Chapter 4

4: 4

4

The relatives all laughed and piled on the compliments.

"You really did luck out. A son who makes something of himself, and now he's found you a daughter-in-law with real talent."

"Isn't that the truth? First thing Garry did after the wedding was bring his mother into the city to live the good life. Who wouldn't envy you now?"

Lucy waved a hand as if to brush it all off, but the pleasure on her face said she was eating every word of it up.

I watched the whole happy Butler clan with cold eyes.

I came from the country. My parents gave everything they had to put me through college.

From the day Garry and I started dating, Lucy had looked down on my parents.

Back then Garry and I were both just junior office workers.

In the five years since we married, I clawed my way up, killing myself to give my parents something to be proud of.

And now Garry was still a coasting junior office worker, while I was a director earning seven figures a year.

I lifted my head and looked at the two figures busy in the kitchen.

And even so, it was the Butlers who reaped all of it.

In this house, my parents didn't have so much as a place to set their feet.

Just then, a cry of pain came from the kitchen.

My stomach clenched and I bolted for it.

My mother was standing in front of the built-in steam oven. The steam ran scalding hot, and the whole back of her hand had been burned an angry red.

When she saw me come in, her first reaction wasn't her burn. It was to look at me with an apology all over her face.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. Mom doesn't know how to use this oven. I only wanted to steam some meatballs for you..."

It hurt me to see it. I pulled her hand under the running tap, trying to ease some of the pain.

While I was rinsing it, Lucy's sour voice cut in again.

"Country people are country people. Can't even work a steam oven."

"Just don't go breaking my appliances. These are all new, and they weren't cheap."

I couldn't hold it in anymore. I spun around and let her have it.

"Country people, country people, that's all you say. Weren't you born in the country too? What's wrong with the country?"

"If Garry hadn't married you and brought you out of the country back then, would you be standing here so high and mighty, lecturing my parents?"

"And your whole clan, every single one of them, if they hadn't gotten into that company through my connections, would any of them be the so-called high-and-mighty city people they are now?"

I forced my ragged breathing down, trying to win some justice for my parents, who'd swallowed so much.

"I gave your family everything I had. I treated you like my own mother, and in five years I never once let you lift a finger with the housework."

"And what did I get? My parents come to my home and have to put on shoe covers? Don't even have a place to sit?"

"A two-thousand-square-foot place, and there's really no room in it for my parents?"

The relatives were all watching, and Garry's face had gone stiff.

His voice dropped low, an edge of threat under it.

"That's enough, Penelope. Say any more and you're going too far."

"There are a lot of relatives here today. Rein it in. It's not as serious as you're making it out to be."

Garry's words made me laugh out loud.

"I'm going too far? Garry, is it you and your mother going too far, or me?"

"From the moment they walked in until now, my parents haven't had a sip of water, haven't sat down once. They traveled a full day and night to get here, and now they're stuck in the kitchen cooking for your whole clan."

"So the way you all see it, I'm the machine that makes your family money, and my parents are the maids who cook for your family?"

Garry was so angry the veins stood out on his forehead, his lips working like he still wanted to say something.

But I didn't give him the chance.

"You look down on my parents, and you've never thought much of me either."

"So then, Garry."

"Let's get a divorce."