Chapter 2

2: 2

2

"Don't pick a fight with my mom. I'm begging you."

Melvin's voice was low and pleading in my ear.

The fist I'd clenched loosened again.

I've always hated injustice, and I've never once swallowed being wronged.

But this insufferable old dragon in front of me was, after all, my husband's own mother.

For his sake, I could at least give her some face on the surface.

"Mom, today is the day Melvin and I got our marriage license."

"The ink's barely dry on our certificate, and we just wanted to come home to a warm meal to celebrate."

"If you make Beryl kneel for ten minutes,"

"won't all the food go cold?"

Melvin quickly stepped in to back me up.

"That's right, Mom. We're ten minutes late tonight, and that's on us, not Beryl."

Pansy let out a soft snort.

"Since you two are pleading for her, I'll let it slide this once."

She finally deigned to move her precious backside.

She rose from her lounge chair and strolled unhurriedly to the head of the table and sat down.

Beryl shot me a grateful look.

"Thank you, Tessie."

"If you hadn't spoken up for me, I'd have had to kneel the full ten minutes today."

I hurried to help her up.

"Beryl, we're family. Don't talk about thanking me."

"You've been kneeling like this all along. Doesn't it ever feel wrong to you?"

Beryl gave a bitter smile.

"And what good would it do to feel it's wrong?"

She sighed, and left the rest of what she wanted to say unspoken.

"Go eat. The food's going to get cold again."

Watching Beryl swallow it all just to keep the peace left a bad taste in my mouth.

The second day, the third day.

By the time I dragged myself up with the sun high in the sky, Beryl was still kneeling outside my mother-in-law's bedroom door to invite her to eat.

I held it in, once and then again.

I told myself I'd only just married in, that I shouldn't stir up trouble.

But by the fourth day, I couldn't take it anymore.

I noticed that Beryl was unwell, running a fever.

She'd made the meal half an hour late.

So Pansy made her kneel on the floor as punishment for half an hour.

By the time she got up, her knees were already mottled with bruises.

Fresh injuries layered over old ones, patch after patch.

As a woman myself, I felt both heartache and fury.

I lost my appetite completely.

Everyone had just picked up their chopsticks when Pansy suddenly spoke.

"Beryl."

She'd lifted a piece of pot roast, taken a single bite, then spat it back out.

"The food's too salty today."

Beryl had just sat down. She shot straight back up, flustered.

"Mom, I'll go redo it right now."

I frowned and looked at my husband.

"Redo it? Why?"

It was just a little salty. And that meant redoing the whole thing?

Everyone slips up sometimes. My own family never treated the housekeeper this harshly.

But Melvin only sighed helplessly.

"That's just how our family is."

"If my mom doesn't like it, she won't touch another bite. The whole meal has to be made again."

I was floored. "Beryl has lived like this for three years?"

My husband nodded, and there was more apology in the way he looked at me now.

"I've put you through a lot, Tessie."

"This is just how the rules work in our family."

I let out a cold laugh. Rules. Who made these rules?

Beryl kept her head down and started to rise to redo everything in the kitchen.

I stopped her.

"Beryl, sit down and eat."

"You've worked hard all day putting this whole table together. You're the one who most deserves to sit down and eat properly."

"If someone thinks it's too salty, then they don't have to eat it. They can eat something else."

Every head at the table snapped up to stare at me.

Pansy most of all. She lifted her chin, narrowed her eyes, and studied me for a long moment.

"Tessa Langford, what do you think you're doing?"

"Openly defying me?!"

I burst out laughing.

"One line out of your mouth and I can already tell you're uneducated, Mom."

"So let me, the graduate student, give you a little lesson. Back in the old days, defiance was a serious crime."

"You really shouldn't go slapping such a heavy charge on me so lightly, Mom."