I managed to get my son to divorce, and now I regret it
My daughter-in-law dropped off my granddaughter again yesterday for the weekend, bemoaned my neighbour Margaret on the landing as I struggled with my shopping. I simply cant feed the child properly! She looks at me, all green and thin, and says, Mummy said princesses dont eat much! She takes two mouthfuls, and thats her done. The girl nearly glows with hunger!
Margaret had taken a strong dislike to her son Daniels wifeEmilyas soon as she clapped eyes on her. The main offence: Emily was seven years older than Daniel, who, at that time, was hardly more than a boy, just out of his uniform with school barely behind him.
Hed barely even been round women before her! Margaret would mutter, shaking her head. Is it any wonder he fell for her tricks? She bewitched him with her worldly ways, thats what happened!
But Emily, if you asked me, was dazzlingstriking and elegant, always mindful of her appearance, impeccably dressed, chasing a career with real grit. Nothing mysterious in Daniels attractionmen see with their eyes, after all, and she was a sight.
Emily lived by healthy eating and discipline, which naturally flowed into how she brought up her daughtersmall portions, mindful eating, a constant reminder of health over gluttony.
Within months of their courtship, Emily was pregnant. Part rebellion against a future mother-in-law determined to sabotage from the start, part simple chanceit hardly mattered. Daniel was resolute: he would marry Emily, even though hed only just turned eighteen and she was twenty-five.
Once A-levels were behind him, Daniel entered technical college, balancing studies and early jobs. They set up their own little world in a rented flat at first, then later bought a modest bedsit in one of those old gabled houses chopped into rooms. It was all bare floorboards and mismatched cups, but they were happy.
Margaret, though, would not let things lie. She took every opportunity to find fault with Emilyher roast wasnt right, Daniels shirt never quite pressed correctly, their daughters coats not warm enough. To Margaret, Emily had no redeeming features, only failings.
In the end, Emily drew the boundaries: no more awkward family teas. She took on all the shuttlingnursery drop-offs, beginners gymnastics, chess club. Dashing from the office to collect her daughter, then off to the next thing. She squeezed in her own pilates class and the occasional trip to the salon, and found herself at home less and less.
Daniel, meanwhile, would return to a silent flathis daughter busy with after-school clubs, his wife catching up with emails or barely home at all.
One evening, there was a knock on the door from Clairethe widowed woman down the hall, all kindness, with her two gangly teenage boys. The tap in the shared kitchen had burst, and she needed a hand before they flooded the neighbours below.
Daniel had a good pair of hands on him and soon had the water off, old tea towels wrapped around pipes, rummaging for washers. While he worked, Claire, forever practical, fried up sausages and beans. Stay, have a plate, she offered once the panic was over. Daniel, starved for home cooking, eagerly agreed. Emily had no time for hearty suppers anymore.
After that, Claires warm kitchen became his refugea few stolen evenings, plates of shepherds pie, stories of youthful holidays at Brighton. It crept up on them, the changeone moment they were friends, and the next they found themselves needing those quiet hours together.
Of course, nothing stays secret for long in houses with thin walls. Someone from next door whispered to Emily that Daniel was visiting Claire, and not for a poetry reading.
The row could be heard up and down the stairs. Emily, proud and upright, packed Daniels things and sent him off into the hallway.
With no other place to go and the night already upon him, he wound up on Claires doorstep. She welcomed himshe always did.
By then, Daniels daughter was six. Daniel himself was twenty-five, Emily thirty-two, Claire thirty-nine.
When Margaret heard her son had split from his wife, she was jubilanther grand plan had succeeded! But learning Daniel had moved in with Claire, a woman not only older but with two boys of her own, silenced her in an instant.
Her sudden acceptance seemed surreal, as if shed finally glimpsed the mess her own hands had made. Years spent sneering at Emily for a seven-year age gap, and nowtotal resignation, or perhaps a quiet admission of defeat.
All this happened about fifteen years ago, not yesterday. Daniel and Claire still live together, though they had no children of their own. The years have passed kindly over their lives: he now forty, she fifty-four. Margaret treats their union with serene acceptanceno jibes, no fussjust a placid, settled calm. I often see Daniel these days and can tell, without doubt, that he is at peace.
Do you think happiness is possible when the woman is older? In dreams, perhaps anything is.
