106 - Glimpses

There are occasional glimpses of the old personality – as a I wrote in Regression and Return

Last year, I put aside identical amounts as Christmas and birthday presents for her and me. £600.

This year, I suggested that we go together for her Christmas present and the balance of £600 we would simply transfer into her account. So, we had a pleasant morning and lunch, she chose something and decided that she would order it online and have it delivered. About a week later and only a couple of days before Christmas, she says, ‘I haven’t ordered that leather jacket yet. I was expecting you to remind me.’ I did not react.

If am looking at something on my phone, she finds an excuse to come around and glance over my shoulder. In the dog days between Christmas and New Year when there’s hardly anyone in, she finds an excuse to ring me in the office when she never does otherwise – presumably checking whether I really am at work. She has not ‘caught me’ at anything because there is nothing to catch.

During our winter holiday to Spain there were attempts at control on what I might wear and in front of our son – what she was saying was perfectly sensible but I could not give in in front of the kid and she gave in without losing it.

Lately, she has been very helpful to my cousin who recently had a baby. So, by way of thank you, I bought her a box of posh chocolates. ‘Oh, why have you done that? The box says, ‘with thanks’. Thanks for what?’ A weird reaction. ‘Thank you for helping my cousin.’ And left it at that.

 Has she really changed? Can someone change so dramatically? I still exchange e-mails and texts – social and professional - with the friends that she might suggest I have a soft spot for but I am careful to delete them. Will it just take one of those – harmless though it will be – to take her back to her old place? Is she just bottling everything up?


But there are also improvements. The other evening I had gone to bed before her and our son. He snuggled up to me as he was about to go to bed and, when asked by her, said that he wanted to stay with me. She gave us both a kiss and went to sleep in his bed. In a previous incarnation I would have expected great anger and an insistence on him going back to his bed.