring.
Joan’s world crumbled.
“How could he humiliate me like this?” she sobbed into her pillow that night. In a last, desperate move, she hid her beloved emerald earrings—heirlooms Emily had once admired—and accused her of stealing them.
“Mum, this is insane!” Michael said, shocked, while Emily stood there, eyes wide and tearful, insisting she was innocent.
But when the earrings turned up—accidentally spilled from Joan’s own handbag—his expression turned cold.
“We’re leaving,” he said quietly.