My mother-in-law went insane the day I married into the family.

She couldn't even use a toilet. She'd grab a washbasin and squat over it right there in the room.

The neighbors all said I was the one who drove her mad. I looked at the babbling wreck of a woman and swallowed it down. Fed her every meal. Bathed her. Waited on her hand and foot for thirty years.

Eventually, the years of exhaustion caught up with me. Cancer. My body wasn't what it used to be, and my husband wanted to take over caring for her.

Dolores Abbott threw a fit. Screamed and thrashed until I was the one at her bedside again. Only me. No one else.

In the end, the disease took me. But my soul lingered.

And what I saw made my blood run cold.

The woman who had been "insane" for thirty years stood over my coffin, perfectly lucid, a grin spreading across her face.

"You cursed little wretch," she said. "I finally wore you into the ground."

But heaven has a way of settling scores.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Reborn. Before the cancer. Before the diagnosis. Before the end.

I looked at the raving old woman in front of me and let out a cold laugh.

This time, it's my turn.

——

Dolores Abbott was tearing apart my son's books.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, gleefully ripping pages from his workbooks and folding them into little paper flowers, humming to herself. My son was frantic.

"Grandma! Those are my practice books! I need those! Why would you rip them up?"

Dolores didn't spare him a glance. She kept folding, kept humming, as if he hadn't said a word.

My son sank to the floor, all the fight draining out of him.

"What am I supposed to do now? The SATs are two months away..."

Dolores couldn't have cared less about her own grandson's future. She tore through the books faster, as if she wouldn't be satisfied until every last page was confetti.

He begged her through tears.

"Grandma, please stop!"

Watching her torment her own flesh and blood was more than I could take. I stormed across the room and shoved her to the ground.

"You crazy old hag! Your grandson has the SATs coming up. Are you trying to ruin his life?"

Dolores froze. She stared up at me, eyes wide and blank.

She hadn't expected me to lay a hand on her.

My son grabbed my arm, pulling me back gently. "Mom, don't bother reasoning with Grandma. It's no use. She's out of her mind. She doesn't understand."

I scoffed.

Doesn't understand? She was sharper than anyone in this house. Thirty years of playing crazy, thirty years of making the whole family wait on her. She'd ground me down until the exhaustion ate me alive. When my husband tried to step in, tried to let me rest, she'd thrown such violent fits that no one in the house could eat or sleep until I gave in and crawled back to her side.

I watched my son kneel on the floor, piecing the shredded pages together scrap by scrap.

My heart clenched.

I walked over, pulled him to his feet, and kicked the half-assembled pile apart.

"Stop. You don't need to piece those back together."

He stared at me, confused. "Mom, Grandma destroyed my books! The SATs are coming. How am I supposed to study without books?"

I turned to face him.

"You'll have your books. I'm buying you new ones."

His shoulders sagged. "With what money? We're already paying for Grandma's medication out of pocket. That stuff costs a fortune."

I smiled, walked into Dolores's bedroom, picked up her pillow, and cut it open with a pair of scissors. Over twenty hundred-dollar bills spilled onto the bed.

My son's jaw dropped.

"Grandma had all this money? We had no idea!"

I peeled off a bill and pressed it into his hand.

"Go. Buy whatever books you need."

Dolores's face went white. She scrambled to her feet and charged at me, clawing at my hands. A shriek tore from her throat, and her palm cracked across my cheek. She jabbed a finger at my nose, eyes rolling, spittle flying, every inch the raving lunatic.

"Thief! Linda Murray is a thief!"

My son flinched at the outburst, fear flickering across his face.

"Mom, Grandma's having an episode. Maybe we shouldn't take her money."

"It's her stuff. Of course she'd be upset."

I slapped Dolores right back, and the blow left her stunned.

Then I turned to my son.

"She tore up your books, so you took her money. That's only fair."

I patted his back gently. "Just focus on your studies and get into a good college. Don't worry about anything else."

In my previous life, Tyler had been a senior in high school, right at the point where every ounce of effort counted. The pressure was already crushing enough on its own, but Dolores had nearly driven him to a complete mental breakdown. He spent every waking hour buried in his textbooks, and by nighttime, all he wanted was a few hours of peace.

But every night, around two or three in the morning, he'd start screaming and sobbing. By the time my husband and I rushed to his room, Tyler would throw himself into my arms, clinging to me like his life depended on it.

His face would be chalk-white, his lips trembling uncontrollably.

"Mom... there's something in here! Something in this house!"

My breath caught. I rubbed his back in slow circles.

"Tyler, calm down. Tell me what happened."

He could barely get the words out between sobs, pointing a shaking finger at the window.

I looked outside. Nothing but pitch darkness.

"Mom! I saw a woman with white hair standing outside the window, calling my name."

Seeing him so terrified he could barely hold himself together, I immediately hired a priest to come bless the house.

But even after the blessing, Tyler still ran to my room every night, crying, saying something was watching him.

To help him sleep, I started spending every night by his side.

The strange thing was, once I began staying with him, whatever had been tormenting him stopped appearing.

It wasn't until after I died, when my spirit wandered the earth for seven days, that I learned the truth from Dolores's own mouth. The thing that had been terrorizing my son every night was Dolores herself, dressed up and playing ghost to scare him.

I bent down and scooped up every last bill scattered on the floor, stuffing them into my pocket.

Dolores let out a wail like a wounded animal, crawling toward me, raising her fist to bash my head in.

I caught her arm and shoved her back with one hand.

In my previous life, she'd spent every day beating me under the cover of her so-called madness. The neighbors who saw it would just shake their heads and tell me not to hold it against her. They all said she'd only gone crazy after I married into the family, that something about my fate was toxic to hers, that I was the reason she'd lost her mind.

And I'd actually believed it. I'd believed she was truly, irreversibly insane, and I'd swallowed my grievances for thirty years.

Even after my cancer diagnosis, I still catered to her every need. I bathed her. I fed her by hand.

During baths, she'd deliberately relieve herself right into my hands. During meals, she'd fake a gag reflex and vomit all over me.

I swallowed every last bit of that humiliation in silence.

Not this time. Never again.

I seized Dolores by the wrist and jabbed a finger right in her face.

"You vile, miserable old hag! You've torn this family apart piece by piece, and the fact that I still put a roof over your head is more than you deserve!"

"Push me one more time, and I'll throw you out on the street!"

Dolores clearly hadn't expected me to talk to her like that.

She collapsed to the floor, sobbing dramatically, and turned to my son for sympathy.

"Your mother's cursing at me! She's cursing at me!"

I called Tyler over. "Tyler, ignore your grandmother. She's out of her mind. Don't listen to a word she says."

Tyler had no real affection for this grandmother who caused chaos every single day.

When he was little, he'd nearly died multiple times, and every single incident traced back to her. If it weren't for the thin thread of blood relation, he would have disowned her as his grandmother a long time ago.

He heard me and followed without a word.

To make sure Dolores couldn't pull the same tricks she had in my previous life, robbing my son of sleep and sabotaging his studies, I packed Tyler's bags and prepared to send him to my mother's house.

Then I went straight to the school and had the mailing address for his college acceptance letter changed to my mother's address.

In my previous life, Tyler had fought tooth and nail to get into college. His acceptance letter had just arrived at the house while I was out working in the fields. The mailman saw that only Dolores was home and handed the letter to her.

When I came back from the fields, I found Dolores sitting on the ground, surrounded by scraps of paper. She was stuffing them into her mouth, one piece after another.

I ran over in a panic, grabbed her hands, and dug the paper out of her mouth.

"Mom! What are you eating?!"

Her teeth clamped down on my fingers, biting so hard I thought she'd sever them. Blood streamed from her mouth, all of it mine.

I fought through the pain and pulled every last scrap from between her teeth.

Then I saw the words printed on the paper. The name of the university Tyler had applied to.

My mind went blank.

With trembling hands, I pieced together the remaining scraps.

It was Tyler's college acceptance letter.

When Nathan found out his mother had destroyed our son's chance at a future, he was furious and helpless all at once. He screamed at Dolores, cursed her out, but she just grinned at him like an idiot, letting every word slide right off her.

The neighbors came crowding around, trying to calm Nathan down.

"Nathan, take it easy. This isn't all your mother's fault."

"She told you not to marry that woman, but you went ahead and did it anyway. And the second she moved in, your mother lost her mind."

"That woman ruined your family's luck. You can't blame your mother for that."

Nathan's face turned crimson. He threw every last one of them out.

Tyler broke down completely. He nearly took his own life.

After losing his chance at college, he drifted further and further away from us, his eyes vacant, his mind somewhere we couldn't reach. Nathan and I had to watch Dolores and keep Tyler from doing something irreversible, all at the same time.

To stop all of that from happening again, this time I made up my mind to send Tyler to my mother's house, where she could look after him properly.

The moment Dolores saw me packing Tyler's things, she realized her scheme had failed. She threw herself into a fit, wailing and thrashing.

She locked her arms around Tyler's legs.

"Don't go! Tyler!"

"Don't go!"

She sobbed so violently that the cuffs of his pants were soaked through with her tears.

I pried her fingers loose one by one and walked Tyler to the bus that would take him to my mother's.

Dolores wailed loud enough to draw the whole village. The neighbors gathered around, shaking their heads at me.

"Linda, the poor old woman is out of her mind, but she still knows Tyler's her grandson. She can't bear to let him go. You really have the heart to send him away?"

"That's right, Linda. She's lost her mind, but she still remembers Tyler. Why don't you just let him stay?"

I turned on them, letting my voice crack with frustration, playing the part of a devoted daughter-in-law pushed to her limit.

"What do any of you know? My mother-in-law is sick. She needs me more than ever. If Tyler stays, how am I supposed to take proper care of her?"

In my last life, these same villagers had whispered that I was a curse on Dolores. This time, I was going to build a different image: the loyal wife who sacrificed everything for her mother-in-law. I wanted their pity, not their blame.

The moment they heard I was doing this for Dolores's sake, their attitudes shifted, just as I knew they would. Sympathy softened their faces.

"Well, that's true. The old woman's lost it completely, and you're the one emptying her bedpan and cleaning up after her every single day."

"You really have had it rough, Linda. From the day you married into this family, it's been nothing but caretaking. You didn't even get to rest after giving birth. Straight back to feeding her, bathing her."

I smiled.

"It's nothing. She's family. But you know how she is when she's having her episodes. She says all kinds of nonsense. Don't take any of it to heart."

The villagers waved their hands, reassuring me.

"Of course, of course. We all see how good you are to her. She's been out of her mind for years now. We're used to the raving."

I allowed myself a faint smile. No matter how much Dolores screamed and carried on, not a single person had tried to stop Tyler from leaving.

Once the crowd scattered, I left Dolores sitting on the side of the road and walked home alone.

By the time dinner rolled around, she still hadn't come back.

I thought it was strange and was about to go check on her.

That was when I heard her voice, not far from the house, talking to someone on a phone.