“What do you mean, I’m not your daughter?” Sarah gasped, gripping the back of the chair until her knuckles turned white. “How can you say that? I’m your own flesh and blood!”
“Stop shouting at me,” Margaret muttered without looking up from her newspaper. “I said what I said. And who are you to tell me what I can or can’t think?”
“Mum, what’s going on?” James rushed in from the hallway, his face creased with worry. “The neighbours are banging on the walls!”
“Let them,” the old woman grumbled. “I can say what I like in my own house.”
Sarah sank onto the sofa, her legs shaky. It had started with something small—she’d asked her mother not to throw away the leftover stew so she could heat it up tomorrow. But the words that followed had left her breathless.
“Mum, is your blood pressure alright?” Sarah asked carefully. “Have you taken your tablets?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Margaret finally lowered the newspaper and fixed her with a cold stare. “I told you—you’re a stranger to me. You always have been.”
James exchanged a look with his wife. In thirty years of knowing his mother-in-law, he’d seen her in every mood, but never like this.
“Margaret, maybe we should call the doctor,” he suggested gently. “You don’t seem yourself today.”
“I’m perfectly sane!” she snapped. “I’m just tired of pretending. Tired of this happy little family act!”
Sarah’s throat tightened. A hot lump rose, and one terrible thought circled her mind—had her mother truly felt this way all along? Had she been hiding it for years?
“Mum, how can you say these things?” Her voice trembled. “I’ve always been there for you. When you were ill, I looked after you. I brought you groceries, helped with bills…”
“Exactly!” Margaret stood abruptly, the newspaper crumpling to the floor. “Out of pity! Duty! What do I want with that kind of care?”
“Pity?” Sarah could hardly believe her ears. “Mum, I love you!”
“Don’t lie!” The old woman stalked to the window, glaring into the garden. “No one loves me. Not even you.”
James squeezed his wife’s hand. Sarah was pale, trembling.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” he whispered. “Give her time to calm down.”
“No.” Sarah stood. “Mum, tell me what’s really going on. Why are you saying this?”
Margaret turned slowly, a strange, bitter smile twisting her lips.
“What’s there to explain? You think I don’t hear you? ‘Old, ill, a burden’—that’s what you whisper about me.”
“I never said that!”
“Oh, please!” She waved a dismissive hand. “I heard you and James in the kitchen. Thought I was too deaf to listen in, didn’t you?”
James frowned, racking his memory for anything that might have upset her.
“What did we say?”
“You don’t remember?” Margaret squinted at him. “About putting me in a care home. About how I’m in the way.”
Sarah gasped. It was true—they had spoken about it last month. Not because they wanted rid of her, but because they were afraid for her. Margaret had started forgetting the stove, mistaking neighbours for strangers.
“Mum, we weren’t trying to send you away,” Sarah tried to explain. “We were worried—”
“Don’t feed me rubbish!” Margaret cut her off. “I know what I heard. I’m sick of it—all this fake kindness!”
“Margaret, we love you,” James interjected. “Sarah barely slept when you were ill.”
“Because she had to!” The old woman’s voice cracked. “Not because she wanted to!”
Tears pricked Sarah’s eyes. She’d spent her life being a good daughter—even when her own children needed her, she’d always made time for her mother.
“Mum, what did I do wrong?” Her voice broke.
“What did you do right?” Margaret sank back into her chair. “You live your life, drop by when it suits you, ask how I am out of habit. And you think that’s enough?”
“But I call every day! I bring shopping, arrange doctor’s visits—”
“It’s all empty routine!” Margaret shook her head. “Where’s your heart in it? When did you last visit just to talk? Just to be with me?”
Sarah paused. She couldn’t remember. Lately, every visit had been chores—medicine to collect, forms to fill, repairs to sort.
“Mum, I’ve got my own family, my job—”
“Exactly!” Margaret cut in. “You have everything. And what do I have? No one! Just these four walls, waiting for my daughter to grace me with her presence!”
“Then move in with us! We’ve asked so many times!”
“Why? To be a nuisance? To hear my grandchildren sigh when I speak?”
James opened his mouth, but Margaret barrelled on.
“You think I don’t notice? You rush in, rush out, like it’s some awful chore!”
Sarah covered her face. The worst part was—her mother wasn’t entirely wrong.
“I tried to help,” she whispered.
“Help?” Margaret scoffed. “But when did you talk to me? Really talk? Ask how I was—not just my body, but my heart?”
Sarah lifted her head. Her mother’s eyes were desperate.
“I thought you wouldn’t care.”
“Wouldn’t care?” Margaret stood, crossing to her. “I feel every little thing you don’t say! I see when you’re upset, when you’re happy—but you shut me out!”
“I didn’t want to burden you.”
“Then what’s a mother for?” Margaret sat beside her. “Just to feed and medicate?”
Silence. James hovered by the window, suddenly feeling like an intruder.
“You know what hurts most?” Margaret said quietly. “You don’t see me. To you, I’m just an old woman to be managed.”
“That’s not true—”
“It is. When did you last ask what I think? What I want?”
Sarah searched her memories—only practicalities came to mind.
“What do you want, Mum?”
Margaret smiled bitterly.
“Too late to ask now.”
“Better late than never.”
A long pause. Margaret gazed out at the garden.
“I want to be loved—not pitied. I want to matter. I want my daughter to visit because she misses me, not because she must.”
“But I do miss you!” Sarah took her hand. “I just don’t know how to show it.”
“Don’t know—or don’t want to?”
“Don’t know. No one taught me.”
Margaret studied her.
“What do you mean?”
“Remember how you raised me? ‘Stop crying. Don’t be silly. Stop fussing.’ When I tried to hug you, you’d say, ‘Not now, I’m busy.’”
Margaret flinched.
“I worked hard. I was tired—”
“I get that. But I grew up not knowing how to say ‘I love you.’ And I thought you didn’t need to hear it.”
“I always needed it,” Margaret said softly. “I just didn’t know how to ask.”
They sat, hands clasped. James sank into the armchair opposite.
“So we’re both daft,” Sarah said, wiping her eyes.
“Seems so.”
“Mum, why did you call me a stranger?”
Margaret sighed.
“Anger talking.”
“No. Tell me.”
A long silence. Then—
“Sometimes I look at you, and I wonder—how are you mine? You feel so far away. Like there’s a wall between us.”
“We built that wall,” Sarah said. “Me with my silence, you with your hurt.”
“Suppose so.”
“Can we tear it down?”
Margaret turned to her.
“Maybe. We can try.”
Sarah squeezed her hand.
“Then let’s try. No more pretending.”
“No more pretending,” Margaret agreed.
“Mum, do you know I worry every time I come over? That you’ll be worse? That something will happen?”
“I didn’t know.”
“And I’m afraid I’m failing you.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you. I want you to be happy.”
Margaret swallowed.
“And I thought you didn’t care.”
“I care. I just don’t know how to show it.”
“We’ll learn,” Margaret said, patting her hand. “Both of us.”
James watched, thinking how much pain could be spared if people just said what they felt.
“Now tell me,” Margaret said. “Really tell me—what’s in your heart?”
Sarah hesitated.
“Sometimes it’s so hard, Mum. Work, the kids, the house… and this constant fear—”
“Fear of what?”
“That I’ll lose you. That I’ll never say what really matters.”
“Which is?”
“That I love youAnd as the evening light faded outside, Sarah and Margaret sat together, finally finding the words they’d both been too afraid to say for far too long.
