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Having a supportive and loving mother-in-law can be a blessing and can greatly enrich one’s family life. When Larissa got married to Toby, her mother-in-law welcomed her into the family with open arms and treated her like her own daughter. With her parents living far, Larissa felt like she had found a true mother in Julia.
“She’s loved you since the beginning, Larissa,” her husband told her.
Julia, being the perfect mother, would visit her son and daughter-in-law often. She helped around the house, prepared lunch and dinner, and even did the laundry. She was of great help to both Toby and Larissa and they wanted her there.
Sharing her story, Larissa said that Julia filled the role of a mother — a mother in close proximity anyway.
After three years of marriage, both Toby and Larissa believed it was the time they try become parents. However, that didn’t come to them as easily as they anticipated.
Months passed by, and Larissa failed to get pregnant each time. She even started feeling bad about that, but neither she nor her husband ever lost hope.
During those times of uncertainty, Julia was there to provide comfort to Larissa. She took her to meet with a wellness coach, she took her for fertility massages, and then, she even bought the couple a brand new mattress.
“Maybe your body is just not rested enough,” Larissa’s mother-in-law said. “Maybe you just need to give your body the best chance possible at this.”
“Do you think that it was a bit unnecessary?” Larissa asked her husband as they got into bed that night, testing out their new mattress.
“Normally, I would have said yes,” Toby admitted. “But maybe there’s something to what Mom said. Our mattress was horrible before. Maybe it will make a difference.”
And it did. Just a month later, Larissa learned she was pregnant. She was so overjoyed that she feared to share the news with her husband and the rest of her family until she visited multiple doctors who confirmed she was indeed carrying a baby.
And then, before they knew it, their daughter, Maddie, was born.
With a baby in the house, Larissa’s mother-in-law offered to help, just as she did before, and Larissa was thankful she had someone like Julia in her life who took great care of her baby girl.
Julia wasn’t only the MIL everyone wished for, but she was also the perfect grandmother.
However, it was like that until she made a discovery that left Larissa wondering if she could trust her mother-in-law ever again.
One night, as Maddie was sleeping in her parents’ bed, she urinated on it so Larissa decided to open the cover of the mattress and clean it. Her husband offered to help her, but just as he opened the cover, his face turned red. Larissa could feel something was off.
“Oh, honey,” he said looking straight into Larissa’s eyes. “We cannot use this anymore.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, setting Maddie down. “Did she get it into the mattress?”
Looking nervous, Toby picked up the mattress so that it stood on its side. “No, it’s not that,” he uttered.
“What are you talking about? It’s just a mattress, we’ll clean it–” Larissa said.
“No, Larissa,” he interrupted, his voice rising in panic. “It’s not just a mattress.”
Sleep-deprived and feeling a bit irritated with her husband she once again asked, “What?”
“Look what I found,” Toby said as he handed her a little silk bag filled with various herbs.
“What is this? Where did you find it?” Larissa was eager to learn.
“It was pinned to the mattress. It was under the mattress protector, so I think we just didn’t notice it before.”
“Fine, but what is it for?” she asked, confused and irritable.
“It’s fertility herbs, it has to be!” Toby exclaimed.
At that point, Larissa had no idea what her husband was talking about.
“Listen, I don’t know if this is true or not, but I do know that my mother believes in old wives’ tales. What if this is one of those tales?”
“She would never do that,” Larissa screamed. “No way!”
“Then where else did it come from?” Toby asked flatly.
That night, the family slept on the couch. Looking at Maddie, Larissa recalled the time they struggled to conceive and how desperate both she and Toby were. But now they had their baby girl, and she was perfect. She was theirs in every sense of the word, but those herbs having anything to do with Maddie coming into this world was a thought that bothered Larissa because of unknown and inexplicable reasons.
As Larissa was doing her best to quiet her mind and fall asleep, she was disturbed by the smell of gas. When she took a look from the window, she saw Toby setting the mattress on fire.
The fire flickered with an intensity that mirrored the inner turmoil Larissa was experiencing. She grappled with trying to comprehend Julia’s intentions. Given her usual closeness to her, Larissa found it puzzling why she would keep that information from her.
If she was open about the herbs, then maybe Larissa wouldn’t feel the paranoia and fear that had settled in her body upon her husband’s discovery.
Anything bordering the supernatural was beyond Toby’s comfort zone. He and Larissa stood there in silence, both wondering what was going on in their home without their knowledge.
In the morning, Julia appeared at Larissa’s door. She was as energetic and as happy as always.
Looking at her, Toby felt the need to confront her. “Mom, why didn’t you tell us about the mattress? About the herbs?” he asked with a steady voice.
At that moment, her face crumpled and her usual vibrancy was replaced by a somber guilt.
“I just wanted to help. I knew that you were having trouble conceiving, and I thought that if it worked, you wouldn’t care how. I never meant to hurt either of you. Especially not my granddaughter,” she tried to explain her action.
“What else did you do? What’s in the bag? Other than the herbs?” Toby’s questions flew hard and fast around the room.
“Nothing!” Julia exclaimed. “It’s just dried herbs. I can give you a list of them,” she said. “I’ll take you both to the store where I got them from. It’s a sweet little apothecary next to my dentist. It’s a store all about natural wellness.”
“You could have just told us,” Larissa said. “How we can trust anything you do now? How do we know if our baby is a miracle baby or just an outcome of your herbs?”
“Does that matter?” she asked, her eyes brimming with tears. “Maddie is here and she’s ours.”
Larissa couldn’t argue with that, Maddie was there, she was the baby she longed for. But she was also angry at Julia for not being honest.
“I’m sorry,” Julia whispered. “I really am.”
“We need to start over, Mom,” Toby said. “If you plan on doing anything like this again, you have to tell us first. We need to know what’s going on in our own home.”
The two decided to forgive Julia because they knew deep down she loved them and she did what she did for them.
Larissa was still confused. She was somewhat grateful to her mother-in-law, but she just couldn’t believe that sleeping on a bunch of herbs could help her get pregnant.
