“You must care for my mother! There’s no one else!” my husband bellowed.
My name is Emily. My husband, Thomas, had placed me before an unbearable choice: to tend to his mother, struck down by a stroke. His words weighed upon me like a millstone, and now I stood at a crossroads, torn between duty, fairness, and my own strength. My life seemed poised to crumble beneath the burden.
Thomas had a sister, Margaret, but her days were a whirlwind. Divorced, raising a daughter alone, working from dawn till dusk. Thomas himself returned home long past midnight, weary from shifts at the factory in our small Midlands town. And I… I was a housewife. To them, that made me the only one fit to shoulder the care of his ailing mother.
I pleaded with Thomas to consider a care home, or at least patient rehabilitation. But he and Margaret met my words with scorn. “You must look after Mum!” Thomas shouted, his voice trembling with anger. “You don’t even work! I’ve carried this family for years—can’t you do this one thing?” His words stung like a slap. He never saw the strength I poured into our home, our children, our life together.
It wasn’t just exhaustion. My mother-in-law, Margaret Holloway, was a sturdy woman, nearly immovable. Tending to her alone—changing her sheets, turning her, helping her wash—filled me with dread. We couldn’t afford a nurse: our son, William, was finishing school, and every spare pound went to tutors and courses so he might enter a good university. Our daughter, Charlotte, needed me too—at that age when a mother’s presence meant everything.
In three days, Margaret would be discharged from hospital, and Thomas had decided: she would live with us. I was terrified. Our house was already cramped, yet he planned to move Charlotte to a cot in the kitchen to free her room. When I objected, he waved me off. “It’s settled, Emily. Mum is coming here.”
I’d married Thomas at twenty. Work was never expected of me—I gave myself to home and children. My choice, though not an easy one. When William and Charlotte were small, I spun like a top. My own mother still worked then, and my mother-in-law… she had no interest in helping. “I’m a grandmother, not a nursemaid,” she’d say, visiting once a week with a bag of sweets. An hour’s play, a smile, then home. Watching them properly? Not her duty. I managed alone, balancing nappies, supper, and tears.
Yet when Margaret divorced, her mother rushed to her aid. She minded her granddaughter, cooked, comforted. Now, when she needed care herself, Margaret shrugged. “I’ve a child and a job, Emily. I can’t manage.” Instead of help, she offered fifty pounds a month—for nappies, medicine, “whatever’s needed.” A laughable sum, hardly covering a fraction, let alone my fraying nerves.
Margaret and I had never been close. No quarrels, yet no warmth either. She kept her distance, and I was content with that. Now her illness invaded my home like an unwelcome guest, and I felt myself drowning. To care for her meant surrendering my life, my time with the children, myself. I saw Thomas’s accusing stare, Margaret’s averted gaze, and knew—they’d decided for me.
But where was the justice? Why must I bear this cross when Margaret had children of her own? Why were my years of labour worth so little? I stood at the edge of an abyss, my heart a tempest. To refuse would shatter my family. To agree would erase me. And I did not know if I had the strength to choose.