Margaret had always loathed her son-in-law. A country bumpkin with manners as thin as the fog over the Cotswolds, he spent his days delivering parcels and his nights submerged in pixelated wars on his console. She’d tried every trick to rid Emily of such a man, but he’d won her over the old-fashioned way—by making her pregnant.
There was nothing to be done. Margaret had devoured enough soaps at the village tearoom to know: if she sent Emily toward termination, the grandchild would vanish like a puff of Earl Grey steam. So the wedding happened, fast and furious. The fool even proposed to whisk Emily into a rented flat—imagine! Margaret packed them both into her period cottage, even the best room, the one with the rattling sash windows.
“Deary, must he spend all day in his silly game?” Margaret muttered, her knitting clicking like a grandfather clock. “You need rest with a babe in arms.”
“Mom, he’s just winding down. He’ll tuck in Julia soon enough,” Emily cooed, her voice syrupy as custard. “Stop picking on him.”
Not that Adam was all bad. Decades had passed since Margaret lost Reg, and she still fumbled with fuses. Adam fixed the Aga, replaced the dripping taps, the lot. But a crooked wardrobe was better than letting Emily live with this interloper, eyeing her three-bedroomed heaven. He’d ruined her dance career too—Margaret’s own ballet dreams, unfulfilled, now splintered in her daughter’s days as a part-time dance instructor at the community center. No, he was a bad egg, this Adam.
And he carried on as if she wasn’t scowling. “Mum! Your meatloaf’s better than the Queen’s guards’ tea,” he’d croon, each night. Margaret burned to tell him her secret: Emily’s portion had tender lamb, his a precious, mysterious stew with marrow and sawdust.
“One day, luv, you’ll see others don’t just slump by their screens,” Margaret snapped one evening, ladling soup—thicker for Emily, thinner for him. “Vikki lives next door, his lad’s in the city. A proper coder!”
“Code’s what I did first,” Adam mumbled, biting into an army-biscuit-thick slice of bread she’d “kindly” placed before him. “Only… college got the better of me.”
“Skipped classes,” Margaret said, her knife sawing through a shallot.
“Night shifts, M! Julia needs us,” he protested.
Emily sighed, and Margaret retreated, her slippers whispering across the Persian rug.
But it was Adam’s kin she feared most. She’d glimpsed them once at the registry office: loud, like gulls, with teeth like chipped spoons. When he mentioned they’d visit—after the harvest moon—Margaret nearly spilled her sherry.
“Let them take a room at the inn,” she hissed.
“No, I said that,” Adam mumbled. “But they’re stopping by for supper.”
Emily fluttered. “Oh, how nice! I’ll bake a Chelsea bun and your shepherd’s pie!”
Margaret groaned. How could she spoil Julia’s milk supply?
Fine.
As she feared, the in-laws arrived with the brusque grace of rain. No gifts for Julia, only grumbling about city prices and admiring her spacious hall.
Over dinner, Adam’s mother sneered at Margaret’s stew. “Don’t overfeed the freeloader. Aint it true he’d eat a hat? We found him in a workhouse, yes! He devoured our meals, starved the others.”
Margaret gawked. Emily’s face turned the color of clotted cream.
“You never said,” she whispered.
“See?” Adam’s mother cackled. “We raised him, gave him a roof, but he ran off to learn! We smacked sense into him—his sisters needed food. Now we bring the next.”
At dusk, Margaret cornered Adam. “So this is it? You sabotaged your studies for these?” She nodded toward the closed door.
“He’s my father,” Adam said. “They gave me a home. Real bread! Though… your mince is smoother.”
“And you wanted no part of college?”
“I did! But my sister’s tuition came first. Now Julia and Emily—”
“Right.” Margaret left him there, his console blinking like a ghost lamp.
By week’s end, his stew matched Emily’s richness. One afternoon, Margaret mentioned a store in Bond Street might take him as a manager. “You sorted Emily’s wi-fi. Can you juggle spreadsheets?”
“Tried, once,” he said.
“Just do it. One condition.”
He swallowed. “Anything.”
“Back to college,” she said.
Emily threw her arms around her mother. “You’re the best, Ma!”
Adam smiled. “Your cooking’s gotten… sharper.”
Margaret shrugged, pretending she’d done nothing. No, not such a bad chap after all.
“Goodbye, worry.”
