**Diary Entry**
After dinner, Mum sat beside me and rested a hand on my shoulder. I stiffened. The last time she’d done this, she’d said she was going away for a few days—off to some business meeting—and I’d have to stay with Auntie Grace. Not ideal. Grace had a daughter, Gemma, an unbearable little snob who tattled on me constantly and called me “runt.”
“Are you leaving again? I don’t want to stay with Auntie Grace. Gemma’s awful,” I blurted out, studying Mum’s face.
She smiled faintly, ruffling my hair. I gathered courage.
“Mum, please, take me with you,” I begged.
“I can’t. I’ll be in meetings all day. What would you even do alone?” She stood abruptly, pacing the room.
“You said I’m a big boy now. I don’t want to go to Auntie Grace’s—or Gemma’s. Can’t I stay here?”
“Enough whinging!” she snapped. “You’re too young to stay alone. What if something happens? If you won’t go to Grace’s, I’ll take you to your grandmother’s.”
“To Manchester?” I perked up, hopeful.
“No. Your *other* grandmother. Your father’s mother.”
I stared. I hadn’t even known I *had* another grandmother.
“I don’t want to,” I muttered, just in case.
“Not your choice. Pack your school things and whatever else you want. I’ll get your clothes.”
My chest tightened. Last time she’d left me with Grace, I hadn’t needed to pack. This time, she was going away for good.
“I don’t want to take my things. Can’t I just go with you?” I clung to her coat sleeve.
“Stop it! Big boys don’t cry.”
“I’m *not* a big boy,” I hiccupped.
Next morning, I dressed slowly, praying she’d change her mind. Instead, she snapped that the taxi was waiting, that we’d miss breakfast because of me.
We rode across London in silence, took the lift up eleven floors, and then she nudged me toward a steel door.
The woman who answered wasn’t grandmotherly at all. She wore a long red dressing gown embroidered with golden pheasants, her hair piled high. She stared at me like I was a rat scuttling across her kitchen floor. Adults usually cooed—*Who’s this handsome lad?*—but she just looked between Mum and me, lips curled.
“Hello, Margaret. Thank you for taking Jamie. I’ve written his routine, his school address—”
“When will you be back from this… *business trip*?” Her voice was rough, almost mannish.
*Maybe she* is *a man in disguise,* I thought wildly.
“A week, maybe sooner,” Mum said.
My stomach dropped. I looked up at her, eyes wet.
“Don’t go. Please take me with you,” I pleaded, gripping her coat.
Margaret’s hands clamped my shoulders, sharp as claws. Startled, I let go—and Mum shut the door behind her. I screamed, yanking the handle, pounding the wood.
“Quiet!” Margaret barked, releasing me. “Enough dramatics. Take your coat off. Did your mother pack slippers? I’m not wasting my pension on you.” She floated away, leaving me shaking in the hall.
I stayed stubbornly bundled up until my legs cramped. Finally, I unzipped my bag and saw my slippers. The sight of them—so achingly familiar—made me sob.
When I trudged into the kitchen, Margaret was smoking. I gaped; I’d never seen a grandmother smoke.
“Margaret Victoria. Can you manage that?” She waved a hand. “Call me Margot.”
She stubbed her cigarette out like she was crushing a spider, then coughed—a wet, rattling sound.
How long did I stay there? Felt like forever. We barely spoke. She took me to school twice, then left me to manage alone. Her life was cigarettes and telly.
One day, I came home to find my bag packed.
“Is Mum back?” I asked, hopeful.
“No.”
Next morning, Margot took me to a grey, two-storey building that looked like an oversized nursery. Sweat trickled down my back as I waited in the hall while she spoke to the headmaster.
Then she walked out without a glance.
The headmaster led me down a corridor buzzing with children’s voices, up to a room with ten beds in neat rows. He pointed to one. “Yours.”
Before I could blink, four boys swarmed me. Two were twice my size.
“New kid, what’s your name?” the biggest asked.
“Mum lose custody, or did a lorry flatten her?” another sneered.
“She’s on a trip,” I squeaked.
They hooted. “Trip! Bet she’s shacked up with some bloke and dumped you here.”
“She’s coming back—”
They upended my bag, scattering my things, stealing what they fancied. I fought, but what’s a seven-year-old against four bullies? A care worker, Auntie Joan, broke it up with her mop.
Nighttime was worse. Blanket over my head, fists pounding. I wet myself. Morning brought humiliation as they paraded my soiled sheets, cackling.
The orphanage was hell. Margot’s flat now seemed like heaven. I fought constantly, got punished constantly, hid in corners crying for Mum.
When I got older, I ran away—twice. Got dragged back each time. Auntie Joan pitied me, let me hide in her cleaning closet.
“Endure, love. Don’t let this harden you. Good folk exist,” she’d murmur.
When I aged out, she pressed a scrap of paper into my palm—her address.
“Visit me. Steer clear of troublemakers. What’s your plan?”
“Work and study,” I said fiercely.
“Smart lad.”
I gorged on freedom—ice cream, pizza, parks—before knocking on Joan’s door. She fed me soup, tutting over my plight.
Later, I got a flat—dingy, reeking of booze and fags. Joan donated curtains, dishes. I started grafting at a factory, enrolled in night classes.
At uni, I met Lily. Sweet girl. Her parents forbade her to see me after learning I was orphanage-raised.
She stayed anyway, weeping over their threats to move her away.
“Leave them. Move in with me,” I urged.
After one row too many, she did. Her parents called the cops, but my clean record saved us.
For the first time, I had family.
Then her parents requested a meeting. I dressed carefully.
“You look proper smart,” Lily approved.
“I *am* proper smart.”
When the doorbell rang, she answered, then hurried back, baffled.
“It’s for you.”
“Who?”
“Some woman. Says she’s your mum.”
*Mum.* The word conjures warmth, safety. I remembered none of that—just tears, abandonment. The last I’d seen her was at Margot’s door.
I stepped into the hall. A woman stood there—could’ve been fifty, could’ve been seventy. Nothing stirred in me.
“You don’t recognise me, Jamie? I’m your mum,” she said, voice trembling.
“I don’t know you,” I said flatly.
She babbled apologies, how she’d wanted to see me, how I’d grown.
“Seen enough?” I turned away, but Lily gripped my arm.
“Jamie, she’s your *mother*.”
“I don’t have a mother. She left. Get out.”
She crumpled. “I was ill—there was an operation—”
“Glad it went well,” I sneered. “Where were you when I needed you? When I begged for you in that place?”
She covered her face. Shoulders shook.
Lily scolded me later. “*I’m* angry at my parents too, but I’d forgive them. You’re heartless.”
She left.
Alone, I paced. Spotted her brown coat on a bench outside. Sat wordlessly at the far end.
“Why’d you come? Thought I’d hug you? You’re old now, lonely? Even found my address. Need someone to wipe your chin?”
She stood, wobbling. “I’ll go. You’re right.”
I let her walk away. Then—
“Wait!”
She turned. *Why am I doing this?*
I asked how she’d found me. “The orphanage. A worker—Joan—told me.”
“You’ve somewhere to stay?”
“Don’t fret.” She handed me a slip—*prewritten*. I pocketed it, though I ached to bin it.
Lily returned late, furious. She’d met my mother.
“SheShe took my hand and whispered, “People make mistakes, Jamie—but you’ll never heal if you don’t try to forgive,” and finally, after all these years, I let the first crack in my heart open.
