Vera stood by the window, replaying the events in her mind for the thousandth time. That evening, a wreath had arrived at their flat—a real funeral wreath, draped with a black ribbon. Her name was written on it. No signature. No card. Just silence and the cold darkness of the box.
Her husband, Andrew, hadn’t even flinched. He shrugged and said, “Maybe it’s a mistake? Or someone’s sick joke…”
“A mistake? Seriously?” Vera stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
She knew where it had come from. She knew how precisely her address had been written. And she knew the one person in their circle who had never once called her by her name, who had despised her openly and in silence for years—her mother-in-law.
Margaret Whitmore believed her son deserved better. Someone with model looks, a pedigree like a thoroughbred, and preferably no family baggage. And Vera? Ordinary, hardworking, barely five feet tall, from a modest background—she’d sewn her own dresses since childhood. But she loved Andrew truly.
Margaret wasn’t interested in love. She wanted control. And when she lost it, she retaliated.
At first, it seemed harmless—snide remarks, backhanded compliments, biting “advice.” Then came the meddling in their daily lives, the “gifts” with dubious intentions. Later, underwear was planted in the storage cupboard, as if Vera were hiding an affair. As if she could keep secrets in a flat where every shelf was in plain sight.
But it was always brushed off as coincidence. Even when Vera found a live adder in the berries Margaret had sent over, Andrew only shrugged. “Who knows? The woods are close by—maybe it just…”
Vera locked herself in the bathroom and cried. Not out of fear. Out of helplessness. Because worse than adders were the people who pretended to be family while poisoning the heart of it.
She endured it. For a long time. Until the day she caught Andrew with another woman. Right in their kitchen. Smiling, leggy, dressed to impress.
“She just came over!” Andrew blurted, not even bothering to cover himself.
Vera didn’t say a word. She just pointed to the door. And to the wreath, still unthrown away, because she knew—some messages couldn’t be discarded. They were like brands. Like full stops at the end of a story you never wanted to finish.
After the divorce, Vera moved out. He stayed with his mother. Then, a neighbour called her. “Did you hear? Your ex-mother-in-law got married. To that childhood friend of hers—the one who was always around…”
Vera smirked. Not out of spite. But from the realisation—her place in that family had always been up for grabs. Not for her son. For Margaret herself.
Now Vera lives in a different flat. She looks at the wreath—yes, she kept it—and whispers, “Thank you. It wasn’t a curse. It was my salvation.”
The lesson? Some poisons come disguised as family. But freedom often wears the mask of loss.
