The Gap in Our Words

I woke up with a start to the loud sounds of my mother-in-law cleaning. It hit me like a lightning bolt—I had somehow gone back in time.

I grabbed my phone and saw it was the day I got fired over a contract mix-up. It was exactly 5:00 am.

There she was, stepping out of my study—a place I had told her a million times not to enter, especially not to mess with my papers.

She never listened, always doing whatever she wanted without thinking about anyone else.

In my previous life, she sneaked into my study and swapped an important page from a contract I needed with one from a different contract.

I had checked it so many times before, so that morning, I just briefly glanced over it as I was in a hurry.

However, during the signing, the client caught the mistake. They called me a liar right there and then and pulled the plug on our deal. I lost a million-dollar order, and my company blamed me and let me go.

I was so mad that I confronted my mother-in-law. She just cried and said, "I woke up early to clean the study for you. I didn't mean to do it! I'm old and useless, and nobody wants me around. What's the point of living?"

When she started talking like that, my husband, Edwin Williams, would turn into the world's most devoted son.

"Janice, what are you saying? My mom took care of you after you had the baby. She's been cooking and cleaning non-stop, and this is how you treat her? She's old, and she just made a little mistake. Why are you so hard on her? Do you think it's easy for her to take care of us?"

That "little mistake" wrecked my career, and now, my husband was trying to make me feel guilty about it!

I did not even take a break during my maternity leave. I worked so hard to keep my clients happy, and my mother-in-law ruined everything with a careless mistake!

Then, there was my daughter, Teresa.

After I lost my job, Edwin and his mom told me I had to find work fast because his meager paycheck could not cover our bills.

I did not want our little Teresa to have a hard life, so I took a sales job that kept me out from dawn till dusk.

Edwin and his mom refused to hire a nanny, and my own mom had injured her ankle and could not help. However, my mother-in-law promised she would take good care of Teresa, so I let her babysit during the day.

Each morning, I froze milk and left sticky notes with feeding times and tips.

Teresa was such an easy baby, so I thought feedings and diaper changes would be simple enough. Even if my mother-in-law got things mixed up sometimes, she would not mess up with a baby involved, right?

However, I did not know until Teresa ended up in the hospital that my mother-in-law had been dumping my milk and giving Teresa expired formula meant for old folks.

My sister-in-law had bought it for her, but she did not like it and did not want to waste it, so she gave it to a six-month-old baby even though it was out of date.