My father remembered me… when he heard about my grandmother’s inheritance.
My life hasn’t been easy, but the real blow wasn’t growing up without parents—it was the sudden return of the man I once called Dad after nearly fifteen years of silence. He didn’t come with flowers or apologies. Just a demand: “Split the inheritance.”
My parents divorced when I was four. Mum lost herself to drink, the courts took her rights away, and Dad, lacking the will to be a proper father, sent me off to live with his mother in a tiny village near Leeds. He stayed in the city, visiting maybe twice a year—if that.
I went to the village school, learned to tend the garden, sew on an old Singer, fish in the local stream, and even make jam. Life with Granmother was simple but real. In Year Three, Dad showed up with a strange woman. They sent me outside to play. When I came back, only Gran was there, sitting stiffly in her armchair, her eyes distant.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“He won’t be coming back, love,” was all she said.
And he didn’t. He started a new family, forgot about me. Gran and I carried on—just the two of us. I didn’t mourn him; I had her. Wise, quiet, firm but kind. She was everything: mother, father, best friend.
When I finished secondary school, Auntie Margaret, the village seamstress, said, “You’ve got a gift for this. Go to college—don’t waste your talent digging potatoes.”
I listened. Moved to the city, studied, worked odd jobs, kept my head down. Dad lived three Tube stops away from my halls—never once bothered to check if I was alive in all those years. I didn’t reach out either.
After college, I got a job at a tailor’s, married a bloke named James. We rented a shoebox flat but drove out to the village every Friday to see Gran. She adored James. When she found out I was pregnant, she cried happy tears. But she never got to meet her great-grandchild…
When Gran died, the world felt empty. Then the solicitor came. The house, the land, the savings—all left to me. I sobbed over that letter. Not for the money. For the love behind it.
Dad didn’t come to the funeral. No call, no letter. He found out she was gone six months later, same time he heard about the will. And then—for the first time in fifteen years—he knocked on my door.
I barely recognized the older man staring back. He didn’t waste time.
“Gran’s estate should be split. Half of it’s mine.”
I laughed in his face. Bitter, loud.
“Yours? Half? You walked away from me, from her. Now you remember? Smell the money, did you?”
He sneered, but James stepped between us.
“Leave. Now. Or I’ll make you.”
Dad took me to court. Even the law sided with me. He lost, paid the fees, vanished again.
James and I opened our own workshop, sewing uniforms—for builders, nurses, mechanics. Work kept coming. We built a life.
I haven’t seen Dad since. Don’t want to. Gran was my real family. I survived because she believed I was worth more. And I live every day to make her proud—somewhere beyond those clouds.
