The kitchen smelled of fried sausages when the doorbell rang. Vera, still wearing her apron, opened it to find a young courier standing there.
“Good afternoon! Your parcel,” he announced cheerfully.
“What parcel? I didn’t order anything,” Vera replied, puzzled.
“Flat number ten?” he checked.
“Yes.”
“Then it’s all correct.”
Hesitantly, she signed the form and took the large box. The moment she opened it, her blood ran cold. Inside lay a funeral wreath—not decorative, not festive—but a real one, complete with a black ribbon bearing her name.
No sender was listed. Just the silent message: *”Rest in peace, Vera.”*
“Who could hate me enough to send a wreath to my home?” she whispered later, her voice trembling.
Her husband, Andrew, dismissed her fears.
“Why assume it’s Mum? She adores you!”
“Adores me? She never even says my name!” Vera shot back, pain sharp in her voice.
And truly, her mother-in-law had despised everything about her from the start—her petite stature, her receptionist job, her modest dresses. Vera tried her best, sewing her own clothes, always polite, yet met only with disdain and sneers.
“Look at this pitiful girl,” Evelyn Blackwood would mutter to her son. “Can’t even string two words together!”
Andrew stayed silent, pretending all was well. But his silence was complicity. His mother grew bolder, crossing every line—even though they lived in Vera’s flat.
When Vera suggested renting a place that might please her mother-in-law, the woman rejected every option, screeching, accusing, hysterical. And Andrew? He sipped his tea and said nothing.
The wreath wasn’t enough; next came the underwear. One day, Andrew “found” a pair of men’s pants tucked away in the loft.
“Care to explain?” he hissed, holding them up.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd?” Vera retorted. “How would I even reach up there? I’d need a ladder!”
The spare keys were with his mother. The truth was obvious. But Andrew stayed quiet. Again.
The next “gift” arrived in a bucket of blackberries.
“Vitamins!” Evelyn declared sweetly. “For my dear daughter-in-law!”
By morning, Vera found something else inside—a live, half-frozen hedgehog, stiff from the fridge. Luckily, Andrew was there to see it.
“It crawled in on its own,” he insisted. “These things happen.”
Later, Vera discovered a doll beneath the bed, needles stabbed deep into its fabric. The situation felt like a cheap horror film. Still, she endured. Because she loved him. Because she believed the man beside her was her shield, not just a mother’s son.
The end came by accident. Vera returned from work early—and found Andrew with another woman. In *her* flat.
She threw him out. Fast. No mercy. Barefoot, as they say.
He stammered excuses:
“She showed up unannounced! I didn’t plan this!”
But Vera didn’t believe him. Especially when the “visitor” turned out to be the niece of Evelyn’s best friend. Too convenient.
Three years she’d tolerated it. Some wouldn’t last three months. But she had hoped.
And Andrew? He crawled back to Mum. Where else?
But life had one last twist. Evelyn was in love—a late-life romance, fiercer than the first. Not in her own flat, but in her new beau’s tiny studio. Evelyn Blackwood: homeless and lovestruck.
Poetic justice?
The lesson? Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes it comes true—just not the way you imagined.
