Margaret was sat in the kitchen, watching milk gently simmering on the hob. Shed already forgotten to stir it three times, and each delay meant the milk had bubbled over, spilling foam everywhere and leaving her scrubbing the cooker in a huff. Moments like these only made clearer what she already knew: it wasnt the milk that was really bothering her.
Since the birth of her second grandchild, everything in the family seemed to have drifted off course. Her daughter looked worn out and thinner, speaking less and less. Her son-in-law came home late, ate in silence, sometimes disappearing straight to their bedroom. Margaret noticed all this and thought to herself: how could you leave a woman to cope on her own?
She spoke up, at first gently, then with more force. She started with her daughter, then with her son-in-law. But soon, she noticed an odd thing: after she spoke, the atmosphere didnt lightenit grew heavier. Her daughter would defend her husband, her son-in-law grew more withdrawn, and Margaret would go home feeling, once again, that shed somehow said or done the wrong thing.
That day, she went to see the vicar, not so much for advice, but simply because she didnt know where else to take the weight inside her.
“I must be a terrible person,” she admitted, eyes fixed on the floor. “Everything I try just seems to make things worse.”
The vicar paused his writing, setting his pen aside.
“Why do you think that?” he asked.
Margaret shrugged. “I just wanted to help. But all I do is wind everyone up.”
He looked at her, not sternly but thoughtfully.
“Youre not terrible. Youre tired. And youre anxious.”
She sigheda weary, half-relieved sound. It felt true.
“I worry about my daughter,” she said quietly. “Shes changed so much since the baby came. And he…” Margaret flicked her hand dismissively, “seems not to notice any of it.”
“Have you noticed what he actually does?” the vicar asked.
Margaret thought back. She remembered finding her son-in-law washing up late at night, thinking no one could see. How, on Sunday, hed taken the pram out for a walk, even though it was clear hed have rather collapsed in bed.
“He does I suppose,” she conceded, unsure. “But not how I think he should.”
“And how should he?” the vicar asked, calm as ever.
Margaret wanted to answer straight away, but realised she didnt know. The only words in her head were: more, more often, more attentively. But what exactly, she couldnt say.
“I just want things to be easier for her,” she said.
“Then thats what you tell yourself,” said the vicar quietly. “Not himjust yourself.”
She gave him a puzzled look.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, right now, youre not fighting for your daughteryoure fighting her husband. And fighting means tension. Tension wears everyone thin. Them and you.”
Margaret sat in silence, mulling this over. Eventually, she asked,
“So what should I do, then? Pretend everythings fine?”
“No,” he said. “Just do what genuinely helps. Not wordsactions. And do it for someone, not against someone.”
On the way home, she pondered his advice. She remembered, back when her daughter was little, she never gave lectures. Shed just sat there, next to her, when she cried. Why was it all so different now?
The next day, Margaret arrived at their place unannounced, bringing homemade soup. Her daughter looked startled, her son-in-law awkward.
“I wont stay long,” Margaret said. “Just here to help.”
She played with the children while her daughter took a nap. She left quietly, saying nothing about how hard life seemed, and certainly not on how things ought to be done.
A week later, she came again. And the next week, too.
She still noticed her son-in-laws shortcomings. But she began to notice other things as well: the way he cradled the baby so carefully, how hed drape a blanket over her daughters shoulders at night, thinking no one saw.
One day, she couldnt help herself. In the kitchen, she asked him,
“Is it tough at the moment?”
He looked almost startled, as if no one had ever asked him such a thing.
“It is,” he said, after a pause. “Very.”
He said nothing more. But after that, the sharp tension that had hung between them seemed to wane.
Margaret understood then: shed been waiting for him to change entirely. But it was her who needed to start changing.
She stopped talking about him with her daughter, and when her daughter complained, she no longer snapped, “I told you so.” She simply listened. Sometimes she took the children so her daughter could rest; sometimes shed ring her son-in-law just to ask how things were. It wasnt easy. Anger would have come far more naturally.
But slowly, the house grew quieter. Not perfectnot even easier. Just quieter. Gone was the edge of constant strain.
One day, her daughter said,
“Mum, thank you for being with us these days, not against us.”
Margaret thought about these words for a long time.
She came to see something simple: reconciliation doesnt come when someone admits fault; it comes when someone stops fighting first.
She still wished her son-in-law was more attentive. That hadnt changed.
But now a greater wish lived alongside it: that peace would return to the family.
And each time the old feelings would riseresentment, frustration, the urge to say something bitingshe asked herself:
Do I want to be right, or do I want to make their lives easier?
Almost always, the answer guided her next step.
