The news of her grandmother’s death struck Lila with the force of a physical blow. Though she was a grown woman, a wife with a child on the way, she wept with the helpless abandon of a little girl. For Lila, her grandmother, Rose, had never been just a relative. She had been her entire world, her compass, her truest friend, and the only real parent she had ever known.
Lila’s parents were not dead or absent in the typical sense. They were simply… there. Blue-collar workers caught in the relentless grind of life, they had Lila, and then, a year later, her sister, Sophie. While they always seemed to find the time and energy to dote on Sophie, Lila was the child who didn’t quite fit into their plans. Rose had been the one to care for the girls, a constant, loving presence while their parents worked endless shifts. But they always came back for Sophie. Lila, more often than not, was left behind.
As a child, she didn’t understand it. As an adult, the facts were inescapable: in her own family, she was an afterthought. The breaking point came when she was ten. Her mother, Annabelle, arrived at Rose’s door with a suitcase and an envelope of cash. Without meeting her daughter’s eyes, she asked Rose to take care of Lila permanently.
Rose sent Lila to her room, but the little girl heard everything through the thin wooden door.
“Annabelle, she is your daughter too! What are you doing?” Rose’s voice was stern, laced with disbelief. “Why are you tearing these sisters apart, choosing one over the other?”
“You don’t understand, Mom,” Annabelle’s voice was a high-pitched, defensive whine. “We can barely make ends meet as it is! This is just the beginning, and then what?”
“Then why did you have another child if you couldn’t care for the first?” Rose retorted. “Stop it! We will take care of her.”
The front door slammed shut. Lila crept out of her room, her small heart aching. “Grandma?” she whispered. “Is she coming back?”
Rose sighed, the sound heavy with a sorrow that Lila wouldn’t understand for many years. “No, my darling. She’s not.”
Years later, after Lila’s father had suffered a workplace accident that left him disabled, Annabelle appeared on Rose’s doorstep again.
“Go to your room, Lila. I’ll call you,” Rose had said, her face a grim mask.
Again, Lila listened. “Mom, Lila is a grown girl now,” Annabelle began. “She should come home.”
“Oh, so now you remember you have a daughter?” Rose’s voice was dangerously quiet. “What about Sophie? Doesn’t she help?”
“She’s studying, as you know,” Annabelle said dismissively.
“And Lila is studying too! Or do you intend to turn her into a full-time nurse for a husband you both were careless with? You feel pity for your younger daughter, but the older one can just throw her life away? Is that it?”
“She’s my daughter! She has an obligation to help us!”
“She owes you nothing,” Rose’s voice was like ice. “Do you remember how you left her? Did you ever visit? Buy her a single Christmas present? No. She owes you nothing. Now leave, Annabelle. Don’t poison my soul. I will not give you Lila.”
That was the day Lila learned the full, bitter truth, and any lingering hope of reconciling with her family died for good.
She finished community college—Rose couldn’t afford a university—and then worked her way through a bachelor’s degree, all while living with and caring for her grandmother, who was growing frail. Lila’s greatest wish was for Rose to see her get married. She met Michael, a kind, supportive man who understood her devotion to Rose. Their wedding was modest, but Rose was there, tears of joy streaming down her face as she saw Lila in her wedding dress.
Lila’s parents and sister also attended, but Sophie’s behavior was so appalling that even Rose couldn’t hide her disgust. Drunk and belligerent, Sophie jabbed a finger at Lila’s stomach. “In a hurry to get married, are we?” she slurred with a nasty laugh. “Couldn’t wait? Knocked up already?”
After the wedding, Lila didn’t speak to her family for years. It wasn’t out of spite; there was simply nothing to say.
Lila flourished. She graduated with honors, found a good job, and soon she and Michael were able to move into their own place. They begged Rose to come live with them, but she always refused.
“No, my dear,” she’d say. “I’ll live out my days in my own home. I don’t want to be a burden.”
“What burden, Grandma? We love you!”
“I know you do. But I can feel my time is short. And the vultures are circling,” Rose had said one afternoon, her voice thin. “They’re all so kind and caring now, always offering to help. Your sister is expecting a child, you know, and has nowhere to live. She wants this apartment after I’m gone. That’s why they’re all so sweet.”
Lila hated discussing it. She never cared about inheritance; she just wanted her grandmother to live forever. But that wasn’t to be. Rose passed away when Lila was four months pregnant, her deepest wish—to hold her great-grandchild—unfulfilled.
The funeral was a blur of repressed grief. Lila sat in the back, quietly wiping her tears, trying not to get upset for the sake of her baby. Then came the reading of the will. She sat far from her family, listening silently as the lawyer read out Rose’s final wishes. She wasn’t shocked, but a deep, hollow sadness settled in her when she heard the verdict. The apartment, everything in it, was left to her sister, Sophie. The old family car, which had been rusting in the garage for years, went to her parents. To her, Rose had left nothing.
Sophie was smiling, stroking her own large belly. Her mother cast a smug, reproachful glance at Lila. Her father was already busy talking to the notary.
Lila stood up to leave, the finality of it all sinking in, when the lawyer called out to her.
“Ms. Covington, please wait. Your grandmother left a personal letter for you.”
He handed her a small, sealed envelope. Her relatives leaned in, their curiosity piqued, but Lila ignored them. She opened the envelope. Inside, on a small piece of notepaper, was Rose’s familiar, elegant handwriting. It read:
For the headstone, take my photo from the frame.
Lila didn’t yet have plans for a headstone, but she knew she wanted to honor her grandmother properly. The photograph Rose meant was a beautiful, old portrait from her youth, showing her vibrant and happy, with a dazzling smile.
“Take it,” Sophie said with magnanimous glee when Lila arrived at the apartment later that week. “Take anything else you want. I’m just going to throw most of this old junk out anyway.”
Lila took only the photograph and a few old photo albums. Back home, life and pregnancy took over, and she forgot about the picture until it was time to order the monument. She carefully opened the back of the heavy, ornate frame. And there, tucked behind the cardboard backing, she found another, smaller, folded letter and a small, antique brass key.
Her hands trembled as she unfolded the note.
My darling granddaughter,
I hope you are not angry with me for leaving you nothing in the will. Believe me, I wanted to give you everything. But those vultures would have never given you a moment’s peace. And besides, why would you want my old junk heap of an apartment, with all its debts and needed repairs?
This key is for you, for Michael, and for my great-grandchild. Take it and go to this address…
It was a bank. The note explained that the key was for a safe deposit box. Inside, Lila found stacks of cash—more money than she had ever seen in her life—and one final letter.
This is for you, my dears, to celebrate the birth of your child. Let your sister worry about renovations and utility bills. You, my darlings, will buy yourselves a new, spacious home, the kind you’ve always wanted. Your grandfather started saving this for you, and I continued after he was gone. I love you.
Lila wept as she reread the letter, the paper trembling in her hands. Michael, holding her close, wept with her. And little Stephen, asleep in his carrier at their feet, smiled in his dreams, his own small heart sensing that these were, finally, tears of pure joy.