Julie Morris arrived home late from a twelve-hour shift to find her older grandson Tyler sprawled on the sofa, flicking the television remote between music channels. She wanted nothing more than to have a warm shower and change into a pair of pyjamas, but she needed to talk to Tyler about his dad and there seemed no time like the present. He and Gavin seemed to be growing closer; something Julie wasn’t happy about. She wasn’t entirely sure that Gavin really wanted to be involved more in his son’s life or whether he was simply making the sudden effort just to get under her skin.

‘Curtis in bed?’ she asked, pushing her shoes from her feet and kicking them against the skirting board.

Tyler nodded, not taking his eyes from the television screen, where a young man dressed in a leather jacket writhed against a guitar in a way that looked both uncomfortable and obscene. This recent phase her grandson seemed to be going through involved long hair and a depressing soundtrack, and though Julie hoped it would prove a brief transition into something else, it was a phase Tyler had been stuck in for a while now.

‘I’ve been trying to call you.’

‘Left my phone at Keeley’s.’

Julie rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘You’re useless with that bloody phone. Start looking after your things. So you’ve not seen your dad today?’

He shook his head.

‘Listen, Tyler … about your dad. Can you turn that down for five?’

Tyler muted the television and turned to face her. Even in the low light of the table lamp beside the sofa, Julie could see the start of facial hair appearing at her grandson’s top lip and shadowing his jawline. She had blinked, and in that moment Tyler had grown from a baby into a young man. The five years since his mother had died had passed by in a blur, yet in so many ways they had been the longest of Julie’s life.

Gavin had missed so much of his sons’ childhood; even the parts when he hadn’t been serving time and had simply chosen to be an absent father. He’d been happy to let Julie and her daughter do the hard work, and he didn’t deserve to have Tyler or Curtis back now.

‘I know you’re getting on well and everything,’ she said, sitting down on the sofa beside him, ‘but just don’t expect too much, okay?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like anything. It’s just …’ She stopped, realising she had been about to sugar-coat what she really wanted to say. There she’d been, pondering how the hell he’d grown up so quickly, and now she was about to patronise him as though he were still a little kid. ‘You know about your dad’s drug dealing,’ she said. ‘You know that’s why he went to prison.’

Tyler nodded, watching her as though waiting for something else; something new and previously unknown. There was always something new where Gavin was concerned.

‘He’s probably told you he’s changed. Has he said that yet?’

‘He said something about wanting a fresh start.’

Julie rolled her eyes. ‘People don’t change, love, not really. They’ll say they want to or they’ll try to prove they have or they can, but you know the expression “a leopard never changes its spots”? Well there’s a reason for it. Your father’s a chancer – he always has been.’

‘Why did Mam get involved with him then?’

It was a reasonable question, Julie thought: one she had repeatedly asked herself both before and after her daughter’s death. She’d been a smart kid, a pretty girl who could have had her pick of anyone, but she’d chosen Gavin and she’d paid the price for it. The evening she was killed in the hit-and-run she’d been over to Gavin’s parents’ house, trying to get him to take responsibility for his sons. Julie shrugged. ‘Honestly? I don’t know.’

She stood from the sofa. ‘Look … you want to see the best in people. That’s fine. That’s exactly what your mother was like when she was younger. That’s why she stayed with your dad, always hoping things would be different one day. But he can’t change, love, even if he thinks he wants to. He’ll be back to his old ways in no time. I just don’t want you to be disappointed when it happens.’

She went to the living room door. ‘Have you eaten anything? Shall I put some toast on?’

Tyler nodded. ‘Nan?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What would it have taken for her to stay with Dad? If he’d had to prove himself, like … what would he have had to do?’

Julie put a hand on her hip as she pondered the question. ‘Been the person she wanted him to be, I suppose. He’d have had to be something he wasn’t.’

She watched her grandson for a moment as he unmuted the television and turned his attention back to the screen. Then she headed to the kitchen to make him some toast.