How can I make my husband’s daughter go live with her grandmother? I can’t accept his child.
I married a man who has a daughter from his first marriage. Her mother abandoned the girl and fled abroad with a new man, leaving the child with her father. Now I live in torment, forced to share our little home in the quiet town of Wellingborough with a stranger’s child. I dreamed of a happy family, but instead, I got a spoiled, ill-mannered girl who makes my life wretched. Now I’m with child, and I need her gone—off to her grandmother’s. But how do I make her leave of her own will?
When Arthur and I first courted, his daughter Emily mostly stayed with her grandmother. I saw her seldom and thought I could bear her as part of his past. But after the wedding, everything changed. His mother declared she was too old to manage the girl and sent Emily to live with us. I tried to reach her, but every effort shattered against her cold indifference and defiance. She ignores me as if I were nothing. Worse—she orders everyone about, leaves her things strewn everywhere, and runs to her father or grandmother with complaints at every turn.
Every day, my mother-in-law lectures me: “Be patient, Evelyn. You must find a way!” Arthur, too, pleads for understanding, but why must I indulge a twelve-year-old who speaks to me so rudely? She’s no kin of mine, and I refuse to play nursemaid. My own child will be here soon, and I won’t endure her tantrums. Why does no one discipline her? Arthur and his mother spoil her rotten, blind to her laziness and sharp tongue. If this goes on, she’ll grow into a selfish, unbearable woman.
Emily is a slovenly, idle thing. Plates left dirty, clothes scattered—always for me to tidy. Her sly, spiteful ways drive me to distraction. Arthur works late, and often we’re left alone. She’s no babe, yet neither he nor his mother will trust her to stay by herself. Must I sacrifice all my time and nerves? I long to work, to rest, to live my own life!
His mother visits for an hour, cooing over Emily, then scolds me. “Why don’t you play with her? Why don’t you guide her?” She truly believes I must shoulder all care for Arthur’s child. Their expectations choke me. Had they not demanded the impossible, perhaps I might have borne it. But now I regret binding myself to a man with baggage. Emily will never be mine, and I refuse to pretend.
The babe in my womb complicates it all. I don’t wish to leave Arthur—I love him, and he tries to mend our quarrels. But I cannot share a roof with Emily any longer. Her mother rings once a year, sends cheap trinkets, but will not take her. Emily pines for her, and I see the hurt in her eyes. Yet her pain doesn’t soften her toward me—instead, she vents all her bitterness on me, snapping and sneering.
I dream of sending Emily to her grandmother’s. That would be the perfect remedy. His mother lives nearby, dotes on the girl, and could take her in. But how to arrange it? Emily clings to her father, and he won’t send her away. I’ve tried coaxing her, suggesting she spend more time at her grandmother’s, but she only scoffs. Perhaps if I’m firmer, she’ll beg to leave. Or should I press Arthur to persuade his mother? I don’t know the way, but I feel that one more straw will break me.
This child within me makes it all the harder. I crave peace—to ready myself for my own babe, not waste my strength on another’s. Emily belongs to Arthur’s past, but why must I suffer for it? How do I make her leave without tearing us apart? I’m at my wit’s end. I need an answer.
