That had been over twenty-five years ago. Kate was fast approaching the same situation with her own daughter. Would she pass the clock onto Laurie before she died? Or would she let her grandfather go through the same difficult situation he had once done with her? She just didn't know! It was still too painful to think about. But the time for decision would be upon her very soon.

Stirling had taken Laurie home later that evening, leaving behind a trail of tears. Kate sat by herself at the table crying into her coffee. Asking a God, she didn't believe in, a question she knew he would never answer 'Why me?' for the hundredth time 'Why me?' That was her problem, thinking! When she needed to the most, she just didn't seem able to make the time to think. When she needed it least, it just wouldn't leave her the hell alone. So she sat there by herself, her elbows on the edge of the dining table, thinking.

Soon after her own mother's death, Kate's grandfather had adopted her, and she had become his legal daughter. She would always call him grandfather. And when she had gone he would probably adopt Laurie and she too, would become his daughter. Bitter tears fell in to her cold cuppa Joe, not bitterness directed at him, but at the loss of a future, of not being able to see Laurie grow into a beautiful young woman, missing all those special-and not so special moments-that made raising a child so wonderful. All this thinking and wallowing in self-pity was setting off one of her migraines. So with little choice, she would be having an early night yet again. But first she would have to make another painful visit to the stale yellow toilet.

Over the next few days Kate continued her search of the internet, digging deeper into her grandfather's ancestry. But without his birth certificate she was unable to trace any further back into his past. Reluctantly she picked up the folder containing her mother's and grandmother's birth and death certificates. She still found it difficult to deal with her mother's death, even after all these years. Kate read her mother's cert. She already knew her mother had died at Borden General Hospital of heart and respiratory failure. What confused her was her mother's name on her birth certificate. Janet Finchley, not Granger, born 1955, also at the Borden General Hospital. Her mother was Maureen Finchley, a housewife from the nearby village of Ruskington. Her mother's father was David Finchley, a carpenter from Oldernith, a small village to the west of Borden. Kate had never heard the name of Finchley before. Kate had never known that her grandfather wasn't her mother's biological father. Strange, now she came to think of it, the few years she could remember of her mother, she had never heard her call him father, only grandfather, as did she herself and Laurie.

Kate had always assumed it was the same as those parents who called each other Mother and Father. Something in the back of her mind began to unfurl and reveal itself, a suspicion of familiarity. Like her mother, Kate had a different surname on her birth certificate than the one she used as she grew up. On a hunch she looked up the adoption agencies archives on the internet to see if any record could be found under the name Janet Finchley. After a while of searching she found, to her amazement, what her hunch had expected. There on the screen was a copy of her mother's adoption certificate. She had been born Janet Finchley. Her mother and father were Maureen and David Finchley. But in 1961, just after Janet's mother's death at the age of 29, Stirling Granger had adopted Janet at the young age of 6 years old.

Kate couldn't find anything at all about David Finchley, where he had gone or why he hadn't been there for his daughter. What was the biggest shock though was the name placed in the Guardian and adopter section of the certificate, both Stirling Granger, and where it asked for relationship, the word 'Grandfather' had been entered?

'OH MY GOD' Kate couldn't believe what she had just read. 'So he's my mother's grandfather and my great grandfather'. To say she was shocked didn't cover it.

'Bloody hell, that means he's Laurie's great, great grandfather. Jeez! Well preserved is an understatement. He must be in his late eighties early nineties at best.' She had thought.

Kate had believed he was in his seventies, coming up to his 75th birthday, as he had told her, but in his nineties? Well that was remarkable to say the least. But why the secrecy she wondered. She would have to talk to him about it. But not now, not until she had completed his family tree or the surprise would be ruined.

It was easy to get so involved with all new facts and secrets of her ancestry. Kate also found it was quite easy to forget to take her med's, or even feed herself. Her body soon reminded her, as it insisted she stop and close her eyes. Again tiredness had overtaken her. The shock and excitement had exhausted her already weakened body. She made herself a ham sandwich, easy on the mayo, as well as a steaming mug of hot coffee. Grabbing her medication on the way past, she set off to bed.

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