First instalment here: https://redd.it/15lqpmo
My mother-in-law, Maura, was overjoyed when my wife and I had our daughter Lily. For the past two years, the stupid old cow had been whining nonstop about how she wanted a grandchild and how we were so horribly mean for not giving her one right away. Maura took our decision to wait to start a family as a personal insult, as if we had made it because we knew it would upset her. Not because, you know, we simply weren’t ready for kids yet. Amy tried explaining it all to her, but Maura operated under the belief that everything revolved around her. She wanted to be a grandmother, and it was our responsibly to make that happen. By not doing so, we were failing in our duties as her daughter and her son-in-law.
Well, once Lily was born, Maura threw herself wholeheartedly into the role of doting grandmother. She clearly adored her new granddaughter, but Maura is such a toxic person that being an object of her love can be every bit as harmful as being an object of her hate. Very quickly, she became a complete menace to our little family. Sure, Amy and I know longer had to listen to her I just want to be a grandmother, why haven’t you two had baby yet bullshit. But Maura had found an entirely knew way to be obnoxious and annoying.
She began dropping by our house every freaking day, insisting on seeing Lily. If we refused to let her in, she would lurk outside, banging on windows and even shouting to us through the mail slot. And when she wasn’t physically stalking us, she was tormenting us by phone. Maura would call at odd hours of the day demanding updates; sometimes,she would even call at night, waking us and the baby. It got to the point where we began unplugging the phone at night, just to get some sleep. Lily was a good sleeper, so really, it was the phone calls that had been causing sleep deprivation for Amy and I. Yes, that’s right, folks. A fifty-eight-year-old woman was a bigger headache to us new parents than our needy newborn baby.
Maura’s obsession was spurred on in part by the fact that she seemed to believe that Amy was not a good mother. This was bullshit; Amy was a wonderful mother. But Maura was delusional and had always seen herself as the best mother in the world; it was all the others who were doing it wrong. And it was up to her to remind them of that fact. Maura loved talking shit about other mothers and telling them how they should be raising their children; not even her own daughter was exempt.
The kidnapping incident occurred not long after Lily turned three months old. It was at that point that we had decided to switch to formula forLily instead of Amy breastfeeding her. Well, Maura was not pleased, especially when she found out which brand of formula we had chosen. There wasn’t even an obvious reason for her disapproval, and it really seemed like he was just looking for yet another excuse to criticize Amy’s parenting skills. Amy, bless her, brushed off her mother’s disapproval and began feeding Lily the formula. And Lily took quickly to the bottle.
Maura was incensed. As far as she was concerned, we were more or less poisoning our baby. And so she decided to take action, Maura style.
It all went down on a Sunday. Normally, Maura and I would head to the grocery store in the afternoon to buy food for the following week, and we would take Lily with us. But Lily had been sick with an ear infection, so I elected to go by myself while Amy stayed home with the baby. This is what ultimately derailed Maura’s original plan to simply sneak into our house and swap out all the formula we had with the brand she thought we should be using; she was counting on us not being home.
Amy had put Lily down for a nap, and she was sitting in the living room, sorting through bills, when Maura waltzed in like it was her very own house. How did she get in? Well, Amy and I kept a spare key under the doormat. We actually taped it to the bottom, so that it was well-hidden. But Maura discovered it anyway. Looking back, it was definitely foolish of Amy and I to keep a spare key anywhere with someone like Maura around. Hindsight, am I right?
Anyway, when Amy saw Maura standing there with a box of formula under her arm, her hackles went right up.
“Mum? What the hell are you doing here?”
Maura sniffed. “What a way to greet your own mother! I am here to drop off some proper formula for Lily. Speaking of which, what are you doing here, Amy? Aren’t you and Vincent supposed to be at the grocery store?”
“Vincent went on his own today; Lily’s sick.”
“Sick?” Maura shrieked. She dropped the box and began charging down the hall toward Lily’s room.
Amy ran after her, but Maura was fast for a plump middle-aged woman with short legs. She reached the room first and slammed the door in Amy’s face, nearly taking off her nose. Then she jammed a chair under the knob, barricading herself inside with Lily.
Amy began banging on the door, yelling at Maura to let her in or she would call the cops. After a minute or two, Maura did open the door, smiling smugly. She had taken off both her top and her bra (insert me vomiting here) and was cradling Lily in her arms. Oh, and she was holding the baby to her left breast, trying to get her to suckle.
“You should never have switched her to formula in the first place, Amy Elizabeth. You compromised her immune system. That’s why she got sick.”
“For fuck’s sake, Mum. That’s not what happened. And are you trying to breastfeed her? You can’t even produce milk, you moron.”
“Amy, I am fifty-eight-year-old woman who raised three children. I know much more about what babies need than you ever will.”
Amy snorted. “Right. Because you were such a great mum.”
Maura scowled. “If you’re going to be obtuse, young lady, then I hardly think Lily should be around you.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is obstinate. Now leave.”
Far from doing as instructed, Maura turned and began strapping a now-squirming Lily into her car seat. “I’m taking her home with me. A few days with her grandma will do her some good.”
“You are not taking Lily!” Amy yelled, and a scuffle ensued. Amy was taller and fitter, but Maura still managed to gain the upper hand. She shoved Amy hard, and Amy fell, striking her head on the corner of Lily’s changing table on the way down.
Disoriented, she could only watch in horror as Maura grabbed Lily and fled the room.
Amy’s stomach had turned hollow, and a cold sweat had broken out all over her skin. She knew that if Maura got away with Lily, things could get ugly. It wasn’t that she thought Maura would hurt the baby; Maura was actually very attentive to babies, took great care of them. She loved babies because they couldn’t talk back or put her in her place. In fact, Maura never neglected her children, physically abused them, or compromised their general safety or well-being. She did everything a good mother should… all the while bitching about how hard it was and how her children were annoying brats who never gave her the appreciation she deserved.
No, Amy wasn’t worried about Maura hurting Lily. She was worried about Maura having her taken away from us.
You see, reporting people to CPS was one of Maura’s favourite tactics. If you got on her shit list (not a difficult thing to accomplish) and you happened to have children, she would call CPS and make some bullshit claim. The bitch had the number on speed dial. Granted, she had yet to succeed in getting anyone’s children removed from their care. But there’s a first time for everything, and Amy had a very bad feeling about the current situation.
So she staggered to her feet, even as blood spilled from a deep gash above her left eyebrow, turning half of her vision red. With her good eye, however, she caught sight of something silver glinting on the carpet. Maura’s key ring! Hope swelled; without her keys, Maura wouldn’t be able to start her car, and she wouldn’t be able to get away with Lily.
Amy snatched up the key ring and slipped it into her pocket, then stumbled back out to the living room, where Maura was rifling through her purse. “Amy! There you are!” she barked, not acknowledging her daughter’s injury. “I seem to have misplaced my keys. Help me find them!”
“No,” said Amy.
“No?” Maura was gobsmacked. “Wait, you have them, don’t you?”
“I don’t.”
“You do!” she held out her hand. “Give them to me now!”
“No, Mum, I will not give you your keys. I will not let you take Lily. I will, however, call the cops.”
“Cops?” Maura bellowed. “You’d call the cops on your own mother? You ungrateful little bitch!”
It was at this point that I walked in the front door, arms laden with grocery bags. I was not prepared for the sight that greeted me. Amy, tight-jawed and furious, half of her face covered in blood. Maura, cheeks red and eyes bugging angrily, naked from the waist up, her drooping breasts bouncing about in a decidedly un-sexy manner as she gestured wildly. Lily in her car seat, sitting between them, her big brown eyes ticking back and forth between her mother and grandmother as they screamed at each other. She should have been crying, but it was as if even she recognized just how absurd the situation was, and was too bemused to do anything but gawk.
“Whoa, what the hell is going on?” I yelled, recovering the powers of speech with some difficulty.
Both of them whipped around to face me. “Vincent! Thank God! Maura’s trying to kidnap Lily!”
“I am merely looking out for her best interests,” said Maura, switching to her fake-calm voice in an attempt to look less insane. “But Amy doesn’t appreciate my help.”
“Vincent, you need to call the cops,” said Amy.
“No!” Maura shrieked. “I will not be arrested for trying to be a good grandmother!”
She picked up the car seat and ran out the front door.
Amy and I gave chase. Maura had a head start, but our luck finally kicked in, and the clumsy idiot tripped over her own feet and toppled to the ground, her skirt flipping up and exposing her white granny panties. She dropped the car seat, but mercifully, Lily was unharmed, though upset. I scooped up my crying daughter and hugged her fiercely while Amy sat on top of Maura, straddling her waist and pinning her to the sidewalk.
“Get off me! Get off!” Maura shrieked. Neighbours began gathering on their porches, watching the spectacle unfold.
“If I let you go now, then you will leave, said Amy in the coldest, hardest voice I’d ever heard come out of her. “But if you don’t, then you better not complain when I bash your brains out on this very sidewalk. Understood?”
“Are you threatening your own mother?” Maura snapped, but her resolve was weakening; it always did when people fought back.
“I would,” Amy growled.
She climbed off of Maura and pulled her up roughly by her wrists. Maura sniffed, wiping her face. Sadly, she did not appear to have been injured in the fall.
Amy fished out the car keys and threw them at Maura. “Get out of here, Mum.”
Maura, still topless, climbed into her car and sped away. Amy and I just looked at each other, shellshocked.
Our next-door neighbour, Tom, stumbled over. “Holy shit! What was all that about? Are you folks okay?”
“We’re fine,” I said.
“No, you’re not.” He turned to Amy. “You need to go to the hospital. I can take you while your husband stays with your daughter.”
“Okay,” Amy nodded, wincing as she prodded the wound with her fingertips. I think that it was only now that the pain was kicking in, so flooded with adrenaline she had been. “Okay.”
So Tom drove Amy to the emergency room. I put Lily back in her crib, then brought the rest of the groceries inside and unpacked them. Four hours later, Amy returned with five stitches in her forehead. We hugged each other so tightly it hurt. Then we just stared at each other for a moment before erupting into uncontrollable laughter. Nothing about this was funny, but I think we both knew that if we didn’t laugh, we’d be crying instead.
It was a full week before Amy’s rage subsided enough that she was willing to talk to Maura, and even then, it was only to tell her that, unless she wanted us to take out a restraining order, she could only see Lily at family get-togethers.
So I suppose you could say this story has a happy ending, since Maura’s attempt to abduct Lily was thwarted, and we all came out (mostly) unscathed. But I think it would have been an even happier ending had Amy roughed Maura up, at least a little. Would have been nice to see the bitch get her comeuppance for a change.
The craziest part? Attempted kidnapping of an infant isn’t even the worst thing Maura ever did.