My Relatives Are Waiting for Me to Leave This World, Planning to Inherit My Flat—But I’ve Made Sure I’m Prepared Ahead of Time.

I find myself, at sixty, drifting alone through the hallways of my London flat as if I were wandering the corridors of a dream. Ive no husband, nor children; though in a misty time, I was married. At twenty-five, in an eruption of devotion, I wed.

Our union rattled apart like porcelain droppedhis betrayal was the axe. He brought her, his mistress, right into our apartment as casually as if bringing home a stray dog. I packed my belongings in boxes that seemed to grow legs and walk themselves away, and retreated to my parents home. Just two months after the divorce, I learned, with a strange floating sensation, that I was carrying his child.

I confesstelling him never crossed my mind. I let silence eat away the bond. I resolved to raise my child alone, in a cradle of uncertainty. My son arrived beneath the hospitals green lights, and the doctors delivered news as cold as February frost. Your child is born weak, gravely illincurable. He may not see past eleven or twelve, if luck holds.

I was lost, as if thrown into a foggy maze where no paths led anywhere. I nursed my son every day, haunted by the shadow that his life would be briefa candle hurriedly burning to its end.

He lingered on past expectation, living to fifteena little miracle stretched beyond the calendars promise. Then, as if time itself hiccupped, my son and my father vanished, one week apart. The dream took two precious souls, leaving echoes behind.

My father left me his flatnot merely spacious, but perched in the very heart of London, where streets pulse with memory. I lived alone for years, avoiding romance, afraid the same story would replay. When forty-five bloomed, I bought myself a laptop, hoping to string connections to kin and soak up the news.

Relatives sniffed out my solitude. They arrived in waves, bearing gifts that felt heavy and odd, as if the wrapping paper was made of clouds. They mentioned wills, wondered aloud about inheritance, whispered about financial woes. Some acted as if auditioning for sainthoodpretending virtue so they might become worthy in my dream. But I already knew who would inherit my homea friends daughter who lends a hand in kindness, never expecting anything in return.

My family wanted nothing but bricks and mortar. Eventually, I let their numbers fade from my phone, but they pressed on, as relentless as rain.

One day, my cousin calledhis words rude, as if delivered through a cracked megaphoneasking bluntly if I was still alive and who would claim my flat. Offended, I let the dream carry me away from them, blocking calls and messages until their voices dissolved from my waking world.