Parents Who Don’t Love Me, I Don’t Want Them Anymore

Queenie has never been wanted. Her parents, who had her before marriage, left her with her grandmother, and the neighbours mocked her as a child nobody claimed. When her parents finally married, her mother told her to call her auntie and her father uncle at the wedding, so as not to bring them bad luck. Even after the wedding, they kept finding reasons not to take her home.

When Queenie finally moves into her mother's house, she is told she is from the dirty countryside and must not sit on the sofa. She washes the dishes, mops the floor, and when her younger sister is born, she washes the nappies too. Only then does she see that her mother knows how to be a mother, just not to her.

Now, calling home for living expenses, Queenie hears her father say he has already paid for her upbringing, and her mother demands she apologise to her sister Yvonne Winston before any money is given. Her hand trembles as she hangs up.