I spent two years away in France, and when I finally came back to my native Yorkshire I discovered that my son had been given a surprise. My daughter, Mary, had taken a Frenchman as her husband. I moved in with them, tended to my little grandson, Harry, and minding the kitchen and the hearth as any good mother would.
Both Mary and her husband, Pierre, worked for the same engineering firm in Leeds and only returned home at night. I hoped that would stay that way, but it was not to be. One evening they told me they no longer needed my help and asked me to find another room. A month later I was back in my own cottage, yet the welcome there was just as cold. While I was staying with Mary, my son Thomas split from his first wife, left their flat and moved straight into my house.
He arrived with his second wife, Georgina, who was already expecting a child. He never thought to ask my permission. What was I to do? Throw my own son and his pregnant wife out? No. But how could the three of us, soon to be four, fit into a onebedroom flat? Neither Thomas nor I had enough pounds to rent a larger place. I called Mary and explained the predicament, hoping she would understand and invite me back, yet she would not. She seemed to have adopted a different outlook on life.
Thomass conduct, I suppose, made sense; he had not anticipated my return. So I was left to sleep on the settee in the kitchen, and during the day I left the house to run errands and visit friends. Thomas and Georgina got along without a word of quarrel, but my daughterinlaw kept me out of sight. It was clear she did not like having me around the house.
I could never have imagined that at sixtyfour I would become a burden, that someone else would take over my home. My son was entirely focused on his pregnant wife and paid no heed to the housing problem. Now I am hunting for a parttime job, hoping to afford a small flat of my own. The new inlaws live out in the country, and I wonder whether I should ask Georgina to move in with them. Will Thomas find work there? I doubt it. I am still torn and do not know what to do.
