Page 51 of The In-Laws

Amanda’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘What are you doing?’

Melanie’s attention was fully back to the lunch now. She tried not to laugh. It was an absurd situation, with everyone looking at Nancy in horror.

‘What? I saw it on TikTok. It works,’ Katie told them. She began to rub the icing and wine mixture into Nancy’s skirt, which made everything a lot worse. ‘Uhm, okay, so it doesn’t seem to be working.’ She giggled. ‘Sorry, Nancy. I’ll go and grab you a tracksuit to put on.’

Nancy slapped Katie’s hand away. ‘Don’t touch me, you stupid fool.’

‘Granny!’ Lucy said, her eyes wide.

‘Just trying to help, Nancy,’ Katie said. Nancy was on thin ice here.

Nancy glared at Katie. ‘But you’renothelping. You’re just making things worse, as usual. Perhaps if you spent less time on TikTok, you wouldn’t make so many stupid mistakes all the time.’

‘Hang on now, Mum …’ Jamie tried to defend his wife, but clearly Nancy had touched a nerve because Katie’s face turned bright red and her whole body reared up.

Visibly shaking, Katie bent down and hissed at her mother-in-law, ‘Why do you always have to be such a poisonousbitch?’

Jesus Christ! Had Katie actually called Nancy a ‘poisonous bitch’? Melanie was shocked.

Everyone was staring at Katie, who was locked in a glaring match with Nancy. This was bad, Melanie thought. The twins had their hands over their mouths, to stop themselves laughing. Theo, who was standing beside Melanie, looked up from his phone. ‘She’s not wrong,’ he muttered,under his breath. It didn’t sound like he was Nancy’s greatest fan.

‘KATIE!’ Jamie’s voice broke through the shocked silence.

Katie shrugged. ‘She is. She treats everyone like dirt and I’m sick of it.’

‘Stop it, Mum.’ Lucy began to cry. ‘Granny is the best.’

Melanie watched as Katie wavered.

‘How dare you speak to my mother like that?’ Ross bellowed. Just like him to overreact, Melanie thought. He certainly wasn’t helping the situation.

Frank stepped between Katie and Nancy. ‘Hey, let’s all take a breath. Things have got heated. No one meant to insult anyone. Accidents can cause strong reactions.’

‘Apologize at once,’ Ross demanded.

‘Leave it, Ross.’ Jamie’s voice was shaking with anger.

Melanie knew she shouldn’t but she was kind of enjoying this. She respected Nancy and was grateful she had hired her, but her mother-in-law could be a domineering cow at times. She had always been dismissive of Katie, and she was rude to Amanda. You could only push people around for so long and Melanie wasn’t surprised Katie had blown up. Mind you, if someone had spilt chocolate cake all over her skirt and thrown wine on top, she’d have been pretty annoyed too. But this wasn’t about the skirt. This was years of pent-up resentment coming to the surface. The problem was, how the hell did you come back from calling your mother-in-law a poisonous bitch? Was it even possible?

‘Take me home, Ross. I’m not staying another second in this house,’ Nancy barked. Her eldest son jumped up to help her and handed his mother her crutch.

‘Why is everyone cross, Daddy?’ Toby asked.

‘Just a silly fight over the spilt cake. Don’t worry.’ Jamie ruffled his son’s hair.

Silly fight? More like a family implosion.

Nancy, helped by Ross, stormed out of the room.

‘Oh, my God, Auntie Katie, you’re mad!’ Janis squealed, when the kitchen door closed behind them.

‘Mental, but also – go you!’ Joni gushed.

‘You went too far.’ Jamie was not happy.

Katie said nothing.

‘Mum, why did you shout at Granny? She’s got a sore leg.’ Lucy’s voice shook with emotion.

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