Youre to blame for not having money: nobody forced you to marry or have children, my mother snapped when I asked her for help.
You got yourself into this because you had no money. No one obliged you to get married and have kids. Those were the words she hurled at me as I pleaded for assistance.
At twenty I married Rui. We rented a tiny onebedroom flat on the outskirts of Setúbal. Both of us workedhe in construction, me in a pharmacy. We lived on a shoestring budget, but it was enough. We dreamed of saving enough for a house of our own, and at the time it felt like anything was possible.
Then Tiago was born, followed two years later by Pedro. I went on maternity leave while Rui began pulling extra shifts. Still, the money never seemed to stretch. Every cent went to diapers, formula, doctors, bills and, of course, the rent, which took half of his earnings.
I would look at our boys and wake up each morning with the same dread: what if Rui fell ill? What if we lost our jobs? What would we do then?
My mother lived alone in a twobedroom flat, as did my grandmother, both in Lisbon, both with empty living rooms. I wasnt asking for a palace, I thoughtjust a temporary nook while the kids were still young, while we got back on our feet.
I suggested to my mother that she move in with my grandmother: the two of them sharing an apartment, and we taking the other. We didnt need much spacejust Rui, me and the two children. She wouldnt even hear me.
Live with my mother? she scoffed. Are you crazy? Do you think my life is over? Im still young. Living with an old woman would drive me mad. Live wherever you want, but dont bother me.
I swallowed her contempt in silence. Then I called my father. He has been living with his new wife for years in a spacious fourroom apartment, and I hoped he might take my grandmother thereafter all, shes his mother. He refused as well, saying his children from the second marriage had already filled the house to the walls.
Desperate, I called my mother again, crying, begging her to let us stay even for a short while. Thats when she spat in my face:
The fault is yours for not having money. No one told you to marry. No one asked you to have children. Did you want to be an adult? Now face the consequences. Solve your problems on your own.
It hit me like a shock. I sat at the kitchen table, phone in hand, feeling the world collapse. It came from my mother, the woman I should have been able to rely on. I hadnt asked for muchjust a place, a little compassion.
The next day Rui and I argued over what to do. The only person who answered our plea was his mother, Dona Anabela. She lives in a village near Alcácer do Sal, in a house with a yard. She has a spare bedroom and said she would welcome us gladly, even offering to look after the kids while we work.
But Im scared. It isnt the city; its the countryside. Theres no health centre, no decent school, not even transport. I fear that if we go there well never leave, that the children will grow up without opportunities, without a future, that Ill end up giving up and closing myself off from life.
Still, we have no other option. My mother turned her back on me. My grandmother is too old to take us in. My father doesnt consider us family. Now I stand at a crossroads: head into nowhere or accept help that, though distant, is genuine.
Do you know what hurts most? It isnt poverty. It isnt hardship. Its realizing that the people who share our blood are the farthest away when we need them most. And my greatest fear isnt for myselfits for my children, that they will never feel the sting of being unwanted by their own grandmother.
