The air in the kitchen was thick with the scent of fried cutlets when the doorbell rang. Vera, still wearing her apron, opened the door to find a young courier standing there.
“Good afternoon! Your parcel,” he announced cheerfully.
“What parcel? I didn’t order anything,” Vera replied, puzzled.
“Flat ten?” he confirmed.
“Yes.”
“Then it’s the right address.”
With hesitant fingers, she signed the form and accepted the large box. The moment she opened it, her blood ran cold. Inside lay a funeral wreath—not a festive decoration, but a real one, complete with a black ribbon bearing her name.
No sender was listed. Just a silent message: “Rest in peace, Vera.”
“Who could hate me enough to send a wreath to my home?” she whispered later, her voice trembling.
Her husband, Andrew, dismissed her fears.
“Why would you assume it’s Mum? She adores you!”
“Adores me? She’s never even said my name without scorn!” Vera shot back, her heart aching.
And it was true. Her mother-in-law had despised everything about her—her petite stature, her job as a receptionist, her modest dresses. Vera had done her best, sewing her own clothes, always polite, yet met only with sneers and barbs.
“Look at this sorry creature,” Margaret would mutter to her son. “Can’t even string two words together!”
Andrew stayed silent, pretending all was well. But his silence was complicity. His mother grew bolder, her cruelty unchecked—even though they lived in Vera’s flat.
When Vera suggested renting out the flat and finding a place that suited Margaret, the woman rejected every option—with shouting, accusations, and theatrics. Andrew sipped his tea and said nothing.
The wreath failed to break her—so the next move came. Out of nowhere, Andrew “discovered” a pair of men’s underwear in the wardrobe.
“Care to explain this?” he hissed, holding them up.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd? I can’t even reach that shelf without a chair!”
The spare keys were with Margaret. The truth was clear. Yet Andrew stayed silent. Again.
Then came the next “gift”—a bucket of blackberries. Margaret presented them with a smirk.
“Vitamins! For my dear daughter-in-law!”
The next morning, Vera found—not berries—but a half-dead, frostbitten hedgehog inside. Thankfully, Andrew witnessed it. He still refused to believe it deliberate. “Must’ve crawled in there by accident.”
Later, Vera found a doll under the bed, needles stabbed into its chest. The situation felt like a cheap thriller. Still, she endured. Because she loved him. Because she believed the man beside her was her protector, not just a mother’s boy.
The end came by chance. Vera returned early from work and found Andrew with another woman—in her own home.
She threw him out. Swiftly. Mercilessly. Half-dressed, as the saying goes.
He scrambled for excuses—
“She came by herself! I didn’t plan this!”
But Vera no longer believed him. Especially since the “guest” turned out to be the niece of Margaret’s best friend. The truth was painfully clear.
Three years she had tolerated it. Some wouldn’t have lasted three months. But she had hoped.
And Andrew? He ran back to his mother. Where else could he go?
But life had one final twist. Margaret had a new romance. A late-life fling, it seemed, wilder than any youthful passion. And she didn’t stay in her own home—she moved into her beau’s tiny flat. Margaret—homeless, but in love.
The irony of fate?
The lesson? Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes it comes true—just not as you imagined.
