The Wendy House.

The Wendy House.


"John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together" Peter Pan

A long time ago, I had two kids under the age of two and a husband who worked shifts. My "family" lived miles away (a blessing, because they are horrible people) and none of my friends had kids.
I was happy. I am not saying life was perfect. It was however pretty good.
The bane of my existence at the time?
My in-laws. Actually my mother-in-law.
Twice a week both would come round and she in particular would want to be waited on, make horrible comments and generally make me feel shitty, uncomfortable and miserable.
Long after Kara died they kept coming (but now only once a week).
This woman would pinch, poke and even smack my child and if I told her NO, or tried to get her to stop she would turn her face to the wall and ignore me. In my own home.
I had never had to deal with someone as difficult before or since.
I took to hiding in a Wendy house with little E. We would be "quiet" as mice.
A grown woman, a mother, a witch, a force of nature, crawling into my daughters play house so I didn't have to deal with that. I would just not answer the door and hope they would leave.
My husband for a while (he was sick and had some deep issues of his own with her) would say things like

"She's always been that way."
"She's just deaf."
"It can't be that bad."
"She won't listen to me either."

Looking back there were whole worlds of things I could have done about it.
Not least of which was not waiting on people hand and foot.
Yet that pressure, that desire, and quite frankly fear was pretty awful. I out grew the Wendy House and eventually hubby had to deal with her too. From poison pen birthday cards, to the constant scrawled letters of nastiness her toxicity became something he had to overcome.
Which he bravely did.
So much of her life and his is still a mystery. Where was she when he was rushed to hospital? Or when his brother broke his leg? Where was she? She never did anything in the home (from cooking to ironing Pop's did it all even after working at the pit all night).
Something was very wrong and as yet we don't know what, or why.
It is peculiar the things that floor us.
"Demons", dark magicks, the restless dead and I would not have batted an eyelid. That knock on the door at 10 am every Sunday gives me a cold shudder to think of even now! Her face would be somewhere between Sam the Eagle (From the Muppet show) to Bishop chess piece, with bright red lipstick.
I could have gotten up at 6 am to start cleaning (and some days I did) and there would always be a comment.
"She could have done *******, sniff."
I was mortified.

Taking the time to forgive myself as a young mum, with no support network, and a husband struggling to deal with abusive mother, I could almost laugh; except it is so sad.
The world is so big and loud sometimes, maybe we all need a Wendy House to hide in.