I thought it would be great when I moved in with my son Andrew and his wife, Kate. But after two weeks of living with them, it was clear that Kate could barely stand me, and to be honest, I wasn’t impressed with her either. I might have made my leg discomfort sound worse than it was, but it got her to agree to something she didn’t want to do. The house was tight.
I believed everything she did was wrong, from how she raked the leaves to how she cooked supper to how she left dust on the furniture. She was seven months pregnant, but that didn’t give her the right to talk so meanly. She uttered words that stung when I offered to help. I convinced myself that she didn’t care about what I said.
The neighbor who was always grumpy, Mr. Davis, resided on the other side of the fence. I always thought of him as just another miserable person, like Kate. He hardly said hello. But one morning, out of the blue, he asked me to dinner. I almost laughed in his face, but I was too interested.
That night at his house, when I informed him I loved jazz, the awkward silence went away. His eyes lit up, and before I knew it, we were dancing slowly in his living room while he hummed a song. I hadn’t felt this free in years. I couldn’t help but smile as I walked home after he kissed me goodnight.
Peter, who told me to name him Peter, was always around. We cooked, read, laughed, and spent time together in a way that made me feel better than I had since my spouse died. All of a sudden, Kate’s remarks didn’t hurt anymore. I had something that belonged to me.
But Thanksgiving changed everything. I heard Peter and Kate talking in the kitchen.
“Thank you for the record player,” she murmured softly. “This has helped me a lot.”
Do you own a record player? Being thankful? My heart fell.
I burst in and demanded answers. Andrew told me everything about the idea. They told Peter he could have a record player if he went out with me. Kate mentioned that while she was pregnant, she couldn’t stand me being around all the time. They wanted me to lose my focus, and Peter was the answer.
The betrayal stung a much. I was so angry with all of them that I left. Peter came after me and said, “I told Kate I didn’t want her record player!” I wanted you!
I stopped moving.
He said he had consented at first, but he quickly realized he wasn’t acting anymore. “You changed me, Margaret,” he said. “You brought me back to life.” I love you all.
I wanted to stay angry. But the truth was that I loved him too. I cried as I forgiven him after he spoke to me.
“Okay,” I said, smiling even though I was crying. “But we’re keeping that record player so we can listen to our music.”
From then on, Peter and I were always together. We used that record player to play jazz every Thanksgiving while the turkey was cooking. We danced in the kitchen. A plan that started off as a plan became something real. This episode reveals that love may come to you in the most unexpected ways, even if it starts with a lie.
Would you like me to change this so that the “betrayal reveal” hits harder before it turns into the love confession?