**Diary Entry – 12th March**
I spent my days caring for an old woman who treated me like dirt. But when I read her will, I couldn’t hold back my tears.
When I first arrived in Manchester, I was twenty-seven. Back in Romania, my mother was preparing for surgery, and I had mountains of mortgage debt to settle. I told myself I’d work hard for a year, maybe eighteen months—then go home.
Finding a job wasn’t hard. An agency placed me as a carer for an elderly woman. The flat’s owner, Eleanor Whitmore, needed someone to look after her eighty-four-year-old mother, Margaret. The pay wasn’t much, but it was steady.
From the very first day, Margaret despised me. “What’s your background?” she demanded the moment I stepped in. I told her. She wrinkled her nose. “Another Romanian. First the travellers, now you. All this filth tossed my way.” It only got worse.
Every morning brought fresh complaints—her porridge was wrong, the dusting shoddy, the door too loud, even my breathing annoyed her. Once, I overheard her whispering to Eleanor: “She’s stealing, mark my words. Keep an eye on her.” It made me sick. I washed her feet, helped her stand, fetched her medicine—all for nothing but scorn.
For six months, I endured it. Only thoughts of my mother kept me from walking out. Then one day, she accused me of stealing fifty pounds. We turned the flat upside down—only to find the notes tucked in her own handbag. No apology. Just that same icy contempt.
I packed my things. “I’m leaving,” I told her. She stood by the door, smirking. “Go on then. You’ll come crawling back—poverty always wins.”
“I’ll manage,” I said quietly. “Even without you.”
Then—completely unexpected—her voice changed. No malice left. Just something lost, almost fragile.
“You… put up with all this… for your mother?”
I froze. Then nodded. Told her everything—the surgery, the debts. She listened in silence. Then, slowly, she sat beside me, took my hand, and—wept. Just like that. No words, only tears rolling down her lined cheeks.
“Forgive me… I wasn’t angry at you. It was my daughter. She left me. I thought if you walked out, she’d return. But you—you bore it all. For your mum.”
Everything changed after that. We talked openly—her stories of the past, mine of home. She even gave me money to visit my husband. When I returned, she met me at the door with a scarf she’d knitted herself.
Four months later, she passed—peacefully, in her sleep. I wept like she was family.
A week after, Eleanor arrived with a solicitor.
“I’m here to read the will,” he said. “Margaret left you… a substantial sum.”
Eleanor went pale. “She’s mad! What did you do to my mother? Bribe her?”
I didn’t answer. Just walked over and hugged her tight.
“That’s what I did. Just hugged her.”
*Lesson learnt: Sometimes the hardest hearts break the softest—if you’re patient enough to wait.*
