We have a DS (13 years) who is severely disabled, has severe learning difficulties & is confined to a wheelchair. A few months ago we went to visit my DSis and BIL in their house. They had just been on holiday and were talking to my DS about it.
My BIL gave DS some things about the holiday to look at…to be honest I don't recall what these items were but believe they includedbooks and maps about the country they had been to. Apparently (BIL claims) among these were a couple of books that he wanted to loan to DS. He has now indicated to us that he wants them back.
This all started when BIL called a few weeks ago and spoke to me. He mentioned both the titles by name/author & asked if I could give them back to him when we saw them next. I said I couldn't recall the titles & he was adamant that we had them so I said I would look. We had a look & all I could find was a map of the country they had been to, nothing else.
A couple of weeks later my Dsis spoke to me about them & I confirmed I wasn't able to find them. I explained that it is very difficult to keep track of everything as we are so busy & DS was travelling constantly between home, school & therapy; but to the best of my knowledge we didn't have the books. SIL said not to worry & there was a good chance that we had never had them & that BIL had form for wrongly claiming other people had books of his which then turned out to have been on his bookshelves all along.
What has really upset us today is that we have received their Christmas card addressed to DS, sent since the conversation with Dsis. BIL has written in the card on the left hand side opposite the greeting: 'Please ask your Mummy to find/give back these books (listing titles/authors/publication dates)'.
DH is absolutely livid & said I am lucky he doesn't get straight on the phone to have it out with DSis and BIL. He wanted to burn the card but we have compromised & put it away in a drawer, I don't particularly want it out on display.
To be honest, I don't remember what BIL gave DS, also I didn't know that BIL was so anxious to have the items back. I am not excusing this but people often give things to DS to look at/play with, & I am assuming that people would not lend things to a disabled child that they would need to have back; only things they would have no further use for. I don't even remember the word 'lend' being used. I don't feel that we can take responsibility for such things as we have a lot on our plates (both DH and I work full time as well as caring for our DS and we both have health issues of our own).
I certainly don't remember BIL saying that he would definitely need the books back as they were precious to him; if he had, I would probably have refused to take them & told him that I wouldn't want to take responsibility for these. I assumed that BIL would understand not to entrust precious things to a child but then BIL and DSis don't have children.
I am feeling really upset now. We are due to see the whole family on Xmas day and I am worried that BIL will start on again about the books. I want to have a nice day not for us to be harangued about this. I could offer to pay for the books but I am not sure if we ever even had them & DH is strongly against us having to do this. BIL seems to consider them as precious/irreplacable anyway don't want to complain to my DM as don't want to drag her into this, she is elderly….so I don't know quite how to handle this.