Grace & Family

Grace lived with her Ma and her Nana and a cat called Paw-Paw. Next to her family, what Grace liked best was stories. Some she knew and some she made up, and she was particularly interested in ones about fathers, because she didn’t have one.

“You do too have a father.” her Ma said when she caught Grace talking that way. “I must have told you a hundred times about how we split up and your Papa went back to Africa.

He has another family now, but he’s still your father, even though he doesn’t live with us any more.

Well, that wasn’t Grace’s idea of a father! She wanted one like Beauty’s, who brought her roses from the Beast’s garden in spite of the dangers. Not one she hadn’t seen since she was very little and only knew from letters and photographs.

And in her school reading books Grace saw that all the families had a mother and a father, a boy and a girl, and a dog and a cat.

“Our family’s not right,” she told Nana. “We need a father and a brother and a dog.”

“Well,” said Nana, “I’m not sure how Paw-Paw would feel about a dog. And what about me? Are there any Nanas in your school book?”

Grace shook her head.

“So do you want me to go?” asked Nana, smiling.

“Of course not!” Grace said, hugging her. Nana hugged her back.

“Families are what you make them,” she said.

Then, one day when Grace got in from school she saw a letter on the table with a crocodile stamp on it.

Grace knew it must be from Papa, but it wasn’t Christmas or her birthday.

Ma said, “Guess what! Your Papa sent the money for two tickets to visit him in Africa for the Easter holidays. Nana says she’ll go with you if you want.

What do you say?”

But Grace was speechless. She had made up so many fathers for herself she had forgotten what the real one was like.