Granny never warmed to little Oliver. She just couldn’t bring herself to love him.
“Not one of ours, not really,” Edith would mutter to the women at the village shop.
“But Edie, how can you say that? Look at himspitting image of your Charlie when he was that age!”
“I know, I know it in my head,” Edith would sigh, fingers tightening around her shopping bag. “But my heart won’t follow. My daughter’s children? Oh, I’d move heaven and earth for them. But my son’s boy? Can’t seem to accept him. Runs about calling me ‘Nan,’ but when I look at himall that Stockwell blood in his faceit just doesn’t feel right.”
A knowing murmur rippled through the huddle of women. “Aye, happens more than folks admit,” clucked Marjorie, adjusting her scarf. “My late mum doted on our Lucy’s girlscouldn’t do enough for ’em. But our John’s lot? Barely a birthday card. Used to break his heart, it did.”
“Same with mine!”
“And mine!”
“Lord help me, I’m just as bad,” confessed Doris, warming her hands on her teacup. “My daughter’s lad? Proper little angel, cheeks like apples. Grandad and I fair dote on him. But our lad’s wife’s boy? Always snot-nosed, clothes all mud. I tell her to tend to him proper, and she snaps that she’s run ragged keeping house for my son. ‘When am I supposed to wipe noses?’ she says. Well, I did! Raised four with milking at dawn, bread set to prove before light”
“Remember that time you left young Susan to bake while you dashed to the dairy?” interrupted Betty. “Came back to dough dripping off the table, the girl asleep in it, bless her.”
Edith slipped away quietly, the chatter fading behind her. At least she wasn’t alone in this coldness toward a grandson.
Yet Oliver adored his nan. Each visit felt like stepping closer to the father who’d vanished north years ago, chasing new horizons. He wrote letterscareful block capitalsto Dad, delivering them to Edith who’d nod and tuck them in her dresser.
“Mum says you’re the only one who knows where that no-good father of mine’s got to,” Oliver told the wallpaper once, kicking his scuffed trainers. But he knew Mum missed Dad too. She’d scream sometimes that Oliver and his father ruined her life, that she should’ve married Dave from the pub, had his babies, lived like a queen.
Oliver once rolled cheese in butter with his toy lorryNan’s birthday giftto see what “living like royalty” meant. The shouting still rang in his ears. That lorry was dear; probably bought with money Dad sent. Mum had lunged to bin it, but Oliver clung on, imagining his father’s hands placing it in his.
Now at Nan’s, cousin Chloe smirked over a new doll. “Nan’s making pancakes with clotted cream. For me.”
“For everyone,” Edith corrected sharply, and Oliver’s chest glowed. She did care.
Later, Chloe’s whisper”Thank God he’s gone!”floated through the door. Then Nan’s rasp: “Shut your trap, you little madam!”
Warmth flooded Oliver. She loved him.
Years slid by. Dad never returned, just sent money while building a new family up north. Mum married Dave’s brother, Roba decent sort who treated Oliver kindly, if not like his own two. And Nan? Still visits Dad regularly, Oliver learned before enlistment.
All those letters, rotting in her dresser.
He got roaring drunk that nightfirst and last timeraging at Mum, at Nan, at the ghost of a father. Rob hauled him to the garage where Oliver sobbed out every schoolyard taunt about being fatherless, every fight he’d started to prove otherwise. Rob gripped his neck, foreheads touching.
“Listen lad. You’re my son. Might not be by blood, but ten years under my roof?” His voice cracked. “You’re mine.”
“Dad,” Oliver choked out, and they wept like boys.
After the armytaller, broaderOliver became “our lad” to Rob and “my eldest” to Gran Tess, Rob’s mum. Only Edith’s house stayed closed, Chloe now living there, sneering about “bastards” and “wasted child support.”
Then came the day in the hospital corridor.
“absolutely not taking her home!” Chloe’s shrill voice echoed.
“Miss, without proper care at home”
“Care homes exist for a reason!”
Oliver strode in. “She’s coming with me.”
Chloe’s lip curled. “Ooh, hero. After the house, are we? Too lateNan signed it all to me.”
He took Edith home anyway. Mum shook her head, remembering the boy who’d believed in Nan’s love. But Edith thrivedwalking again, doting on Oliver’s children, whispering apologies with every bedtime story.
When her time came, Chloe didn’t visit. Just cashed the funeral money Rob sent.
“Fancy that,” the shop women murmured later. “The unwanted grandson giving her peace at the end.”
Doris paused, her bag of sweets halfway to the counter. “Extra sherbet lemons, Kath. My lot deserve spoiling today.”
For life’s a funny thing. Dote on the golden girl from your daughter, turn your back on your son’s childonly to find your final days cradled in the arms of the boy you couldn’t love. And it’s his face you see last, as the light fades.
