Since then, the children call me every day, but I sense it’s not about care—it’s about inheritance.
Margaret Whitmore stood by the window, gazing absently at the drizzly winter garden. The flat was silent, save for the lazy ticking of the clock. Long retired, her thoughts drifted more and more to her grown children—two daughters and a son. Today was her birthday. Would they visit? Or at least remember to ring? If she were honest, Margaret had long since abandoned any illusions.
“Thirty years ago, my husband left me with three little ones to raise on my own,” she mused bitterly. “He couldn’t bear the responsibility—the endless crying, the mess, the lack of money. I was only thirty, the older two just starting school, the youngest still in nappies. Feeding them, clothing them, schooling them…”
Margaret hadn’t broken. She worked whatever jobs she could—cleaner, shop assistant, nanny—just to keep them afloat. There was no time for a life of her own. Her only dream was that her children wanted for nothing, that they never felt less than others.
Only now, looking back, did she wonder if she had placed money above warmth. Perhaps they hadn’t needed just food and clothes but a mother beside them—a book in her hands, a soft word on her lips.
No one had helped her in those hard years. Her husband had slipped away as if wiping them from his memory. “It was his choice,” she thought now, without anger. “And I don’t blame him. Everyone walks their own path.”
The children grew, scattered to their own lives, built families. She remained alone. Her pension was modest, but Margaret had always saved—for them. For weddings, for flats, for future grandchildren…
But now, years later, she was left with her savings, her home—and a hollow ache in her chest. No one to even speak to.
A week ago, a sharp pain had struck her heart. She called for an ambulance. Hospital tests followed, and then the doctors delivered a diagnosis that left her numb—serious, uncertain.
The staff contacted her family. And then—a miracle. All three arrived at the hospital nearly at once.
Her ward neighbour sighed enviously.
“How lucky you are! Such devoted children, never leaving your side…”
Margaret only smiled grimly. She knew her children too well to be fooled.
After discharge, the calls began daily.
“Mum, how are you feeling?”
“Mum, do you need anything?”
“Mum, have you thought about making a will? To avoid any… complications later?”
It sounded like concern, but beneath the words ran a strained, cold note. No real fear, the kind that can’t be faked. Margaret knew—this wasn’t about love, or missing her. It was about money. Her two-bedroom flat in the city centre. The tidy savings she’d scraped together for them all her life.
Her heart ached—had it really come to this?
Lately, she had been thinking more than ever. Watching the dark windows of neighbouring houses, she understood—her old age was nothing like she’d dreamed. She had imagined evenings by the fireplace, reading to grandchildren, hosting holidays… Instead, emptiness. Scheduled calls, thick with hidden greed.
A wild, frightening thought took root: leave it all to charity. The flat, perhaps, to Evelyn next door—the woman who’d checked in on her for years, brought groceries, asked, “How are you, love?” with no second thought, no calculation.
The decision wasn’t final. But in Margaret’s heart, a truth grew—you can’t buy love with gifts, or flats, or savings. Either it’s there, or it isn’t.
Life is only lived once. So is old age.
And if hers was to be spent alone, let her last choices at least be honest—not dictated by duty to those who’d forgotten her when she needed their warmth most.
