For ten years, I looked after my husbands grandfather. Back then, we lived together with our children and the old man in a rented flat somewhere in Liverpool, the wallpaper peeling like autumn leaves. My husbands sister, Beatrice, lived in the grandfathers actual flat, the one with rooms that glimmered with polished brass and dust motes swirling like tiny spirits. No one really wanted the old manhis daughter cared little for him, and the grandchildren even less.
My life hadnt unfolded gracefully. I never finished my university degree; I fell pregnant young, and any chance of a sparkling career slipped away like morning mist. Each day blurred into the next, all chiming clocks and the clink of tea cups as I juggled caring for the old man and raising the children, their laughter echoing oddly through those rented halls.
My husband grew uneasy with the ceaseless tension at home. He was always vanishing, but other women werent interested in him; after all, he had children but no house, so he would always find his way back to me, as if guided by a half-remembered tune. I forgave him, though love had long since emptied out, just to have his wages for the children and the old mans ointments and tins of Heinz.
Beatrice seldom visited, and when she did, it was only with one excuse: to wheedle Grandad for his pension or to air her complaints about financesthough really, she and her brood werent struggling. They didnt pay rent and could afford to take holidays in Spain or Greece.
Five years ago, Grandad quietly left his flat to me in his will:
Youve grown more precious to me than all my own kin put together, hed said, voice as thin as tracing paper. My grandsons a raghed hand this place over to his mother or Beatrice. Let your children live here, my great-grandchildren. Consider it a reward for your hard work. I want you to remember me kindly when Im gone, not curse my name for how hard things became.
No one in the family knew. When Grandads health declined, suddenly both his daughter and granddaughter began showing up, wringing their hands and pretending at concern. But Grandad wasnt daft; he saw straight through them.
After he passed away, the inheritance was split lickety-split. My mother-in-law and Beatrice convinced my husband to sign away any claim to the flat, since Beatrice was living there. He agreed, blissfully unaware of what the will really said.
Next morning, my husband started stuffing his shirts into a battered suitcase. He told me hed been seeing another womanthat he’d stayed with us only so Id care for Grandad. He left, and it was as though some monstrous weight was lifted from my chest; the air tasted of new beginnings.
When the family discovered the will, they waged a wild, surreal war: phone calls full of threats, words snapping like the Queens corgis.
Listen to me, Beatrice hissed, youll never get that flat! Lord knows what you fed Grandad, how you tricked him into signing you into the will, but its not yours. Youre a true fraud and well prove it in court!
Do you know, I had a revelationI could send the whole rotten lot of them packing. All of you, I said, be off!
Their words never even grazed me. Ive started afreshI found a job, and my kids and I have a home thats genuinely ours now. Best of all, I have nothing left tying me to that peculiar, quarrelling family.
What would you do, if you found yourself in that womans shoes?
