**A Family Recipe**
“Youre seriously going to marry someone you met online?” Margaret Evans eyed her future daughter-in-law with the same suspicion shed give a counterfeit banknote. Her heavy, assessing gaze swept over Emmas simple hairstyle and modest dress. “You barely know each other!”
Emma felt goosebumps rise on her skin. They sat in the small but spotless kitchen of the terraced house where James had grown up, the air sweet with vanilla and the faint scent of old wood.
“Mum, come on,” James cut in, slipping an arm around Emmas shoulders. “We didnt meet onlinewe met at a book club. We just chatted online first. Six months! And Emmas brilliant!”
Their story began when Emma, who ran a tiny blog about forgotten classics, posted about *Wuthering Heights*. James, a software engineer with a quiet love for literature, stumbled across it. Their debate spilled into messages, then long phone calls. They discovered they laughed at the same jokes, valued the same thingsquiet moments, honesty, the smell of old pages. Their first meeting by the Brontë statue wasnt a date, just a continuation of the conversation. With her, James felt at ease. She saw in him a shy man with depths she adored.
“Brilliant,” Margaret scoffed, clinking her spoon loudly against her teacup. “Shes from another town, no job here, and who even knows what shes thinking? I raised my son, taught him everything, and now some girl waltzes in”
Emma clenched her teeth but stayed silent.
Shed already realised: to Margaret, she wasnt a person but a threata stranger stealing her son away. Margaret lived by rigid rules, fighting weakness relentlessly. After her husbands death five years ago, shed tightened her world around James.
Every attempt to bond had failed.
When Emma baked an apple pie with cinnamon and nutmeg (“just like my grans”), Margaret nibbled a corner and muttered, “Too sweet. We dont make it like that.”
When Emma offered to help clean, she got a curt, “No need. I know where everything goes. Id spend months finding things otherwise.”
Alone in Jamess room, surrounded by model planes and physics books, he sighed. “Dont take it to heart. Mums just prickly. Like a hedgehog.”
“Im trying,” Emma whispered, watching the identical rooftops outside. “Living in a cold war is exhausting, and we cant move out yet.”
But Emma didnt give up. She believed every fortress had a hidden door.
One Saturday, Margaret dusted an old photo album. Emma asked to join and noticed her lingering on a faded picturea younger, smiling Margaret beside a tall, dark-haired man.
“Whos that?” Emma ventured.
Margaret stiffened, as if caught. “My brother, Andrew,” she sighed, her voice softer now, tired. “We quarrelled. Twenty years ago, maybe more.”
“What happened?”
“Over land. After our parents died. Both too stubborn. He said cruel things, I fired back. And that was it. Same city, different worlds.”
Emma stayed quiet, but an idea formed. James had mentioned his mum grew even more closed-off after that fight.
A week later, chatting with nosy neighbour Mrs. Wilkins, Emma “accidentally” brought up Jamess family.
“Oh, Margaret and Andrew!” Mrs. Wilkins clucked. “Thick as thieves, they were! Andrew lives in the new estate now. Had heart surgery last yearpoor thing, all alone. His kids are in Edinburgh.”
That evening, as James read and Margaret knitted, Emma said carefully, “Margaret, did you know your brother had heart surgery last year?”
The needles stilled. Margaret paled. “What? How do you know?”
“Mrs. Wilkins told me. Said he was all alone, no one to help”
Margaret left without a word. Emma heard her pacing all night.
The next morning, Margaret dressed in her best coat. “Visiting a friend,” she muttered.
She returned at dusk, eyes red but softer somehow. Spotting Emma in the kitchen, she paused. “Thank you,” she choked out before hurrying away.
Later, Emma learned Margaret had taken the bus to Andrews flat, loitered outside, then knocked. Theyd stared at each othertwo greying, stubborn peoplebefore embracing, crying over childhood memories, laughing at how petty their feud seemed now.
“You were right,” Margaret admitted days later over tea. “Sometimes you just need to take the step. Twenty years over a patch of land Silly.”
After that, she treated Emma differentlynot as an intruder, but as family. One evening, sorting groceries, she asked quietly, “Emma, that pie of yours with nutmeg. Could you show me? James mentioned liking it.”
Hands trembling, Emma reached for flour. They worked side by side in the tiny kitchen, Margaret silently assisting without a single critique. Soon, the pie was in the oven.
“You know,” Margaret said, wiping her hands, “Andrew hes glad we made up. Asked who talked sense into me.”
Emma just smiled.
“Well,” James said later, finding them both in the kitchen, “looks like youve cooked something together?”
Emma leaned into him and nodded. She knew: sometimes, to mend fences, you only need to remind people of the love that existed long before you came along. You just have to find the right thread.
