“It seems he won’t be coming after all,” sighed Margaret, straightening the tablecloth laid out for her son’s expected visit. “My husband and I have nearly accepted it, but my heart still aches.”
“What happened? Didn’t he promise?” asked her neighbor, stopping by for tea.
“He did. Back in February, he said he’d take leave in spring to help us fix the roof—said he’d do it all himself. But then… it fell through again.”
Margaret and Edward’s son, thirty-nine-year-old James, had lived in London for over a decade. He’d left home hoping to build a career, working his way up from a mechanic to a team leader repairing luxury cars. He married a city girl, bought a flat, and renovated it.
“He did everything himself. Yet she just bossed him around—‘That’s not right, this doesn’t go there,’” Margaret recalled. “We didn’t take to each other from the start. She looked at me like I’d come empty-handed.”
Her daughter-in-law was strong-willed. She rarely reached out to her in-laws, allowing James to visit his village just once a year—and strictly on her terms. This time, when the roof needed fixing, James had even bought train tickets… but plans crumbled.
“She got pregnant. And suddenly, it was, ‘That’s it, he’s only hers now,’” Margaret said bitterly. “She’s a nurse—a grown woman, not a child! Yet a fortnight before the trip, she started arguing: ‘You’d leave me alone?!’ Her parents live across the road—they’d be there day and night!”
“But he promised… and booked leave,” the neighbor remarked.
“He wanted to come. Then out of nowhere, he said, ‘Mum, I can’t make it. She’s upset, crying…’” Margaret scoffed. “Afraid if she lets him go, he’ll never return. Her older sister’s husband went back to his village once—then bam! Divorced. Now her mother drills it into all her daughters: ‘Don’t let your husband go anywhere. If he leaves, the family falls apart.’”
“Nonsense. Each story’s different. Doesn’t your son have a say?”
“He tried, but he’s afraid. The pregnancy, her nerves… She cries, shouts—and he gives in. Edward even took the phone to talk to her, but she snapped: ‘Enough! You demand everything from him. If he has leave, it’s straight to the village! Well, he’s got his own family now—and I won’t live in your crumbling house when we’ve a proper flat!’”
“Goodness… What a piece of work.”
“And James? Just said, ‘Dad, I can’t…’ That’s when Edward lost his temper. ‘Fine! We won’t wait anymore! We’ll hire builders—do it without you. You can just hide under your wife’s skirt!’”
Margaret sighed deeply. Edward wasn’t one to speak much, but when he did, it meant years of frustration. James used to visit for holidays. Now, calls were brief, devoid of warmth, always ending with, ‘Can’t,’ ‘Work,’ ‘We’ve plans…’
“What she doesn’t realize,” Margaret whispered, “is that husbands come and go—but parents are irreplaceable. By the time we’re gone, regret will come too late.”
The lesson was clear: love must never be hoarded, or one day, it may simply vanish.