The Versatile Lives of my Mother-in-law

by Isabel B.L


The best things my mother-in law has ever given me are six polyester mesh bags. Lace, silk, hooks and eyes are offered protection against tough denim, thick cottons and metal buttons. She also gives practical washing machine advice. Always do the zippers up to lengthen the lifespan of clothing. Specks of dust seize ostrich feathers. At the first spot of mildew, she pulls the trigger of her transparent plastic dispenser and shoots the culprit with a heavy duty homemade solution of bleach. Fifty years ago, she let her husband make the bed. But it was his last time.

Angela, my mother-in-law, inserts herself between the pages of a book I’m reading and becomes a stern bookmark. Don’t scribble in books. Is my boy’s dinner ready? Where are my grandchildren?

Angela perches upon my shoulders at a job interview whispering it’s too soon to return to work.

Angela helps me whisk butter and sugar, and still manages to give instructions as I beat her wire loops in a creamy, sunny whirlpool. When are you going to return to work? You don’t expect my son to be the breadwinner of this family, do you? I splatter batter across the kitchen bench and exhale deeply when the cake is finally in the oven. I cross my legs and thumb through a magazine, but my mind can’t focus on the latest trends in house and garden. I wonder. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I can burn every hurtful remark ever said to me. I follow the burnt cake fumes as they exit through my bay window.

Angela used to be tender until her boy, her sister, her friends smiled more than she did. A porcelain vase cracked when she carried the boy in her womb. Her body raged across the house like an out of control bushfire caused by arsonists. The arson, her husband’s first sweetheart. They don’t make glue like they used to. She sat down with her husband and they glued the sharp fragments together while he promised never to see the arsonist again. But even when pieces make a whole again, if one zooms in, a squiggly line appears. A wound from the past is still there reminding the owner, promises can be broken.

Angela enters the fibres of the tender Sirloin I was preparing for her boy. I sprinkle pepper and parsley over its reddish flesh. She crouches within a muscle cell. How does it feel touching the flesh of a slaughtered animal? It wasn’t the first time she mocked my vegetarianism. So, I grabbed the spiked hammer and throbbed the life out of her boy’s dinner. Her boy emits a hearty burp, wraps his arm around my apron and hits my cheeks with a sloppy kiss.

Angela’s eyes become greener, but I understand. The grass can sometimes be greener on the other side. There is a hurt woman within that tough exterior. Forgiveness and empathy arrive promptly when I think of flames, lovers and fragile walls of porcelain.


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Isabelle B.L is a writer and teacher based in France. Her work can be found in the Best Microfiction 2022 anthology, Flash Fiction Magazine, Visual Verse, Cult Magazine and elsewhere.