**My Father Remembered Me… When He Heard About Grandma’s Inheritance**
Looking back, I wouldn’t call my life easy, but the real blow wasn’t growing up without parents. No, the worst part was the sudden reappearance of the man I once called “Dad”—after nearly fifteen years of silence. And he didn’t come with flowers or apologies. He came with a demand: “Split the inheritance.”
My parents divorced when I was four. Mum lost herself to drink soon after, the courts took away her rights, and my father, lacking the strength to be a proper parent, sent me off to his mother in a remote village near Gloucester. He stayed in the city, visiting rarely—once every six months, if that.
I went to the village school, learned to tend the garden, sew on an old machine, fish, bundle firewood, and make jam. Life with Grandma was simple but real. In Year 3, Dad showed up with a stranger—a woman. I was sent outside to play. When I came back, only Grandma was there, sitting in her armchair with hollow eyes.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“He won’t be coming back, Lottie,” was all she said.
And he never did. He started a new family, forgot about me. Grandma and I carried on, just the two of us. I didn’t grieve—I had her. Wise, quiet, firm but kind. She became everything: mother, father, friend.
When I finished Year 11, Auntie June, the village seamstress, said, “You’ve got a real gift with your hands. Go to college—don’t waste your talent on turnips.”
I listened. Moved to the city. Studied, worked part-time, stayed out of trouble. Dad lived just three bus stops from my halls, but in four years, he never once checked if I was alive. I never looked for him either.
After college, I found work at a tailor’s shop, married Simon. We rented a tiny flat but drove back to the village every Friday. Grandma adored him. She was thrilled when I got pregnant. But she never got to meet her great-grandson…
When she passed, the world felt empty. Then the solicitor’s letter arrived: the cottage, the land, her savings—all left to me. I cried over that letter. Not for the money. For the memories.
Dad didn’t come to the funeral. Not a call, not a word. He heard about her death—and the will—six months later. And for the first time in fifteen years, he knocked on my door.
I barely recognized the grey-haired man in front of me. He didn’t waste time.
“Grandma’s estate needs dividing. I’m entitled to half.”
I laughed in his face—bitter, loud.
“You? Half? You walked away from me and your own mother. Now you remember? Smelled the money?”
He sneered, but Simon stepped forward.
“Leave. Walk away now, or I’ll help you.”
Dad took me to court. But even the law was on my side. He lost, paid the costs, vanished again.
Simon and I started our own workshop. Made uniforms—for builders, nurses, garage workers. Business was steady. We built our life.
I never saw Dad again. Don’t want to. Grandma was my real family. I survived because she once decided I deserved better. And I live every day to make her proud—somewhere beyond the clouds.
