Did she really mean that?

[fbhjr]

My mother never liked my wife. She tried several different things to get
me to stop seeing her. She went out of her way to find fault. She went out
of her way to bad mouth.
Then, when it was pointed out to her that this wasn’t working, she (sort
of) stopped. (Thank you Carolyn.)
About a year before she and I got married, my mother’s sister got married.
She was in her mid-50’s. She had never been married before. She had lived
with my grandmother and taken care of her. She had often spoken of wanting
to find someone, but done very little to make it happen.
Then, playing bridge, she met someone. After a fairly short time, the
announced they were getting married.
We were home for some family holiday thing, and my mother wouldn’t stop
going on about it.
“Maybe he thinks she has money,” she said. “She has that beach house. He
might think that means she’s rich.”
“Maybe he thinks she’s going to inherit your grandmother’s house.”
“Maybe he’s after her pension. Teachers get good ones, you know.”
“Maybe he has some sort of wasting disease and he’s looking for someone to
care for him. He knows she cared for your grandmother.”
On and on. All day long.
Finally:
“Maybe he loves her,” my (not yet) wife suggested.
“What?” my mother asked.
“Maybe he loves her,” she repeated.
There was a long pause.
“I guess that’s possible,” she finally allowed. “It could happen.”

A couple of weeks pass. This was before my parents declared me an
embarrassment to the family and I severed relations with them. So, I tried
to call home once a week to let them know I was doing OK.
During one of these conversations, my mother asked:
“That thing (your not yet wife) said a the last time she was here, she
really meant that, didn’t she?”
My mother has been known to take comments about the weather as proof of
evil intent. I wracked my brain trying to think of what (my not yet wife)
could have said that my mother was referencing. I couldn’t think of
anything. She had learned not to say much around my mother. But, it
didn’t take much…
“What thing?” I asked, cautiously.
“That Jim might really love your aunt,” she demanded.
I paused. I remembered the conversation. I couldn’t see how it would be
used against her.
“She at least means that it’s possible,” I said. “Neither of us have
actually met him, so we can’t say for sure. But, it must be possible,
right?”
“She really thinks that?” my mother asked again.
“Yes,” I said.
Another long pause.
“She might be OK,” my mother said.
It was the nicest, honest, thing my mother ever said about her.