Chapter 72

Any sense of drowsiness vanished entirely, and Larissa was very much awake.

She no longer had the mood to read the rest of the messages and retrieved her tablet from the bedside table drawer. She then found last night’s episode of ” The Mediators Room”.

Travis’ parents arrived at the set as the “mediation representatives”. They had mournful looks on their faces, and they looked fragile too. Janine’s eyes were also red from crying, and she could only squint through the swelling.

The host asked, “What would you like me to mediate for you?” Before he had even finished, Janine had already begun to wipe at her tears.

“I… I just want…” she sniffled. “I just want to apologize…to apologize to my daughter-in-law.”

Dick sighed and gently patted her back, his face filled with melancholy.

The host retrieved some tissues and passed them over. “Try to calm down, and then tell us in detail what misunderstanding there is between you and your daughter-in-law.”

Janine wiped at the tear tracks on her face and sat blankly for a few minutes. before she continued, “Actually, this is all my fault. My son is the head of the technical department of a brokerage firm. By a stroke of luck, he met my daughter-in-law during work. She is a manager of a big hotel in Covenford and is very beautiful. My son fell for her at first sight, but my husband and I didn’t even know that they were dating. Then when my boy brought her home, he said that they were going to get married. I couldn’t accept this at that time. Mothers would know. You know how that feels like when your boy suddenly decides to run off with someone else without even telling you. I didn’t even know what my daughter-in-law’s background was. Anyway, I was really sad and a little angry. So, I was not kind to my daughter-in-law, and I supposed I gave her the impression of a “wicked mother-in-law”, and she did not treat me well.

“At first, my husband and I were against this marriage. The first reason was the one I mentioned, that our boy didn’t tell us about it. The other one was that I did not like my daughter-in-law’s job. Maybe it’s because we’re from a more conservative generation, but I think a pretty woman working in a hotel gives off the impression that she’s not a decent person, but my son insisted on marrying her. My husband and I have always respected his opinions, so we agreed.

“I thought that my relationship with my daughter-in-law would get better after the marriage, but who knew that it would get worse?” When Janine got to this point, she choked up and wiped her eyes again.

“My daughter-in-law never got pregnant, and I was worried if she had some kind of health condition.

So, during the new year celebrations, I thought of taking her to the hospital for a checkup, but she refused me in a very drastic way, and even called me a ‘psycho’. After they went back to Covenford, I tried calling my daughter-in-law again, but she refused to answer. My son told me in secret that she was what they call a childfree person, you know, the type that doesn’t want kids.

“My husband and I are not getting any younger, and our sons are now successful. What we really hope for now is to see our grandchildren. The moment my son told me that he and his wife didn’t want kids, I lost my mind. Honestly, if it was because my daughter-in-law refused children due to having some kind of medical issue, I might not have been so mad. But she’s actually afraid that she’ll lose her figure after getting pregnant as well as the pain that comes with giving birth that she refuses to have kids! I really thought that she was too selfish, and I originally wanted to come to Covenford to talk to her about it, but my son stopped me.”