Rose was not her real name. She had left that behind with everything else when she ran away from the base and her father's cruelty, her mother's indifference. She learned to copy the accents of the other children, bought a train ticket to London, and disappeared. For a while, she lived on the streets, trading her body for the money men gave her, because it meant surviving for another day.
When the truant officers took her, she refused to tell them who she was or where she came from. They sent her to Wool's Home for Children. That was where she met Harry Evans. His parents were dead. She told him hers were, too. He told her that her green eyes were pretty. She said she liked his red hair.
She was barely sixteen when she fell pregnant. When she could hide it no longer, they fled Wool's together. Unable to marry because they were underage, and unable to obtain council housing because they were not married, they ended up in Yorkshire, sharing communal living space in a converted warehouse with a dozen other people who had nowhere else to go. Petunia Wren Evans was born there. Harry surprised Rose with a silver ring that day, promising that they would marry as soon as they were old enough.
Harry worked as a labourer, paving roads. Rose helped prepare communal meals, and watched the children while the other parents worked. They saved every penny and counted the days until Harry's eighteenth birthday. At night they fell, exhausted, onto the mattress they shared, curling around one another and the baby for warmth and comfort. That was the way life was for the first two years. It was cold in the winter, and in the summer - even now, in early June - it was hot and stuffy.
Rose squirmed onto her back, trying to get comfortable. The heat was not the only thing that kept her wakeful. Two weeks late. It was still too soon to be sure. Her movements woke Petunia, who began to whimper.
"Shhh, baby," murmured Rose. "Let's not wake Daddy."
"Daddy's awake," said Harry. "It's too hot for sleep."
"It will be hotter soon," Rose sighed. She was already dreading it.
"Dwelling on it does no good. Tell me about today, instead."
"Nothing much happened," she shrugged. "Becky says there's a Nuclear Disarmament demonstration next week. Will you come with us?"
"If I can get off work."
"Petty come," said Petunia.
"Yes, Petty can come, too," Rose smiled.
That seemed to satisfy the toddler. Her eyelids were already drooping.
"How many more days?" asked Harry. He asked the same question every night, though he probably knew the answer as well as she did. She was better at keeping track of numbers and sums, though.
"Ninety-one," she sighed. It was exciting that the number was now less than one hundred, but a long, hot summer stretched between them and September. "Then however long the waiting list for housing is."
"We'll have Christmas dinner at our own table," he promised her, "with all the trimmings."
"I wish it could be sooner." If she was right, and if she had counted correctly, she would be nearing her ninth month by Christmas. It was too early to worry Harry about it, though. He needed his sleep. He had another long day ahead of him tomorrow. Another week, and then she would tell him. She found his hand in the darkness and squeezed it. "Tell me a story."
She loved his stories, full of magic and adventure and a surprising number of clever, resourceful princesses with beautiful green eyes.
He laced his fingers through hers. "Once upon a time there was a wizard ..."