Chapter 1

Right after my wife gave birth, her mother took off back to their hometown, claiming her back hurt.

My own mother quit her job on the spot and came to handle the postpartum care and help raise the baby.

For a full eighteen years, she never took a single day off.

Then, the moment our son started college, my wife brought her mother straight back from the hometown and threw my mother's luggage out the door.

She said to me:

"Our son's in college now, he doesn't need looking after anymore. Send your mother back home today. My mom's moving in."

"She's getting on in years. It's time she got to enjoy life. From now on you need to pay her more attention, treat her well, be good to her."

I looked at my mother, gray all over from half a lifetime of hard work, then at my mother-in-law, pampered and glowing with health.

I nodded and said, "Fine."

1

Seeing how readily I agreed, a satisfied smile spread across Lesley Pruitt's face.

"I'm so glad you're being sensible about this, honey."

My mother-in-law crossed her arms too, looking smug, and turned to my mother.

"Well, Sophia Dickerson, since Tony Dickerson's agreed, you'd better get moving now."

"And don't bother coming around after this. I like peace and quiet. I don't like having extra people in the house."

At those words, my mother's body went rigid.

She stared blankly at the luggage scattered across the doorway, and her eyes reddened before she could stop them.

I knew how wronged she felt.

After Lesley and I got married, her mother had lived with us the whole time.

Lesley wanted her mother close by, and her mother always said moving in would make it easier to look after our meals and daily needs.

But in three years of marriage, she spent every day either off at her group dance classes at the park or scrolling on her phone. She never once cooked us a single meal.

I put up with all of it.

Then came the day Lesley gave birth. Her mother only stopped by the hospital long enough to glance at the baby, then propped a hand on her back and sighed at me.

"Tony, my back's hurting so bad I can't take it. If I stay here I'll just be a burden to you two. I'm going to head home first and rest up."

And with that, one hand on her back, she walked out of the hospital without a backward glance.

I stood there watching her go, and it took me a long time to shake it off.

Because after Lesley and I married, her mother had been in my ear every single day pushing us to have a child, telling us to hurry up and have one while we were young.

My career was at a critical point back then, all overtime, run ragged every day. I worried a child would split my focus, so I kept hesitating.

It was her mother who thumped her own chest and swore to me:

"Tony, you just focus on your work. The baby's not your concern. I'm in great health, I'll handle all the childcare. You two just go on living your lives."

I believed her.

And then the baby was barely born before she took off back home, using her back as the excuse.

This time, it lasted eighteen years.

A full eighteen years, and she vanished like she'd been wiped off the face of the earth, never came to help with the baby for a single day.

It was my mother who deliberately quit her job and rushed over overnight to take care of Lesley and the baby.

In those early days after the birth, Lesley was so weak she couldn't even get out of bed.

It was my mother who tended to her day and night, wiped her down, cooked broth to build her strength back up.

When the baby cried at night, it was my mother getting up again and again to hold him, soothe him, feed him, change him. For three straight years, she never slept a full night.

For all this, Lesley never once said thank you. Instead she wired her mother eight thousand a month in living expenses like clockwork, and even hired her a maid on top of it.

She said, "My mom's back is bad. Living alone in the hometown isn't easy for her."

But I could plainly see her mother posting her life all over the short-video platforms every day.

Back in the hometown she was living it up nonstop, either at her group dance classes or off traveling and hiking the mountains.

She lived softer than anyone, and she was tougher and healthier than a young man like me.

My mother, meanwhile, worked herself to the bone every day keeping house and raising the child, until she'd turned herself into a little old woman, hair gone white, hands covered in calluses.

And in the end, all it got her was being treated as excess baggage and swept out the door.

Nobody could accept that.

Seeing my mother still hadn't moved, my mother-in-law frowned, a trace of displeasure in her face.

"Sophia, my grandson's in college already, he doesn't need looking after. You staying on here does nothing but take up space."

"For the sake of us being in-laws, I've said nothing all this time about you hogging my spot, living in such a nice house for eighteen years."

"But you can't just keep sponging off us here forever, can you?"