**Mum, Don’t Go**
After tea, Mum sat beside seven-year-old Oliver and put an arm around his shoulders. He stiffened. The last time she’d done this, she’d left for a work trip, and he’d had to stay with her friend, Auntie Liz. Worst of all, Auntie Liz had a daughter, Sophie, who was a terrible snitch and looked down on everyone.
“Are you going away again? I don’t want to stay with Auntie Liz. Sophie’s awful,” Oliver said, looking up at his mum.
She smiled and ruffled his messy brown hair. Oliver gathered his courage.
“Mum, please take me with you,” he pleaded.
“I can’t. I’ll be busy all day. What’ll you do alone?” She stood up and paced nervously.
“You said I’m a big boy now. I don’t want to stay with Auntie Liz and Sophie. Can’t I stay by myself?”
“Stop whinging!” she snapped. “You’re too young to be on your own. What if something happens? If you don’t want to stay with Liz, I’ll take you to Granny’s.”
“In Bristol?” Oliver’s eyes lit up.
“No, your other granny. Your dad’s mum.”
It was news to Oliver that he even had another granny. He’d never met her.
“I don’t want to,” he muttered, just in case.
“I’m not asking. Pack your schoolbooks and whatever else you want. I’ll get your clothes ready.”
Oliver’s heart sank. Last time she’d dropped him at Auntie Liz’s, he hadn’t needed a bag. She must be leaving for ages.
“I don’t want to go anywhere with my stuff. Can’t I just come with you?”
“Enough! Big boys don’t cry.”
“I’m not a big boy, I’m a kid,” Oliver sniffed.
In the morning, he dressed slowly, hoping she’d change her mind—or lose patience and let him stay home. Instead, she scolded him for making them late, shouting that the taxi was waiting and they’d miss breakfast.
They rode through London in silence. The lift climbed slowly, and Oliver watched the numbers flicker. The doors opened on the eleventh floor. His mum nudged him toward a steel door.
The woman who answered wasn’t like any granny he’d imagined. She wore a long red dressing gown embroidered with golden birds, her hair piled high. She looked Oliver up and down, nose wrinkled like she’d spotted a rat. Adults usually cooed over him—but this woman just stared, first at him, then at his mum.
“Hello, Margot,” his mum said. “Thank you for taking Oliver. Here’s his clothes, his routine, his school address…”
“When will you be back from your… *business trip*?” The woman’s voice was deep, almost like a man’s.
*Was this a bloke dressed up?* Oliver wondered.
“A week. Maybe sooner,” his mum said.
Oliver’s heart dropped. He looked at her, eyes brimming with hurt and confusion.
“Don’t go. Mum, please take me,” he begged, clutching her coat.
Margot’s bony fingers dug into his shoulders. Startled, Oliver let go. His mum shut the door behind her. He screamed her name, yanking the handle.
“Shut it!” Margot barked, releasing him. “Stop making a scene. Take your shoes off. Hope your mum packed your slippers—I’m not spending a penny on you. My pension’s small enough.” She floated off, leaving him in the hallway.
Hot and stubborn, he refused to undress. He crouched by the door, back against it—until his legs went numb. Grudgingly, he unzipped his jacket. Too short to reach the hook, he dropped it on the shoe rack. Inside his bag, he found his slippers. The sight of them—so familiar, so *home*—made him cry.
By the time he shuffled into the kitchen, Margot was smoking at the table. Oliver gaped—he’d never seen a granny smoke before.
“My name’s Margot. Can you manage that?” She stubbed her cigarette out like squashing a bug, then coughed violently.
Days stretched into forever. They barely spoke. She took him to school twice before he went alone. She smoked, watched telly.
One day, he came home to find his bag packed in the hall.
“Is Mum back?” His heart leapt.
“No.”
The next morning, Margot drove him to a building like a big nursery. Before he could read the sign, she dragged him inside. He sweated in a corridor while she spoke to the headmaster.
Then she walked out. Didn’t even look back.
The headmaster led him down a long hall, voices spilling from every door. Upstairs, they stopped in a room with ten beds. She pointed to one and left.
Before he could breathe, four boys swarmed in. Two were much older.
“New kid, what’s your name?” the biggest asked.
“Mum lose custody, or did a car hit her?” another sneered.
“She’s on a trip,” Oliver squeaked.
They laughed. “Sure she is. Found herself a bloke and dumped you here.”
“She’ll come back!”
They upended his bag, clothes and books spilling. They split his things, shoving him away when he fought back. Rage made him brave—he headbutted one into a wall. The others pounced.
If the carer, Mrs. Simms, hadn’t barged in with her mop, it would’ve been worse.
That night, they held him under a blanket and hit him. Humiliated, terrified, he wet himself. Come morning, they waved his sheets like a flag, laughing.
The children’s home was hell. Margot’s flat felt like heaven now. He fought, got punished, hid, cried for his mum.
When he was older, he ran away—twice. They dragged him back from trains, punished him harder. Only Mrs. Simms showed kindness, letting him hide among her buckets and mops.
“Hang in there, love. Don’t let it harden you,” she’d say.
Leaving at eighteen, she gave him her address.
“Visit me. Stay away from trouble. What’ll you do now?”
“Work. Study.”
He gorged on freedom—ice cream, pizza, Coke—before knocking on Mrs. Simms’s door. She fed him soup, sighing over his sorry state.
Later, he got a dingy flat reeking of booze and fags. He peeled off greasy wallpaper. Mrs. Simms gave him curtains, plates. He started work at a factory, enrolled in night classes.
There, he met Emily. Her parents forbade her to see him—*orphan, no future*—but she stayed. After a row, she ran away to him.
Her parents called the police. But his clean record saved them.
Now he had a family.
Then her parents caved—wanted to meet him. He dressed carefully.
“You look smart,” Emily said.
“I am smart.”
The doorbell rang. She answered, then returned puzzled.
“It’s for you.”
“Who?”
“Just look.”
A woman stood there. Age hard to guess—fifty? Sixty?
“Oliver… it’s me. Your mum.”
The word *mum* usually conjured warmth. But all he remembered was crying.
“I don’t know you.”
She babbled apologies, how she’d wanted to see him.
“Seen enough?” He turned away. Emily stopped him.
“Oliver, it’s your *mum*.”
“No. She left me.”
The woman fell to her knees. “Son, I was ill—an operation—”
“It went well, then,” he said coldly. “Why come now? I needed you *then*.”
Emily scolded him later. They argued.
“You’re heartless,” she said, leaving.
Alone, he stormed out. Saw the woman on a bench, head low. Crying?
He sat at the far end. She looked up.
“Why come? Thought I’d hug you? You’re old, lonely—now you remember me?”
She left, stumbling. Watching her, something cracked.
“Wait!”
She turned. He didn’t know why he’d called.
“How’d you find me?”
“The home. A carer told me.”
*Mrs. Simms.*
“Got somewhere to stay?”
She handed him a note. He pocketed it, didn’t throw it away.
Emily returned, furious. She’d gone to the woman’s flat.
“She was a courier. Got caught with drugs. Jail, illness—nearly died. Oliver, she’s sick.”
“You believe her?”
Later, Emily said she was hospitalised.
She held his mother’s frail hand as the monitor flatlined, realizing too late that some wounds never heal, and forgiveness, when withheld, becomes its own kind of prison.
