I never thought I’d have to face such an ironic situation: my father-in-law – now 68 years old, more than half his hair gray, his limbs aching whenever the weather changed – suddenly announced he wanted to… get married. Not just one person, but two young women!

The story began after a trip he took with his retired friends to Shimla. He came home looking as fresh as a daisy, his hair neatly combed and shiny, his kurta ironed perfectly, and occasionally he’d even put on a little attar. The whole family was skeptical. It wasn’t until a dinner a few days later that he calmly put down his spoon and said seriously:

“I’ve decided. Life is too short. I want companionship. And well… it’ll be… two people.”

My husband choked on his daal, and I dropped my spoon. He explained that he met two young women in Shimla, one 29, one 31, working in the “premium wellness services” industry. He said they were “affectionate, thoughtful, and very understanding of the elderly.”

We were highly suspicious and immediately asked:

“Do they know your real age, Father?”

“Of course! I told them I was 58. Only 10 years younger, what’s so terrible about that?” he said nonchalantly.

My husband pressed his hand to his forehead, and I sighed. A few days later, he even brought one of the women home. She spoke sweetly, calling my father-in-law “ji” (a respectful term, but sometimes used flirtatiously by younger people to older ones) throughout the visit. When she left, he even gave her my mother-in-law’s “heirloom” necklace. I was frozen in disbelief.

Finally, to “rescue” the family, we had to concoct a plan for him to meet Mrs. Devi from next door – a widow with a strong personality who had no patience for “gold diggers.” They went on exactly one outing, and from then on, he never mentioned the two young women again. Later, I overheard him muttering:

“Women these days are truly something; everything is so expensive. To think of getting married, I’d have to worry about… supporting two people like raising two more children. Better to stay single and healthy!”

The whole family breathed a collective sigh of relief. We thought the storm had passed, but the more “horrifying” truth lay in a detail no one in the family had noticed.

A few weeks later, while cleaning my father-in-law’s room, I found a strange stack of documents in a locked drawer. They were invoices and papers from a company specializing in… “companionship tours” for the elderly. And what was even more striking was that the expenses were extremely large, so large that my father-in-law’s savings account had significantly dwindled.

Furthermore, among the documents was a long list of various “service packages”: “24/7 Companion Package,” “Lifetime Soulmate Affection Package,” “Special Care Package for Elderly Singles”… And the cost for each package was an astronomical sum. The two young women, clearly, were not genuinely “fond” of my father-in-law, but were professional employees of this company.

I realized with a jolt that the so-called “affectionate, thoughtful, and very understanding of the elderly” demeanor of those two women was, in fact, just services charged by the hour, by the day, even by “lifetime” packages at exorbitant prices. My mother-in-law’s heirloom necklace, surely, was no longer in that woman’s hands, but had been “converted” into payment for services.

The horrifying truth wasn’t that my father-in-law was senile and wanted to marry young women, but that he had been cunningly tricked, professionally “mined” by a network that not only targeted money but also exploited the loneliness and longing for affection of the elderly.

Our family’s sigh of relief that day was truly premature. The financial shock was even greater than the emotional one. My father-in-law, to save face, never fully explained everything. He just quietly watched his bank account diminish day by day, and his face became as withdrawn as before.

We understood that the family’s “rescue” was not a success. It was merely a small act to cover up a more bitter truth: my father-in-law had paid a steep price for his loneliness. And the “tragic end” wasn’t about him marrying young women, but about him being subtly exploited, losing a significant portion of his life’s savings, in silence and shame.

From then on, our entire family always kept a watchful eye on him, not because we feared him marrying, but because we feared him falling into other sophisticated traps laid by society, traps designed to profit from the vulnerability and loneliness of old age. The “horror” wasn’t a strange wedding, but the cruelty of exploiters and the helplessness of loved ones realizing the truth too late.