The Gap in Our Words

My mother-in-law could not understand me.

Before my business trip, I repeatedly told her not to touch anything in my study, but she mixed up the contract I needed. As a result, I lost a million-dollar order and was fired from my company.

To make up for her mistake, she promised she would take care of my child and help me find another job.

I froze my milk, labeled everything with notes, and gave her detailed instructions on timing and measurements.

However, when my baby ended up in the hospital, I found out that she had thrown out all the milk and fed my baby expired formula instead.

Even worse, she fed my baby peanuts behind my back, causing my baby to suffocate and die.

Afterward, she wailed, "That was my granddaughter! How could I not care? If I could, I'd die with her..."

My husband slapped me, shouting, "My mom worked so hard to take care of the child, and you want to drive her to her death? She's an old woman. It's not easy for her!"

My sister-in-law came over too, calling me ungrateful and blaming me for treating an elderly woman badly. She claimed I deserved to be childless and alone.

However, they did not know how many times I had stopped my mother-in-law from causing trouble and harm to them.

I was driven to depression by them and eventually sent to a mental institution, where I was tortured to death.

If I had the chance to do it again, I would protect my child and myself and stop preventing my mother-in-law from causing chaos for others.

I would watch her bring equal destruction to each one of them!

I woke up with a start to the loud sounds of my mother-in-law cleaning. It hit me like a lightning bolt—I had somehow gone back in time.

I grabbed my phone and saw it was the day I got fired over a contract mix-up. It was exactly 5:00 am.

There she was, stepping out of my study—a place I had told her a million times not to enter, especially not to mess with my papers.

She never listened, always doing whatever she wanted without thinking about anyone else.

In my previous life, she sneaked into my study and swapped an important page from a contract I needed with one from a different contract.

I had checked it so many times before, so that morning, I just briefly glanced over it as I was in a hurry.

However, during the signing, the client caught the mistake. They called me a liar right there and then and pulled the plug on our deal. I lost a million-dollar order, and my company blamed me and let me go.

I was so mad that I confronted my mother-in-law. She just cried and said, "I woke up early to clean the study for you. I didn't mean to do it! I'm old and useless, and nobody wants me around. What's the point of living?"

When she started talking like that, my husband, Edwin Williams, would turn into the world's most devoted son.

"Janice, what are you saying? My mom took care of you after you had the baby. She's been cooking and cleaning non-stop, and this is how you treat her? She's old, and she just made a little mistake. Why are you so hard on her? Do you think it's easy for her to take care of us?"

That "little mistake" wrecked my career, and now, my husband was trying to make me feel guilty about it!

I did not even take a break during my maternity leave. I worked so hard to keep my clients happy, and my mother-in-law ruined everything with a careless mistake!

Then, there was my daughter, Teresa.

After I lost my job, Edwin and his mom told me I had to find work fast because his meager paycheck could not cover our bills.

I did not want our little Teresa to have a hard life, so I took a sales job that kept me out from dawn till dusk.

Edwin and his mom refused to hire a nanny, and my own mom had injured her ankle and could not help. However, my mother-in-law promised she would take good care of Teresa, so I let her babysit during the day.

Each morning, I froze milk and left sticky notes with feeding times and tips.

Teresa was such an easy baby, so I thought feedings and diaper changes would be simple enough. Even if my mother-in-law got things mixed up sometimes, she would not mess up with a baby involved, right?

However, I did not know until Teresa ended up in the hospital that my mother-in-law had been dumping my milk and giving Teresa expired formula meant for old folks.

My sister-in-law had bought it for her, but she did not like it and did not want to waste it, so she gave it to a six-month-old baby even though it was out of date.