Brought Up by My Gran, But Now My Mum and Dad Say I Owe Them Child Support

My parents live in London, while I make my home in Manchester.

We havent laid eyes on each other in more than twenty years. They are both artists, forever travelling with their folk choirwandering souls, never settling, their lives a kaleidoscope of performances in cathedrals and village greens. When I turned five, I was sent to live with my grandmother. To make looking after me a bit simpler, Gran had to move all the way to Yorkshire, where distant family put her up in their old stone cottage. At first, Mum and Dad made an effort to visittwice, maybe three times a yeardriving up with tales of the road and half-empty biscuit tins. Over time the visits dwindled, vanishing like dew in the morning sun. Eventually I stopped waiting, stopped wishing, and they faded into the wallpaper of memory.

Contact with them flickered out altogether. In the haze of studying medicine, I married in my third year at university.

These days, my husband and I run our own dental practice in the city, with a steady queue of patients and more than comfortable earnings. Then, a year ago, my parents came drifting back into my lifecalling the surgery reception because they had no idea what my mobile number was anymore. Our conversations became a theatre of complaints: endless reruns of unforeseen troubles and a never-ending list of grievances with life.

I listened, just as the wind listens at the windows, and reminded them that they chose their own path long ago, that day they left their daughter in her grandmothers care. Now and then, they would send Gran a few coinsnever much, just enough to rattle in a pursebut for the most part, she and I survived on her state pension. She told me this often, and I always knew it to be the truth, for we lived frugally, saving every pound where we could.

I excelled at school, which allowed me to attend university on a scholarship. By working as a night nurse in the local hospital, I could afford to eat and clothe myself. Now, my life is my ownand my parents have theirs, drifting like leaves in a stream; let them manage as they will.

After realising I would not offer them any help, Mum and Dad said they might try to claim maintenance from me. But in the strange fog of the times, with the country so tangled in its own affairs, I doubt such a thing would come to pass. Their threat was the final twist in the dreamsour and unreal. Until then, part of me hesitated, still questioning whether I ought to help them, still tender in some secret part. But now, I feel nothing. I no longer wish to hear their names or see their faces spun in moonlight.

Tell me, am I wrong to feel this way? Should I really do this to my parents, or is it time to let the dream fade altogether?