A man was shocked to see his mother-in-law sitting next to his boss in his car a day after he kicked her out. “Oh my God!” the man gasped. He had no idea how his mother-in-law had become friends with his boss.
Even after working tirelessly for the past two decades, Jack believed he hadn’t achieved enough to call himself a successful man. At 43, he still thought he could do much better, but his wife, Laura, thought otherwise.
He met Laura at work, but she later resigned and started her own business. Since she was a marketing graduate from one of the best business schools in the country, she knew how to attract customers with little effort.
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When Jack saw her business flourish, he felt intimidated and developed an inferiority complex. “I don’t think I can ever be as good as her,” he would tell himself.
After tying the knot with Laura, Jack felt her parents didn’t like her because he wasn’t as rich as them. Laura came from a wealthy family, while Jack’s parents were not that rich. However, Laura always told Jack it was all in his head and that her parents had nothing against him.
Jack’s insecurity grew with time, but he never listened to his wife. To cope with his feelings of unworthiness, he paid more attention to his work and tried his best to get a promotion. He would spend most of his day at his office and come home late every night.
One day, Jack’s wife called him at work and told him something unexpected. “Jack… Please come home right now,” Laura said in a shaky voice. “Dad passed away.”
“Don’t you understand I don’t want her in my house?” Jack yelled.
Oh no! Jack thought and immediately left his workplace. He consoled his wife and helped with the funeral arrangements. A few days later, Laura told Jack she wanted her mother to live with them.
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“Jack, you know my mother has been feeling lonely after dad’s death,” she said. “I’ve offered her to stay here with us, and if―”
“What? How can you do that without asking me?” Jack looked at his wife with his eyes wide open.
“Why would I ask you? She’s my mother, and she needs me right now.”
“So what? You could have thought of something else. I don’t want her to stay at our house.”
“But why?” Laura frowned.
“She cannot deal with the grief of losing dad all by herself, Jack. She’s coming here once she accepts my offer.”
“No, Laura,” Jack shook his head. “That won’t happen.”
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Two days later, Laura’s mother, Melissa, called her and said she was ready to move in with them. Laura was Melissa’s only child, so she had no option except to live with her daughter until she felt she was ready to live alone.
“That’s great, Mom!” Laura exclaimed while talking to her mother on the phone. “Jack and I will pick you up this evening, okay? Love you!”
“Was that your mom?” Jack asked after Laura ended the call.
“Yes. She’s ready to move in with us.”
“Don’t you understand I don’t want her in my house?” Jack yelled.
“It’s either her or me!”
Laura looked at her husband in shock. “Calm down, Jack. You need to think about this calmly,” she told him. “I’m her only child, and she needs my help. She will leave in a few months.”
“I don’t think she’s ever going to leave!” Jack yelled and stomped out of the bedroom.
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Once Melissa moved in, Jack tried his best to annoy her so she would leave soon. He would pick fights with her purposely and often argued with her.
One day, Jack was attending an online meeting with his boss from his bedroom when Melissa suddenly barged in. “I’m sorry, Jack. But you won’t be getting a promotion this year,” Jack’s boss told him.
Jack forced a smile and finished the meeting with his boss. Then, he turned around and was shocked to see Melissa in his room. “What are you doing here? Were you listening to my conversation with my boss?” he asked her.
“No, dear,” Melissa replied softly. “I was waiting for you to end the call. I came here to tell you dinner’s ready.”
“I know why you were here!” Jack yelled and stormed past his mother-in-law. “Laura! Look, your mom is spying on me!”
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He went downstairs and told Laura what had happened. “Ask her to leave out right now, Laura! I won’t tolerate this,” he said.
“That’s not possible, Jack,” Laura replied calmly.
“Look, I need you to kick her out before Christmas,” he told her. “I won’t let her ruin my Xmas dinner. You need to send her back home on Christmas Eve.”
“But, Jack…”
“I don’t want to hear any excuses, Laura. I’ve given this plenty of time and thought,” he said and stomped out of the house.
“I immediately recognized him when I saw him on your laptop screen that day,” she added.
Laura knew she couldn’t argue with her husband anymore, so she tearfully asked her mother to go back on Christmas Eve. The next day, Jack was happy because his mother-in-law wasn’t around. He decorated the house and ordered Laura’s favorite food for dinner.
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While sitting at the dinner table with Laura, Jack suddenly heard a car park in their driveway. “Who’s that?” he asked Laura.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged.
Jack went to the door and was shocked to see Melissa sitting beside his boss, Matt, in the car he recognized as his boss’. “Hi, Jack!” Melissa waved as she got out of the vehicle. “Hi, Melissa,” he smiled awkwardly before looking at Matt with his eyes wide open.
“Please come in!” Laura said and welcomed her mother and Matt inside.
Once everyone sat at the dinner table, Jack asked Melissa what was happening. “How do you know Matt?” he asked curiously.
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“I have known this boy for decades, Jack!” Melissa chuckled. “I used to work as a secretary for his father when he was a kid. I even babysat him a couple of times when his father wasn’t around.”
Melissa also told Jack she saw Matt while he was talking to him on a video call. “I immediately recognized him when I saw him on your laptop screen that day,” she added.
“What? Really?” Jack gasped. He couldn’t believe what his mother-in-law had just told him.
“Yes, Jack,” Matt smiled. “I had no idea Melissa was your mother-in-law. Such a small world, no?”
“Yeah, this is very surprising,” Laura laughed.
“Do you know why we’re here, Jack?” Matt asked sternly.
“To have dinner with us, right?” Jack smiled.
“Or do you have another surprise for me?”
“I do have one!” Matt said.
It turns out, Melissa put a good word in for her son-in-law with his boss. She told him how hard-working and deserving he was. As a result, Matt decided to promote Jack. “You’ve earned it, Jack!” Matt smiled and shook Jack’s hand.
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“I can’t believe this!” Jack looked at his wife. “Did you know your mother talked to my boss?”
“Yes, Jack,” Melissa smiled. “Mom told me she would come for dinner tonight with Matt.”
Jack was over the moon after learning that Matt had promoted him. He thought this was the best Christmas present and thanked his boss and mother-in-law for making his dream come true.
Later that night, Jack apologized to Melissa for being rude and allowed her to stay in his house for as long as she wanted. “You’re the best mother-in-law I could have asked for!” he told her.
What can we learn from this story?
- Never judge people based on your opinions. Jack thought Melissa didn’t like him, so he was rude and didn’t allow her to stay in his house. However, when he learned how kind his mother-in-law was, he instantly regretted judging her earlier.
- Actions speak louder than words. Melissa never told Jack what she felt about him, but what she did for him was enough to prove that she loved him as her son.
Share this story with your friends and family. It might inspire them and brighten their day.
This piece is inspired by stories from the everyday lives of our readers and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life.
Dad Grows Suspicious After Noticing His Daughter Lingers on the School Bus Longer Than Other Kids — Story of the Day
A father worried about why his daughter often remained behind in the school bus after others left, so he decided to find answers. What he found was not what he expected.
Benjamin Bruce was a single dad who had to step in to become his child’s mother after she passed away. Their daughter, Emily, had been six when it happened.
Ben loved his daughter because, to him, she was all that was left of his beloved wife, and he had also promised her that Emily would be well taken care of no matter what.
To that end, Ben tried his best to juggle work while being present in his daughter’s life. He had no other family he trusted to look after her, so he had to do everything himself.
The first couple of years were rough on him as a parent, and just as he was acclimatizing to the rollercoaster, his daughter hit puberty, and at that point, things got wilder.
She suddenly started going through physical changes right before his eyes, and he knew what they meant — the boys would be coming for her. How could they not; his daughter had his late wife’s red hair and deep green eyes that seemed designed to mesmerize.
Even Ben was not immune to her eyes and had fallen prey to her will multiple times over the years. When she clocked 12, two years after she hit puberty, Emily discovered boys.
That led to her paying a lot of attention to her hair and appearance because she wanted to look good for her school crush. Ben was prepared to beat back boys with a stick if need be, but what he was not ready for was caring for his daughter’s looks.
Emily had to do that herself, but she was terrible at it with no role model to learn from. Ben often just cut her hair short as a child because he knew nothing about hair care, but he had to respect her wishes to keep her hair longer as she grew older.
There was little he would not do for his child, so to help her, he started brushing her hair when it was long enough. He was a big man, and even though he tried to be gentle, he occasionally pulled it out.
“Ouch!!!!” she yelled one day.
“I’m sorry baby,” he apologized quickly, as he always did.
“You need to be more gentle daddy,” she would admonish him sometimes.
Other times, she just endured the pain because she did not want to make her father feel terrible for causing it. Ben felt the sting of his failure each time his daughter complained of her hair getting pulled out, and that made him try to cut her hair again.
“Just get rid of it all,” he would say when they argued about it sometimes. “Your mom kept her hair cropped short and she still looked wonderful.”
“Daddy, I will no longer cut my hair, look how slow its growth is because of how often you cut it in the past,” she would shoot back. In any case, Ben never won the arguments, but he didn’t need to; they stopped coming up after a short while.
Shortly after that, he noticed that his daughter started getting tardy notices from her class teacher, Mrs. Flynn. So he called the woman to find out.
“That’s right, Mr. Bruce. Your daughter has five tardy notices this week alone. Is there anything going on I should know about?” the woman asked him.
“Nothing is going on. Things have been great at home for some time now and I do release her to join the bus early so I’m sure she makes it to school when others do,” he explained.
“Did you notice anything going on with her this past week?” Ben asked.
“Well, I was running late for class once and I saw her alight from the bus rather late even though she should have been in class by that time. The driver probably knows something about it because only they can access the bus at any time.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Flynn, I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Ben told her before ending the call.
Worried about why his daughter was spending extra time on a bus, Ben followed her the next day. True to what Mrs. Flynn told him, he noticed that everyone on the bus alighted when it arrived on the school grounds — everyone but his daughter.
As soon as he could, Ben burst into the bus in a rush thinking the worst but was instead met with the scene of a nice 40-year-old woman combing his daughter’s hair. The woman, Madeline, was the bus driver.
“Mr. Bruce?” the woman exclaimed at his sudden entry as Emily looked up, surprised to see her father.
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
“Hello ma’am,” Ben said after clearing his throat and righting himself. “Sorry about barging in, but I heard my daughter was getting tardy notices so I came to see why.”
“Oh, well in that case, here’s why,” the woman said, gesturing to his daughter’s hair. “I noticed how she seemed to struggle with her hair so I offered to help her brush it every day before she goes to class because she says her rough hair often makes her feel bad.”
“Honey,” Ben said to his daughter. “You never told me this.”
“I just didn’t want you to worry about it,” Emily defended.
Later that day, Ben invited Madeline for coffee. When the bus driver heard about what happened to his wife, she started to cry.
She herself was a cancer survivor, and she was well aware of how lucky she was to have pulled through and was grateful that she could still be there for her own children.
Madeline was convinced she survived for the kids on the bus who needed somebody to talk to or do their hair or whatever, so she begged Ben to find a compromise that would help his daughter.
To that end, Ben spoke to Mrs. Flynn, her teacher, and after explaining things to the woman, Emily was never given a tardy notice again. Ben was grateful to Madeline, and he remained close friends with her for a long time.
What did we learn from this story?
Never jump to conclusions. Ben gave himself a fright when he immediately assumed something sinful was happening between the bus driver and his child, and if he had not taken the pains to confirm it, things might have taken a terrible turn.
Give back when you can. Madeline believed he was spared from death to take care of other kids, and that was what she did. Caring for those kids was her way of giving back, and it left her feeling fulfilled, especially since she was able to touch lives like Emily’s and Ben’s.
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