**The Late Awakening of a MotherinLaw**
*When everyone had gone, my motherinlaw finally remembered usonly when it was too late.*
I have been with Louis for more than a decade. We married when I was twentyfive. He isnt an only child; he has two older brothers, both long settled with careers, homes and familiesthe pictureperfect family, as they say. Their mother, Geneviève Lefèvre, is a strongwilled woman who never hides behind anyone. She raised her three sons alone and never bowed her head.
From the moment we became engaged I sensed a special hostility from her toward me. Nothing was said outright, but her silences at meals, the sideways glances, the calculated oversights spoke loudly. I pretended not to notice. Perhaps I hadnt met her expectations, or perhaps she simply refused to let go of her youngest.
Louis was her rock. After the older brothers left home, he stayed to help with groceries, doctor appointments and paperwork. Then I arrived, and everything changed.
I tried every trick to win her over: homecooked stews, invitations to parties, carefully chosen gifts. I even attempted to call her maman, but the word caught in my throat. She kept a cold distance, and I felt like an outsider in that clan.
When our son Gabriel was born, Geneviève showed up more oftena brief respite. Yet when the older siblings brought their own grandchildren, our child became invisible. She spent Christmas at their house, called them weekly, and left us to the margins. The worst part was her habit of forgetting my birthday unless Louis reminded her; no card, no message. I suffered, then accepted that not everyone gets two mothers.
Years passed in a modest but respectable life. Our daughter Élodie arrived. Louis worked, I cared for the kids. My motherinlaw lingered at the edge of our worldfar away, with only occasional visits. We never forced anything.
Last year her husband died. The shock shattered her. Doctors, antidepressants, a diagnosis of senile depression. The older brothers came once, dropped off groceries and then never returned. We visited her Paris apartment more often than they did, though still not frequently.
In midDecember she invited us to New Years Eve. I need you, she whispered. I agreed; you dont abandon a vulnerable person.
I was preparing foiegras and arranging the yule log while she sighed on the sofa. Will François and Mathieu be coming? I asked. She shrugged. Whats the point?
Midnight approached. Suddenly she sat up. Sit down. I have a proposal, she said, voice trembling. I asked my other daughtersinlaw to take me in; they refused. So move in here. In return, Ill bequeath the apartment to you.
The shock hit hard. Years of indifference, and now, because the others abandoned her, she turns to me? As if a threeroom Paris flat could erase two decades of coldness.
Louis promised to think it over. In the car I broke down, not with a scream but with a tight voice:
Listen, Im no saint. I cant live with the woman who treated me like a ghost, who never followed her grandchildren to a school play. This sudden affection is just fear of dying alone. Why should we pay with our lives for what she denied us?
Its my mother he murmured.
A mother comforts, she doesnt discriminate among her children. She excluded us from her family story, now she reaches for the favorites.
He fell silent. I sensed his anguish, but he understood me.
We never returned to RuedeRivoli. Only a few cold calls. She blames us for her disappointment. I think: what right does she have to expect a smile bought with square meters?
No. Dignity isnt for sale. If youre nothing on bright days, dont become a shield against shadows.
It isnt revenge, just the painful lesson of choosing those who truly choose you.
