Margaret Jenkins set her teacup down so sharply that Earl Grey splashed onto the doily. The phone still buzzed with her neighbour Edith’s indignant voice.
“Margaret, how can you turn your back on your own grandchildren? Little Emily’s only four, and baby Oliver just turned two! They miss their nan terribly!”
“Edith, kindly mind your own business,” Margaret replied coolly. “Everyone has their reasons.”
“What possible reason could you have against children?”
Margaret sighed and gazed out the window where neighbourhood kids played. She remembered Emily begging for pushes on the swing, Oliver toddling after pigeons with his chubby legs.
“Edith, I haven’t time for this. Goodbye.”
She hung up and marched to the kitchen, where childish scribbles—Emily’s “portrait of Nan”—still clung to the fridge. She tucked them into a drawer just as the doorbell rang.
Through the peephole, she saw her son James, arms full of shopping bags.
“Mum, please let me in,” he said wearily.
She opened the door but didn’t step aside.
“If you’re here to rope me into babysitting again, you may as well leave now.”
James set the bags down. “Mum, don’t be like this. Sarah’s come down with flu—forty-degree fever. I’ve got an important meeting. Who else can take the kids?”
“Try a nanny. You’re not short of a bob or two.”
“On such short notice? They’re your grandchildren!”
“My grandchildren?” Margaret gave a wry smile. “Were they still my grandchildren six months ago when you booted me out of your house?”
James rubbed his temples—this argument was well-rehearsed.
“Mum, we explained. We needed space! A two-bed flat’s cramped for four.”
“Oh, quite. And me renting some dingy flat in my seventies—that’s perfectly reasonable?”
“We help with rent—”
“A pittance!” Her voice rose. “Twenty years I gave you! Raised your children while you and Sarah worked. Washed, cooked, cleaned. Then the kids grow up, and suddenly I’m surplus to requirements!”
“We had no choice!”
“Of course you did! You could’ve moved to a three-bed. But no—new cars and holidays in Spain mattered more.”
James fell silent. He knew she was right, but admitting it stung.
“Look,” he said softly, “I know we messed up. But the kids adore you.”
“I adore them too,” Margaret admitted. “That’s why I won’t let them see how their parents treat me. Better they remember a kind nan than watch you take me for granted.”
“Take you for—? That’s unfair!”
“Is it? Who calls weekly for free childcare? Who dumps sick kids here when nursery says no? Who vanishes on weekends for ‘couple time’?”
“That’s what family does!”
“Ah, yes. Family,” she scoffed. “Funny how no one visited last month when my angina flared. Only Edith popped round—not my son, not my daughter-in-law.”
“Mum, we’ve got jobs, kids—”
“So does everyone! Decent people don’t discard their parents!”
Blocking the doorway, Margaret stood firm. James knew today’s battle was lost.
“Fine,” he muttered, lifting the bags. “But it’s not right. Emily keeps asking why Nan doesn’t love them anymore.”
The words stung, but Margaret didn’t flinch.
“Tell her Nan’s tired of being convenient.”
As James left, she leaned against the door, throat tight. In the lounge, she sank into the armchair where she’d once read Emily bedtime stories.
This rented one-bed flat on the outskirts—far from their old neighbourhood—had been home for six months. The landlady was kind, but it wasn’t the same. Foreign walls, foreign smells.
It began with that hushed dinner-table conversation. James and Sarah, thinking she couldn’t hear:
“Maybe it’s time your mum found her own place?” Sarah had said. “The kids need their own rooms.”
James hesitated. “But she helps with them.”
“Helps? More like interferes. Spoils them rotten, criticises me. Last night she let Emily watch telly till eleven—against my rules!”
Margaret hadn’t slept a wink. By breakfast, Sarah made it official:
“Margaret, we think you should consider moving out.”
She choked on her tea. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re independent. And frankly, we’re cramped.”
“Cramped? Twenty years wasn’t cramped?”
“The kids were little then—we needed help,” James cut in. “Now they’re older.”
“I see. So while I was useful, I stayed. Now I’m expendable.”
“Mum, that’s not—”
“Save it. I’ll go. But remember—with this flat, you lose your on-call nanny.”
Sarah paled. “What? But childcare’s frightfully expensive—”
“Yet my labour was free for two decades. I’d say that’s quite enough.”
They’d spluttered apologies, but Margaret held fast. The truth was clear: she’d been used.
The flat hunt was swift. The elderly landlady took pity on “the nan her family cast aside” and even knocked off fifty quid.
Moving day was agony. James helped silently, guilt etched on his face. Emily sobbed, clinging to her skirt: “Nan, don’t go!”
“Darling, I’m not leaving. Just living elsewhere.”
“But I’ll visit?”
“Of course.”
Emily never did. The calls dwindled—Sarah, no doubt, vetoing ties with the “difficult” mother-in-law.
Then, a month later, the first emergency call:
“Mum, Sarah’s ill, I’ve got clients—can you take the kids?”
“No.”
“No? They’re your grandchildren!”
“They’re your responsibility. You wanted independence—you’ve got it.”
James had shouted, accused her of cruelty. She’d listened, remembering his outbursts when she’d dared correct the children in front of Sarah.
The pleas continued—flu, nursery closures, date nights. Each time, Margaret refused.
Tonight, Edith arrived with shepherd’s pie. “You barely cook properly alone,” she tutted.
Over tea, Edith probed: “When will you see the children?”
“Perhaps never.”
“Margaret! How can you?”
“How can they treat me like a serviette—use me, toss me aside?”
“Love, I understand the hurt. But must the children suffer?”
“Suffer?” Margaret stirred her tea. “I suffered twenty years being the ‘perfect nan.’ That joy came at too high a price.”
Edith sighed. “Life’s complicated. No one’s entirely right or wrong.”
After she left, Margaret sat in the quiet. Edith was correct—James and Sarah had their truth, she had hers.
Hers was this: at sixty-two, she’d earned the right to be more than a convenient grandma. To be valued not for what she did, but for who she was.
The phone blinked with missed calls. James had tried again. She didn’t call back.
Let him solve his own problems. After all—that’s what he’d wanted. Independence.
