There was a heavy silence as my words hung in the air. She seemed to contemplate them, her expression softening ever so slightly. Perhaps, somewhere underneath her rigid exterior, there was a mother who genuinely wanted her son to be happy.

“I’m willing to work on this relationship,” I continued, “but it has to be mutual. I can’t keep enduring this hostility. We need to find a way to coexist peacefully, for his sake and ours.”

She didn’t respond immediately, but the tension in the room seemed to ease just a little. It was as if my words had planted a seed of possibility in her mind. Whether it would grow into something positive remained to be seen, but it was a start.