The flat was gone. Just like that.
“Your flat? What do you mean *your* flat?”
“Mum, Grandads old place. The one he left to me. You used to rent it outdont you remember?” Emilys voice wavered.
“Oh. *That* flat.” Her mother, Margaret, sounded almost bored. “It was never really yours, love. I sold it.”
Emilys pulse spiked. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Her legs buckled, forcing her to sit.
“Sold it?”
“Well, yes. Put it on Zoopla, found a buyer. Simple. Simons car packed in, you know how useless he is without it. Needed a new one.”
Emily couldnt speak. She hung up, her chest aching like shed been punched.
She remembered Grandad grinning as he showed off the fresh wallpaper in the bedroom, patting her head.
“Youll have your own little castle one day, poppet. Right from the start. Youll thank me then, mark my words…”
Hed died when she was twelve. Back then, a flat of her own meant nothingjust a vague *good thing* she couldnt properly grasp. So when Mum said Grandads will was just talk, Emily hadnt minded much.
“Itll stay in my name for now,” Margaret had declared. “Grandad didnt want you frittering it away. Ill rent it out, cover the bills, maybe spruce it up. You dont want some mouldy old dump, do you?”
Emily had agreed. For years, she forgot about ituntil sixth form, when she and her mate Lucy planned to share it at uni.
“Mum, we could split the bills! Proper grown-up life!”
Margaret scoffed. “Grown-up? On what wages? Youll burn out in a month. And what if Lucy legs it with some bloke? Then what? Mum, save me?”
The hurt festered, but Mums logic stuck. She was the adult. Emily apologised to Lucy.
Then Mum suggested uni halls up north. “Free room! Ill send rent moneynot much, but enough.”
Emily hugged her, overjoyed.
For six months, it worked. Then the money shrank.
“Dentist bill,” Mum said. “Tighten our belts, eh?”
Then came delays. Rent paid on the 10th? Emily got it by the 17th. Then the 20th. Then later.
Then she learned Mum had moved Simon in straight after she left.
Simonmarried, always “nearly divorced”lived off Margaret. Free meals, free roof. When the sink leaked? Charged her triple. His gifts? A lampshade for Mothers Day. *Mostly* paid for by her.
Then came the land plots. “He wants to build us a house!” Mum gushed. “The deeds in *his* name, obviously.”
Emily begged her to see sense. “Hes using you!”
Mum snapped. “I deserve happiness!”
By third year, the money stopped.
“Laid off. Youre on your own, love.”
Emily worked odd jobstutoring, moderating forumsscraping by till graduation. Then she called Mum.
“About the flat”
“Gone,” Mum said.
Emilys gut twisted. But she had a card to play: half of Mums own flat.
“Im selling my share,” she said coldly.
“*Mine!*” Mum shrieked.
“You sold *my* flat. Now its my turn.”
“Simon drives me everywhere in that car!”
“Buy me out, or I sell to strangers.”
“After all Ive done?! Youre worse than your father!”
Emily sent the notice by post. No face-to-face screams.
A month later, the money hit her account. Enough to start again.
“Sorry, Grandad,” she whispered. “But you taught me not to trust words.”
The guilt gnawed at her. Hed wanted them happy, each in their own home. But hers had turned into Simons tyres. So she fought dirty.
Just like Mum.
