“Is your daughter screaming again?!” spat the woman who calls herself a grandmother.
“Why is your child making such a dreadful racket?!” My mother-in-law hissed with such contempt, as if I’d dragged a stranger’s child into the house rather than her own granddaughter.
“She’s unwell—she’s got a fever,” I tried to explain, my voice thin with exhaustion and frayed nerves.
“I don’t care! She needs to stop! My head is pounding!” she snapped without so much as glancing toward the nursery, where my little girl lay whimpering on crumpled sheets, her skin burning.
I darted around the flat as if trapped in a cage. My daughter moaned, her tiny body wracked with aches. I scoured the cupboards for Calpol, checked her water bottle out of habit, yanked the curtains shut to block the harsh sunlight. Finally, I switched on the star projector—the only thing that ever soothed her. The flickering constellations on the ceiling made her pause, just for a second, before the cries started again. In that brief lull, I rushed to the kitchen—heating up porridge, brewing chamomile tea, checking her nappy. All at once. All alone.
And my mother-in-law? She lounged in the armchair like a self-proclaimed queen, draped in a faux snakeskin dress, groaning about her “splitting headache” and demanding silence. She accused me of being incapable of quieting “that wretched child.”
“Listen here,” she sneered as I hurried past again, “you’ll be out of this house soon. You and that snivelling brat of yours. My son could’ve married a hundred girls better than you. He didn’t sign up for this madhouse! He’ll tire of this family quickly—mark my words.”
And you know what? *Sod off.* I wanted to scream it. But I didn’t. I clenched my jaw and rushed back to my daughter, who was crying again—from the fever, the pain, the fact that no one could hold her but me. I tucked the blanket around her, kissed her burning forehead, held her close.
Then back to the kitchen. Back through her venom.
“Good mothers don’t raise shouters.”
“That child is just spoiled rotten.”
“Women like you are a disgrace.”
“My son deserves a proper wife, not this mess.”
And where was my husband? Always busy. Always oblivious. “Ignore her,” he’d say. “She’s just getting old.” As if my exhaustion, my trembling hands, my daughter’s illness—as if any of it mattered to him.
I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I don’t know how much longer I can last in this house where my child and I are resented. But I do know this—I won’t let anyone humiliate my little girl. I’m ready to leave. Ready to fight. I’m not just a wife, not just a daughter-in-law. I’m a mother. And that means I’m stronger than they think.
