Long ago, in a quiet village cushioned by English hills, Margaret Davenport grumbled about her son-in-law, a lanky farmhand from the West Midlands who drove delivery trucks and played loud video games in the evenings. She had tried everything to protect her daughter Emily from such a man, yet he had used the oldest trick in the book—winning her heart with a pregnancy. Margaret, who’d watched enough telly soaps to know that abortion would leave them childless, bit her tongue and rushed the wedding. David, the rascal, even tried to move them into a rented flat. Instead, Margaret packed them into her own three-bedroom home, grudgingly giving them her spare room.
“Em, why does your David still fiddle with those noisy boxes?” Margaret grumbled one evening, arms laden with laundry. “You’ve raised that baby all day—let him give you a break!”
“He relieves stress, Mummy,” Emily trilled, smoothing her son’s crumpled pyjamas. “He helps feed Juliet next. Stop picking at him.”
David wasn’t entirely hopeless, Margaret had to admit. She’d been a widow for a decade, still fumbling with lightbulbs, while he’d fixed the loose kitchen cupboards and replaced the leaky tap without a word. Better to live with mischievous cupboards than let Emily’s talented daughter be shackled to a man eyeing their home. Still, it had cost Emily her ballet career—Margaret had always dreamed of dancing, and Emily had promised much, but maternity leave had snuffed that out, leaving her a mere dance teacher at the local community hall.
David, it seemed, neither noticed nor cared about Margaret’s scorn. “Mummy, you’re the best cook in the county!” he’d declare, shoveling sawdust-soft bread into his mouth, his mouth full as he spoke.
“One day, you’ll learn others don’t fritter their time at screens,” Margaret snapped once, ladling thicker stew for Emily’s plate. “Mrs. Higgens’s son earns honest wages coding on his computer.”
“I applied for a programming degree,” David muttered, his teeth crushing the dry bread Margaret had handed him.
“Applied? You got in, then quit, didn’t you?”
“Fell behind,” he mumbled. “Had to work nights to keep a roof over our heads.”
“It’s always work, never thought,” Margaret scoffed.
Emily intervened, as always, and Margaret retreated to her room, hands tight around her lace doily.
Worse than David were his family, whom she’d met once at the wedding. Coarse-voiced and clumsy, they’d left in a spray of muddy boots. When David timidly announced they’d be visiting, Margaret’s teacup trembled in her hand.
“Let them sleep at the inn,” she ordered.
“They insisted on tea,” David said, “to bond.”
Emily, of course, exploded with cheer. “I’ll bake apple pie and chicken strudel! Mummy, your rice pilaf would be lovely!”
What Margaret feared came true. David’s mother barged in, loud as a storm, and when Margaret served pilaf, his mother hissed, “Don’t overfill him, sister-in-law! He’s pigged out since we adopted him from the orphanage. Stole food from his sisters, too.”
Margaret froze, then looked at Emily, whose smile had vanished.
That night, she cornered David. “So you left your studies because of them?”
He blushed. “They fed me when I was small, Mummy… though I think you make better stew.”
“Then why no books, no drive?”
“I had to support my sister first,” he said. “Now I’ve got Emily and Juliet to feed. I didn’t know you knew about the orphanage.”
Margaret left before he could see her eyes well up. The next day, her son-in-law’s plate held the same tender meat as Emily’s. A week later, she tossed off, “I’ve arranged for a local shop to hire you as their tech wiz. They need someone who fiddles with machines, don’t they?”
“Oh, I’d be perfect!” David stammered.
“Condition: you return to classes,” Margaret said coolly.
Emily hugged her, beaming. David added, “I’ve never had someone cook so well for me before. Thank you.”
Margaret avoided their eyes. No, David wasn’t all bad.
Welcome back, sorrow.
