Margaret Thompson stood on the doorstep of her own flat with two suitcases in her hands, unable to believe what was happening. Behind her, the door slammed shut, the lock clicking loudly. Her daughter Angela had locked her out—every bolt fastened.
“Mum, I mean it!” Angela shouted from inside. “You’re not coming back until you sort yourself out!”
Margaret leaned against the hallway wall, legs trembling, head spinning. Seventy-two years on this earth, and she’d never felt so humiliated.
“Angela, love, open the door, please,” she pleaded, fighting back tears. “Let’s talk properly.”
“No!” her daughter snapped. “I’m sick of arguing with you. How much longer do I have to put up with your nonsense?”
Nonsense. Margaret let out a bitter laugh. That’s what Angela called her trying to protect her grandson Jack from his stepfather’s temper.
It had started that morning, when she woke to the sound of a child crying. Jack was only eight, but he wept in a way that sounded hopeless, almost adult. Margaret got up from the sofa—she’d been sleeping in the living room ever since giving her bedroom to Angela and her new husband, David—and listened.
“I told you to put your toys away!” David roared. “How many times do I have to say it?”
“I already did,” Jack sniffled.
“Liar! There’s a car under the bed!”
The sound of a slap. Then a child’s scream. Margaret couldn’t take it—she burst into the room.
“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded, seeing Jack’s reddened cheek. “He’s just a boy!”
“Stay out of this, Margaret,” David said coldly, buttoning his shirt. “This isn’t your concern.”
“Not my concern? He’s my grandson!”
“And my stepson. I have every right to discipline him.”
Angela stood by the window, her back turned to her son. Margaret went to Jack and hugged him.
“Jack, sweetheart, it’s alright. Gran’s here.”
“Mum, don’t coddle him,” Angela cut in. “David’s right—he’s been getting away with too much.”
“Too much?” Margaret couldn’t believe her ears. “He gets top marks, helps around the house, never makes a fuss!”
“He’s always in the way,” David muttered. “Dropping things, making noise, blaring the telly.”
“He’s a child! They’re not meant to sit like statues!”
“They can if they’re raised properly,” David said flatly before walking out.
Margaret walked Jack to school, her mind racing. Everything had changed since David moved in. Angela had met him six months ago at work—he was her department head, forty-five, divorced, no kids. At first, it seemed perfect—flowers, dinners, gifts. Angela had been glowing.
“Mum, I’ve finally met a real man,” she’d said. “David is so strong, so decisive. He knows what he wants.”
Margaret had been happy for her. After her divorce from Jack’s father, Angela had struggled to find someone reliable. Plenty of men had come and gone—some drank, some couldn’t hold a job, some didn’t know how to be around children.
At first, David seemed different. Well-paid, polite, even played football with Jack in the garden.
But when he moved in, everything changed. First, he demanded Margaret’s bedroom.
“Mum, come on,” Angela had begged. “We’re adults—we need our own space.”
Margaret had agreed, though the sofa was unbearable. Her back ached; she barely slept.
Then came David’s rules. Only his TV channels. Only his food in the fridge. No leniency for Jack.
“You’re turning him soft,” he’d told Angela. “He needs to toughen up.”
Angela nodded along. Margaret hardly recognised her daughter—once so independent, now hanging on David’s every word.
After school, Margaret stopped by the shops to get ingredients for dinner. She planned to make Jack’s favourite—shepherd’s pie. But when she got home, David was already there.
“Margaret,” he said, eyeing her shopping bags, “Angela and I need to talk to you.”
They sat at the kitchen table. Angela twisted a napkin in her hands; David studied Margaret like an interrogator.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“Your interference with Jack’s upbringing is causing problems,” David began. “You undermine me, spoil him.”
“I’m protecting him from unfair treatment.”
“What unfair treatment?” Angela interrupted. “David’s making a man out of him.”
“Real men don’t hit children,” Margaret said firmly.
“I don’t hit him!” David snapped. “A tap now and then, like any father would.”
“You’re not his father.”
“Oh?” David’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s his real dad, then? Paying child support? Calling to check in?”
Margaret stayed quiet. Her ex-son-in-law had vanished after the divorce—no calls, no money, as if Jack didn’t exist.
“Exactly,” David said. “Meanwhile, I’m here, raising him, spending my money. I have the right to expect obedience.”
“Mum,” Angela said quietly, “David’s right. You baby Jack. He needs to learn discipline.”
“He’s eight!”
“So? Eight is old enough to know rules.”
Margaret stared at her daughter. This tense, hollow-eyed woman bore no resemblance to the lively, devoted mother Angela had been for four years.
“Angela, what’s happened to you?” she whispered. “You’d never let anyone hurt Jack before.”
“No one’s hurting him!” Angela shot back. “David’s teaching him! You’re the one making trouble!”
“Right,” David sighed. “Let’s be clear. Margaret, Angela and I want our own space—to build a family without interference.”
Margaret’s blood ran cold.
“You’re… kicking me out?”
“Yes,” Angela said, avoiding her eyes. “You’ll manage. Your pension’s enough for a room somewhere.”
“Angela! This is my flat! I worked forty years for this!”
“You signed it over to me,” Angela reminded her. “When I first got married, remember?”
Margaret remembered. She’d been fifty-two then—young enough, she thought, to work and save. But the factory closed. No one hired women her age. Her pension barely covered groceries, let alone rent.
“But I’m still registered here,” she said weakly.
“You’ll deregister,” David said coolly. “Angela owns it—she decides who stays.”
“I’m her mother! I raised her, gave her everything!”
“And I’m grateful,” Angela said coldly. “But I have my own family now.”
“What about me?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
That evening, Margaret tried talking to Jack as he did his homework.
“Jack, sweetheart… do you want Gran to leave?”
His teary eyes met hers. “No! Don’t go, please!”
“Tell your mum that.”
“I did. She said David doesn’t like too many people around.”
Margaret held him tight. Her sweet boy, left alone with that man.
“If David ever hurts you, call me straight away, alright?”
“You’ll come?”
“Every time.”
Next morning, it all came to a head. Over breakfast, David and Angela brought it up again.
“Mum, it’s decided,” Angela said. “You’re out by the weekend.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“Not our problem.”
“Angela, what’s got into you? You were always so kind—”
“Enough whinging,” David cut in. “Grown woman acting like a child.”
“I’m not whinging! I just don’t understand why I’m being thrown out of my own home!”
“For meddling!” David raised his voice. “For poisoning my wife against me!”
“Poisoning? How?”
“A wife obeys her husband—not her mother! I’m the head of this family!”
Margaret looked at Angela—head bowed, silent.
“Angela, say something! You’d really toss your own mother out for this… this man?”
“Don’t talk about David like that,” Angela said quietly. “He’s my husband.”
“You’re not even married!”
“We will be,” David said smoothly. “But trust? Once broken, that’s harder to fix.”
All day, Margaret called friends, desperate for help. No one could take her in—everyone had their own struggles. By evening, she knew the truth: she’d have to rent a tiny bedsit. Her £800 pension wouldn’t stretch further.
Next morning, she packed. Forty years of life fit into two suitcases. Everything else—furniture, books, photos—stayed behind.
Angela left for work without a word. Jack clung to her, sobbing.
“Don’t go! I’ll be good, I promise!”
“Sweetheart, this isn’t your fault,” Margaret whispered, stroShe hugged Jack one last time, wiped his tears, and walked away, determined to find a way back to him no matter what.
