A Mother’s Dilemma
The house had never sounded so quiet.
She stood beneath the warm spray of the shower, her forehead resting against the tiled wall, allowing the water to run over her face. It was easier this way. No one could tell the difference between tears and shower water.
Not that there was anyone here to notice.
She had the house to herself now.
Her daughter had gone.
No.
She corrected herself almost immediately.
Her daughter hadn't gone.
She had simply gone somewhere else.
That was what everyone kept saying.
She's still your daughter.
As though a mother could be talked out of the peculiar ache that appeared when her child walked out of the front door wearing a wedding dress and walked back into the world as somebody's wife.
She turned off the shower and reached for a towel.
Later, standing in front of the bedroom mirror, she examined her reflection with the detached curiosity of someone looking at a stranger.
Five feet six.
Slim.
Shoulder-length hair, now damp and curling slightly at the ends. Hazel-grey eyes that looked considerably older than they had that morning. Her nose had always been rather chiselled, the nostrils narrow, and her lips naturally full and pouty.
Tonight she looked exhausted.
She pulled on a pair of black slack trousers and a short, sleeveless jersey top. Then she sat at her dressing table, lifted sections of her hair and wound them into rollers, pinning them on top of her head.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror again.
She looked ridiculous.
A laugh escaped her.
It was only a tiny one, but it was enough.
Then her eyes fell upon the tissue box.
She stared at it.
There couldn't have been much left.
She had cried through nearly the entire thing.
And suddenly the question she had been trying not to ask herself returned.
What exactly am I crying for?
Her daughter?
Yes.
Without question.
But was that all?
She lowered her eyes.
There was something else.
Something she didn't quite want to admit.
Relief.
The word landed heavily in her mind.
Relief.
She almost felt ashamed of it.
What sort of mother felt relieved when her daughter got married?
She had spent her entire life protecting this child.
From the moment she was born, everything had changed.
There had been no grand plan. No perfect little family waiting neatly in the wings.
There had been work.
Bills.
School runs.
Illnesses.
Long days.
Longer nights.
And the endless calculations mothers made without anyone ever seeing them.
Can I afford this?
Will she be all right?
Have I done enough?
What if something happens?
In the beginning, there had been occasional help. But she had worked full-time, and eventually she had left the family she had worked for as an au pair and nanny.
She had moved on.
And somehow, her little girl had moved on with her.
They had built a life together.
Just the two of them.
Mother and daughter.
A partnership neither of them had chosen, but one they had learned to live inside.
And now...
Now there was somebody else.
A man.
Her daughter's husband.
She looked towards the empty doorway.
There was something almost comforting about knowing there was another person in the world who would now hear her daughter's footsteps in the night.
Another person who would know when she was unhappy.
Another person who would make her tea when she was ill.
Another person who would have to listen to her complain about things she had probably already complained about three times before.
The thought made her smile.
Her daughter had found a man who seemed genuinely loving.
And, more importantly, he didn't appear to be self-centred.
Well, she thought, perhaps some of my nagging did actually work.
She had always taught her daughter to look after herself.
But she had also taught her something else.
To look after the people she loved.
Not to become so wrapped up in her own happiness that she forgot somebody else's heart.
Perhaps that lesson had found its way into her marriage.
She hoped so.
At the wedding, she had heard the women whispering.
Quiet little conversations behind hands and glasses.
She knew what they thought.
That the mother was losing her daughter.
That after raising her alone, this man had now come along and taken her away.
But they were wrong.
Completely wrong.
Because a mother didn't stop worrying when her daughter married.
The worry simply changed shape.
Before, she had worried about scraped knees, fevers, school, friendships and whether her daughter had remembered her coat.
Now she would worry about a husband.
About money.
About arguments.
About illness.
About children.
About the ordinary cruelties and unexpected kindnesses that life could bring.
And somewhere beneath all of it was the one question she would probably carry for the rest of her life.
Will he take care of her?
She had seen the answer in her daughter's face that day.
Or at least, she had seen the beginning of one.
There had been something there.
A softness.
A happiness that didn't need announcing.
The kind that appeared around the eyes before it reached the mouth.
She had watched her daughter look at the man beside her and had known.
For now...
She was safe.
For now, she was loved.
And for now, that would have to be enough.
Her phone had rung as they were leaving for their honeymoon.
She remembered the sound of her daughter's voice.
Excited.
Breathless.
Happy.
Then there had been laughter.
Her daughter had squealed at something her new husband had whispered to her, and for one brief moment the mother had forgotten to worry.
She had simply smiled.
A real smile.
The sort that arrived before you had time to stop it.
She had listened until the call ended.
Then she had stood there holding the phone.
She'll be all right, she had whispered.
Although she knew better than to make promises on behalf of life.
Time would tell.
The phone rang again.
She glanced at the screen.
Her daughter's new mother-in-law.
For a moment she wondered whether something had happened.
But the voice at the other end was warm.
She wanted to come over.
Tonight.
There was something they needed to discuss.
The children's future.
The mother sat down slowly on the edge of the bed.
The children's future.
She almost laughed.
How quickly life moved.
Only yesterday she had been worrying about one child.
Now apparently there were children to think about.
Plans.
Families.
Possibilities.
And suddenly, unexpectedly, she felt something loosen inside her.
For years she had carried the responsibility of her daughter's future almost entirely on her own.
Perhaps she didn't have to anymore.
Perhaps this was what marriage really gave a family.
Not simply a husband for a daughter.
Not simply a wife for a son.
But another set of hands.
Another mother.
Another person to ask, What do you think?
She looked once more at herself in the mirror.
The rollers were still sitting absurdly on top of her head.
Her eyes were swollen.
Her face was tired.
She smiled.
Then she whispered to her reflection,
“Well... perhaps I'm allowed to have a life now.”
And for the first time that night, she didn't feel guilty about it.