My son calls me.
Mum, weve just moved to another county. My wife says she needs her own room. I freeze for five seconds, then say, Its alright, love. Good luck. I hang up, fire up my laptop and email my solicitor, attaching a very particular document. What follows flips my world upsidedown.
The phone rings again.
Im on my way out, Mum, James says, his voice flat, almost robotic. Weve moved to Manchester last week. Claire landed a fantastic job there and we forgot to tell you. The words land like a cold splash. I feel the kitchen table tremble beneath the kettle I was about to pour.
I reply, All right, son. Best of luck with the new chapter. My voice sounds steadier than I feel. I hang up, the silence in the kitchen pressing down like a brick. The turkey I was roasting for my grandson Harry, the fresh scones on the sideboard, Harrys wooden toys piled in a basketeverything I prepared with love now feels like a mockery.
I dont cry then. I shuffle to my bedroom, pull open the drawer, and retrieve the laptop James gave me two years ago, the one that said, To keep you connected, Mum. Youre not getting any younger. I sit on the edge of the bed I shared with George for thirtytwo years before cancer took him, and I type.
Mr. Williamson, the solicitor who handled Georges will and the Chelsea property that now values over £2.5million, is the recipient. That flat, the very one I let James and Claire intend to build a family home on eight months ago, feels like a cruel joke.
My email is brief, no drama:
Mr. Williamson, we need to start the process we discussed. Im attaching all the paperwork. Its time to act.
The attachment is the annex I have been compiling in secret for months: photographs, screenshots, voice recordings, copies of the documents I signed without reading carefully according to Claire, bank statements, every humiliating note, every lie, every penny they squeezed from me.
I press send and shut the laptop with a dry click that echoes in the empty room.
There is a moment, a splitsecond, when love meets dignity at a crossroads and I must choose. For years I chose love, swallowed disgrace, closed my eyes to disrespect, rationalised the irrational. Claire comes from a difficult family, I tell myself. James is stressed at work. Being a daughterinlaw isnt easy. Those lies shield me from the painful truth: my son has become a stranger, and I have allowed myself to become an inconvenience in my own life.
But the line, we forgot to tell you, spoken with such indifference, is the final straw. It shatters the glass of my world into a thousand shards.
I rise, turn off the oven, and realise the turkey can waitperhaps it will never be eaten. For the first time in four years, since Claire entered our lives like a silent storm, I make a decision. No one but I will control it.
I look out at the street: children play football, Mr. Patel waters his roses, Mrs. Lewis sweeps her pavement as she does every afternoon. Life rolls on for everyone else.
I pull up the last photo I have of James, taken in HydePark when he was six, hugging my neck with his crooked grin.
I love you, Mum, his message reads from that afternoon years ago. The boy in that picture is gone, and the woman who would accept anything to keep him is gone too. True love sometimes means letting go, and letting go sometimes means fighting for what is yours before they strip you of everything, even your dignity.
I tuck the phone into my pocket, take a deep breath, and send the email. In seventytwo hours James will receive a legal notice that could change everything. When that happens, he will finally grasp that forgetting to tell his mother hes moved has consequences.
I havent forgotten a thing. Absolutely nothing.
