My mom never liked my wife. From the moment I introduced them, there was tension—quiet at first, but always simmering. On my wedding day, she pulled me aside, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Son, she’s not the one for you,” she whispered, voice shaking.
I tried to smile. “One day, you’ll love her too.”
She gave a hesitant nod, but her eyes didn’t believe me.
Two years later, Mom passed away suddenly. I was the one who had to sort through her things—her photos, her journals, the scent of her perfume still clinging to the curtains.
It was when I bent down to clean under her bed that I saw it: a box. Old, dusty, shoved so far back I almost missed it. Curious, I pulled it out.
Inside were my wife’s missing earrings. A silk scarf she thought she’d lost. A photograph she kept on her desk—gone for months. All of it, carefully placed. Hidden.
I sat there in stunned silence. My mother hadn’t just disliked my wife—she had stolen from her. Taken little pieces of her life, one by one, and tucked them beneath her bed like secrets she couldn’t throw away.
I didn’t know what was worse—the betrayal, or the fact that even in death, she was still trying to drive us apart.
And now, I had to decide: Do I tell my wife what I found? Or let my mother’s final grudge die with her?
