**Diary Entry**
Let her live alone for a while—maybe then she’ll realise what she’s lost. And don’t you worry, son, your mum won’t let anyone hurt you…
“Well, Valerie, your Alex has left his wife, hasn’t he?”
“He has. What of it? Planning to spread the gossip round the neighbourhood now?” Val snapped, adjusting the shawl over her greying hair.
Alex and Sophie had been together just over three years. Not long ago, they’d had a baby—the granddaughter Val had dreamed of for years. But trouble was, Alex was still a mummy’s boy, just as he’d always been—forever lost in his own head, a little immature, spoiled by her endless coddling and forgiveness.
“What do I need a wife for?” he’d said a couple of years back. “Just another nagging voice. Women—they’re all the same. They latch onto you, demand this and that, never satisfied.”
Val had brushed it off—so long as her boy was near, nothing else mattered. He never had much drive for work, but she didn’t mind. He was home, close by. What did it matter if he was pushing thirty? He was still her own.
Then, one day, like a switch had flipped, he announced, “I’m getting married.” He brought home Sophie—quiet, unassuming, with eyes full of hope but not much confidence. Val approved—she wasn’t wild or flighty, a proper homemaker. She even bought them a little cottage in the next village to celebrate.
At first, things seemed fine. But Alex was no good at married life. He drifted from job to job—mostly security work, then ended up taking odd shifts at the cemetery. “At least no one bosses me around there.”
“I can’t stand it, Mum—she’s always on at me!” he’d moan to Val. “Doesn’t like where I work, says I don’t earn enough, wants a new bathroom.”
“Oh, love,” Val would sigh. “She’s no kind of wife, is she? More like a leech. Come stay with me for a bit. Let her see what it’s like to be on her own.”
From then on, Alex was in and out—back to Sophie, then back to his mum, always returning with fresh complaints. And Sophie—that meek, quiet girl—started snapping, shouting, crying. Until one day, Alex slammed the door and left “for good.”
“She’s done with me!” he crowed, sitting down at Val’s table. “Imagine—said I wasn’t a proper man if I couldn’t provide! Let her feed herself and stuff the baby with nappies. Not my problem anymore.”
“That’s right, love. Who does she think she is? Go on, have some stew—made it just how you like.”
He mentioned the baby less and less. “What’s so hard about it? Feed it, put it to bed, take it for walks.” Meanwhile, Sophie went back to her parents. Val had a sharp word waiting:
“Think you can just come crawling back? We gave you a home, a husband, and still nothing’s good enough. Try living like we had to!”
The neighbours whispered—Alex’s daughter growing up without him, while he sat at home, glued to the telly.
“Val, you ought to see your granddaughter,” one neighbour finally said. “Sophie’s on her own with the baby. Her parents help, but you lot act like she’s not even family.”
“Don’t listen to her nonsense!” Val waved it off. “Couldn’t keep a man—now she can stew in it. And the baby… I’ll take her. She’s my blood!”
“You’re not serious? Take a child from her mother? Your Alex hasn’t even got a job—all he’s good for is lazing about!”
“Don’t you dare! He’s just… taking a break. He’ll sort himself out soon.”
But year after year, Alex stayed put. No job, no plans. Just grumbling about “difficult women” and moaning that the world was against him.
“Alex, love, maybe you should visit Sophie—see your little girl?” Val asked once, hesitantly.
“What, Mum? So she can start on me again—’you’re useless, where’s the money’? I’ve had enough. I’m living for me now!”
And that’s when it hit her. Right in the chest.
“Enough, son,” she said one day. “I’m ashamed of what you’ve become. If Sophie files for maintenance, you’re on your own. No more covering for you. You’re not a boy anymore.”
Too late. Far too late. She’d raised a man-child with a grudge against the world. Sophie, meanwhile, remarried—a steady, decent bloke who treated her daughter as his own. And Alex? He was still at home with Val. No family, no purpose, no will to change.
A mother’s love is boundless. But sometimes, it blinds you.
Leave the blindfold on too long, and one day, you’ll wake up next to a stranger—a lazy, grown child who thinks the world owes him everything.
