My father remembered me… when he heard about Grandmother’s inheritance.
My life has never been easy, but the true blow wasn’t growing up without my parents—it was the sudden reappearance of the man I once called Dad, after nearly fifteen years of silence. 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 in drink, the court stripped her of custody, and Dad, unable to bear the weight of fatherhood, took me to his mother in a remote village outside Manchester. He lived in the city and visited rarely—maybe twice a year, if that.
I attended the village school, learned to dig in the earth, sew on an old Singer, fish, bundle brooms, and make jam. Life with Gran was simple but real. In third year, Dad arrived with a strange woman. They sent me outside to play. When I returned, only Gran sat in her armchair, eyes blank.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“He won’t be coming back, love,” was all she said.
And he didn’t. Built a new family, forgot his daughter. Gran and I carried on. I didn’t grieve—I had her. Wise, quiet, stern yet kind. She became everything: mother, father, friend.
When I finished Year Eleven, Maggie, the village seamstress, told me, “You’ve got gifted hands. Go to college—don’t waste your talent weeding turnips.”
I listened. Moved to the city. Studied, worked odd jobs, kept my head above water. Dad lived just three Tube stops from my dorm—yet in four years, never once asked if I was alive. I didn’t seek him out either.
After college, I got work at a tailor’s, married James. We rented a tiny flat but visited Gran every Sunday. She adored him. Beamed when I told her I was expecting. She never got to meet her grandchild…
When Gran passed, the world went hollow. Then the solicitor came: the house, the land, the savings—all left to me. I wept over that letter. Not for the money—for the memories.
Dad didn’t come to the funeral. Not a call, not a word. He learned of her death six months later. And the will. Then—for the first time in fifteen years—he knocked on my door.
I hardly recognized the ageing stranger. He didn’t mince words:
“The inheritance should be split. I’m owed half.”
I laughed in his face. Bitter, loud.
“You? Half? You gave up on me and your own mother. Now you remember? Smell the pounds, did you?”
He bared his teeth, but James stepped between us:
“Walk away. Now.”
Dad sued. Even the law took my side. He lost, paid the costs, vanished again.
James and I opened our own workwear shop—overalls for builders, scrubs for nurses, coveralls for garage hands. Orders poured in. We built our life.
I never saw him after that. Don’t care to. Gran was my true family. I survived because she once decided I deserved better. And I live every day to make her proud. Somewhere beyond the clouds.
