There was a time when my heart held such hopes, now long faded into memory. My husband and I parted ways when my youngest son was but four years old, and the elder barely ten. Left alone with two boys to raise, a second marriage was never in the cards. There was no time—only endless work, the unyielding grind of daily life. My mother was my sole support, shepherding the children to school, feeding them, doing all she could so I could labour at two jobs to keep us afloat.
How proud I was of the men they became—handsome, clever, well-educated. The elder married early, building his own home far from us, lost among distant relatives. But the younger, ah—he carried all my dreams. Closer in spirit, closer in distance.
When he left for university, I made a desperate choice—I went to work in Germany, scrubbing floors, tending to the elderly. Every penny I scraped together was for him, never for myself. Because if not me, then who?
Then came the day he announced his wish to marry. I rejoiced at first. The girl seemed quiet, polite, soft-spoken—I’d only met her a handful of times. Little did I know how well she wore her masks.
I gave them everything. The flat—bought with the wages I’d earned in those cold rooms, hauling buckets. The wedding, too—grand as they’d dreamed, with the dress, the feast, the photographer. My elder son never begrudged it; he had his own path. But the younger—he was meant to stay near. I longed to cradle grandchildren, to share their evenings, to be wanted.
Yet life finds ways to wound us deepest.
A fortnight after the wedding, I paid them a visit—bearing fruit, home-cooked meals, nothing more than a mother’s wish to see them settled. I expected no fanfare, only warmth. But—
My daughter-in-law met me with the cold precision of a solicitor. She steered me to the kitchen, set down a cup of tea, and fixed me with a look.
“Margaret,” she said, “let us be clear. It’s best we meet only on holidays. Fewer misunderstandings, fewer quarrels. It will strengthen us all.”
I nearly dropped the cup.
“Pardon?” I managed.
“It’s for the best. You understand, don’t you?”
I sat there, stunned. This girl—for whom I’d bought a roof, whose wedding I’d paid for—now dictated when I was permitted to enter their lives. Before the wedding, she had been all sweetness, as though frightened I might glimpse her true face. Now, with all secured, the mask had fallen.
But the deepest cut was my son’s silence. Not a word in my defense. No embrace, no reassurance—only quiet complicity.
I left with trembling hands, swallowed tears in the bus all the way home. A lifetime of toil, all for them—not for myself. And in my twilight years, all I asked was to be near. To be a grandmother. To be needed.
My eldest understood at once. “Mum,” he said, “you deserve better. I’m ashamed of my brother, of her. You’re not alone.”
And he is there. He offers comfort. Yet still, the ache remains. I asked for no riches, no great sacrifices—only love. Only respect.
Now, I sit in my own flat—one I gave away—and wonder what’s left. Do I force smiles at holiday tables? Or do I let go entirely?
For I no longer feel a mother. Only a stranger in a family I helped to build.
