When I married Toby, I considered myself incredibly lucky. Not only had I found the love of my life, but I had also won the mother-in-law lottery. Julia wasn’t just kind; she was warm, fun, and full of life. From the moment we met, she treated me like her own daughter, not just as the woman who married her son.
“I told you,” Toby would often say, grinning. “Mom loved you from the start, Larissa.”
And he was right. Julia was always around, not in an intrusive way, but in a way that made our house feel even more like home. She would pop in, roll up her sleeves, and before I knew it, she was cooking up a storm in our kitchen.
“Let me do it,” I’d protest, trying to take the wooden spoon from her hand.
“Oh, nonsense,” she’d laugh. “I just want to feed you two. Besides, what else do I have to do besides meeting my friends for drinks?”
It was a ritual—music playing, laughter bouncing off the walls, and Toby walking in to the smell of home-cooked meals. My parents lived across the country, and while phone calls kept us close, nothing compared to the warmth of a mother’s presence. Julia filled that space for me, and I adored her for it.
After three years of marriage, Toby and I decided we were ready for the next chapter—parenthood.
“I think it’s time,” Toby had said one evening. “Are you ready?”
I nodded, my heart swelling with excitement. “Yes. I want this more than anything.”
But life had other plans. Month after month, we faced disappointment. At first, we told ourselves to be patient, but as time passed, doubt crept in.
“Maybe it’s just not meant to happen for us,” I whispered one night.
“Don’t say that,” Toby reassured me, squeezing my hand. “We’ll figure this out together.”
Not knowing what else to do, I turned to Julia for guidance. She sprang into action, setting up appointments with wellness coaches and even arranging fertility massages.
“Your body just needs a little help,” she told me gently. “We’ll do everything we can.”
One day, she arrived with an unexpected gift—a brand-new mattress.
“A mattress?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Maybe your body just isn’t rested enough,” she said with a wink. “You need the best chance possible.”
Toby and I laughed about it that night as we lay on our new bed.
“Do you think this is a bit much?” I asked, pressing down on the plush surface.
“Maybe,” Toby admitted. “But honestly, our old mattress was awful. Who knows? Maybe Mom’s onto something.”
And strangely enough, she was. Less than a month later, I stared in shock at the two pink lines on the pregnancy test.
I was pregnant.
For a while, I didn’t tell anyone. It felt fragile, like acknowledging it might make it disappear. But when I finally told Toby, he swept me into his arms.
“Thank goodness! Finally!” he exclaimed, spinning me around.
By our second trimester, we shared the news with everyone. Julia cried happy tears, and before we knew it, we welcomed our beautiful daughter, Maddie, into the world.
Julia became our rock. She cooked, cleaned, and even took over Maddie’s early morning feedings when exhaustion consumed us. With my parents unable to visit, she became my closest support system.
Then, one night, everything changed.
Maddie had a blow-out—one of those messy disasters that no diaper could contain. Exhausted, I nudged Toby awake.
“You handle the bed, I’ll handle the baby,” I said, scooping up our little troublemaker.
Toby groaned but got to work stripping the sheets. I bathed Maddie, her tiny hands reaching for my face as she cooed happily.
“Sweet girl, you love keeping us on our toes, huh?” I whispered.
When I returned to the bedroom, Toby was standing there, pale and tense, holding something in his hands.
“Larissa… we can’t use this mattress anymore.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Did she get it into the mattress?”
He shook his head, his grip tightening on the small silk pouch in his hand. “No, it’s not that. Look what I found.”
I took the pouch from him and opened it, finding a mix of dried herbs inside. Confused, I looked up. “Where was this?”
“Pinned under the mattress protector,” Toby said, his voice uneasy. “We never noticed it before.”
“Okay… but what is it?”
“I think… I think it’s fertility herbs,” he said slowly. “And you know how Mom believes in all those old wives’ tales. What if she put this here on purpose?”
I shook my head. “She would never do that without telling us. No way.”
“Then where did it come from?” he asked flatly.
That night, Toby refused to sleep on the mattress. We moved to the guest room, but sleep evaded me. I lay awake, watching Maddie, our perfect daughter, with her father’s eyes and my hair. She was ours—through and through.
But had Julia’s herbs played a role? And if they had… what did that mean?
At dawn, I woke to the smell of gas. I rushed outside to find Toby standing beside a roaring fire—our mattress engulfed in flames.
“Toby, what are you doing?!” I gasped.
“We couldn’t keep it,” he said firmly. “I just… I couldn’t.”
Julia arrived as usual that morning, whistling as she entered the kitchen. But Toby wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.
“Mom, why didn’t you tell us about the herbs?” he asked, his voice steady but filled with hurt.
Julia’s face fell. She set down the eggs she had been holding, looking at us with remorse. “I just wanted to help. I knew you were struggling, and I thought that if it worked, you wouldn’t care how. I never meant to hurt you.”
“What else did you do?” Toby pressed. “What’s in the bag?”
“Nothing harmful!” she exclaimed. “Just natural herbs. I can take you to the shop where I got them. It’s a little apothecary next to my dentist—completely harmless.”
I exhaled, rubbing my temples. “You could have just told us. Now we don’t know what to believe. Was Maddie meant to be, or was this because of your herbs?”
Julia’s eyes welled with tears. “Does that matter? Maddie is here. She’s ours.”
And she was right. Maddie was ours, no matter what. But the secrecy hurt.
Toby sighed, his anger softening. “Mom… if you ever plan on doing something like this again, you have to tell us. We need to know what’s happening in our own home.”
Julia nodded, her shoulders relaxing. “I understand. I truly am sorry.”
The tension lifted slightly, but an unspoken understanding remained—trust had been shaken.
That afternoon, Toby scoured online stores for a new mattress while Julia baked us a tart for lunch. As for me, I held Maddie in my arms, pressing a kiss to her tiny forehead.
No matter how she came to be, she was my miracle.
