Payback for the Gold-Digging Vipers

At the wedding, my mother-in-law, the one with dementia, handed me a shaming placard and a filthy shoe.

A girl who's pregnant before the wedding has to wear this and crawl a few laps on her knees. Otherwise the head of the collective won't let the two of you marry.

If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for keeping your belt so loose. For the sake of the work credits and the baby, you'd better hang this on and get going.

I knew she was having an episode, so my first instinct was to explain that this wasn't the 1970s anymore.

But beside me, my husband clung to my arm, his face all pleading.

"My mom has dementia. If you tell her what year it is now, her mind can't handle it. She'll break down."

"Just go along with her. Everyone here understands you're only putting up with this out of respect for her. No one's going to laugh at you."

I couldn't get the refusal out.

Half pushed, half yielding, I hung the placard and the shoe on and took a few steps.

What I didn't expect was how fast that video would blow up all over the internet.

Netizens said I must have done something shameful, or I'd never have agreed to be humiliated like that.

And my husband didn't step in to clear my name. He watched, doing nothing, while the online harassment drove me to lose the baby.

As I lay dying, my mother-in-law smiled and made a call to my husband.

"Millicent Hughes's about to die. After that, all her money will be ours."

"Once she's dead, you can even build yourself a devoted-widower image and make even more. This dementia act of mine really wasn't for nothing!"

Given it all to do over again,

I looked at the mother-in-law putting on her show in front of me, and I smiled.

You love pretending you're trapped back in the 1970s. Fine. Then I'll send you back to the seventies for real.

One:

"Mom doesn't want you to be embarrassed on such a happy day, and Mom doesn't hold it against you that you're already carrying a child before the marriage. But this isn't a rule I made."

"If we don't do this, there'll be no work credits, our rations get cut, and the whole family and the baby will really starve to death."

My mother-in-law, Faith Walker, staggered toward me, holding up the placard and the ugly, broken shoe.

That placard she'd written in chicken blood, and the shoe had been picked up from who knew where. It reeked of rotten eggs and rotten cheese.

Before she even got close, the stench nearly made me gag.

Seeing that I not only didn't take it but stepped back twice,

Faith's cloudy eyes flickered with a streak of viciousness.

"Just take it as me begging you. If that's not enough, Mom will kneel down for you."

The moment she said it, her knees buckled as if to drop, and beside me my husband, Phil Harding, reacted fast, catching Faith and easing her into a nearby chair before anyone else could react.

That coordination was the kind of seamless timing you only get from rehearsing it countless times.

And it wasn't just their teamwork. That placard and that shoe were things I had never once seen at home, and both were obviously prepared well in advance.

So this wasn't Faith suddenly having an episode. It was long premeditated.

The pity of it was that I only understood all of this after I had already died once.

Phil didn't notice anything off about me. He pulled me aside and lowered his voice.

"You've seen my mom's test results yourself. Her mind's clouded, she keeps getting the time and place mixed up. We can't expose it, we can only go along with her."

"Just agree to her this once, play along with her. You know how it is, her episodes only last a day. When she's better tomorrow, she'll apologize to you and treat you even better."

"And have you forgotten what happens when we don't go along with my mom during one of her episodes?"

2:

Of course I remembered.

Faith Walker rarely had her episodes. When she wasn't having one, she was the finest mother-in-law in the world. But the moment an episode hit, we all had to play along with whatever she demanded, or she turned into a monster who wouldn't listen to reason.

That was exactly why.

In my last life, I'd had no choice but to agree to the shaming placard, the filthy shoe, the walk of public disgrace. And afterward, Faith really had seemed full of regret, showering me with kindness.

It wasn't until I lay dying that I finally understood. There was no dementia. She faked it to keep me under her thumb, and Phil Harding had known all along. The two of them were after everything I had. They meant to strip me of my entire fortune.

While I was still turning it over, Faith started working herself up into another fit.

Phil panicked.

"My mom raised me all on her own. That's why she ended up like this. Just think of it as doing a good deed, please, help her out."

I looked at him.

I didn't expose him, didn't lose my temper. I just said, evenly,

"Today is our wedding. Are you really sure you want to help your mother put on this show?"

Phil knew me. He knew how soft-hearted I was.

And a question like that clearly meant I was already wavering.

So he nodded, again and again.

"Of course."

"My mom's had it so hard. As her children, we owe it to her to be understanding."

"If it were your parents having an episode, forget a placard and a shoe, if they told me to kneel on the ground and bark like a dog, I wouldn't say a word against it. Not a second's hesitation."

"But you won't do this, won't do that. Is it because my mom's from the country? Because she's a widow, is that it?"

One label after another, until he'd painted me as the most heartless creature alive.

I had no family here, so the guests were all Phil's relatives and friends. Naturally, they took his side.

I nodded slowly, as if thinking it over, and turned to Faith with a troubled look.

"Mom, so what you mean is that it's the year 1970, and because I got pregnant before marriage, I have to be paraded in disgrace at my own wedding. Is that right?"

3:

Faith stopped raving at once.

"You crawled into his bed before there was any wedding. If I hadn't begged the head of the farming collective, they'd have dragged you off for a forced abortion."

"You have to do this. It sets a good example for the child in your belly, so she doesn't grow up loose like you!"

I smiled. Not only was I not angry, my whole face filled with gratitude.

"So that's how it is."

"I didn't know that was the rule before. I never meant to break it."

"So where is the head of the collective? I'll go find him right now and get it in writing, then I'll go to the hospital for the abortion. That way I won't have gotten pregnant before marriage and dirtied the Harding family's ground. We can hold the wedding next time. How does that sound?"

Faith froze. She was faking madness, not actually mad, so she panicked on the spot.

"It's just a formality, going through the motions. Who said anything about an abortion?"

"If you kill my grandchild, I won't go on living either."

I sighed.

"This child came out of me being loose, by your own words. Even if you can accept him, he's still a bastard. Better to end it early than bring him into the world for everyone to laugh at."

Faith couldn't come up with a word to argue back, and Phil quickly grabbed my hand, terrified that if he let go I really would go through with it.

"Millicent, stop this, all right?"

"If you actually get rid of the baby, and my mom comes back to her senses and realizes she caused her own grandchild's death, how is she supposed to keep living?"

Seeing that I had no intention of backing down, Faith snatched up a table knife and pressed it to her own throat.

"Sir, please, stop humiliating my daughter-in-law."

"I'll die right here at this wedding. Call it a life for a life. Let this old life of mine buy back the life of the child in my daughter-in-law's belly!"

As she spoke,

she cast one reluctant glance at Phil, closed her eyes, and drove the knife toward her own throat.

Four:

Phil moved fast and caught Faith's wrist just in time to keep the blade from cutting into her right there in front of everyone.

"Millicent, what has gotten into you?"

"It's just an act. Why can't you sacrifice a little?"

"Do you really want to stand there and watch my mother die at our own wedding? Would that make you happy?"

The voices from the crowd grew louder.

Every one of them was saying that if I refused to play along, I was as good as trying to kill her.

I looked at the knife in Faith's hand, then at Phil's face twisted up in all that begging, and finally I nodded and let out a sigh.

"Fine."

"But I need to make one thing clear first. Everything that happens next is just me and Phil humoring a mother-in-law with dementia. None of it is real. It's me and Phil being good to her."

"So don't any of you stop us out of pity. If we're going to act, we act it all the way through. Anyone who breaks the routine and sets off my mother-in-law's fits, makes her want to die again, I, Millicent Hughes, will not let them off."

The crowd chimed in eagerly, of course.

Their mouths said they wouldn't take it seriously, said they felt for me, but every one of them had already lifted their phones, just waiting to film me making a fool of myself on parade and post it online.

I acted like I didn't see a thing.

I didn't even stop them from filming. I just smiled and said,

"Yes, you should record it. This is all proof of how good Phil and I are to her. When we're old we can show it to the children, so they learn from us too."

Hearing me say that, Faith's mouth had already stretched into a grin wide enough to touch the sky.

The way she saw it,

as long as I let myself be paraded today, she'd have me, her daughter-in-law, completely under her thumb. From then on, if I ever stepped out of line, she could just have another episode.

Phil was biting down hard just to keep himself from laughing out loud.

He picked up the shaming placard and the filthy shoe from the side and, unable to wait, moved to loop them over my neck. I stopped him and reached out to take them myself.

"I'll do it myself."

Five:

Phil naturally had no objection. Me putting it on with my own hands would only make the video hotter online, so he handed the things right over, then turned his back, pretending he couldn't bear to watch, hiding his smirk.

But before he could get that laugh out,

I turned around and hung the shaming placard and the filthy shoe over his neck instead, and from the pocket of my wedding dress I pulled out a pair of toy handcuffs and pulled Phil's hands behind his back and cuffed them.

It all happened too fast.

Phil couldn't process it at all.

"Millicent, have you lost your mind? That's supposed to go on you. Why did you put it on me?"

"Take it off me, now. This thing stinks, it's disgusting."

"Hurry up, or what are people going to think of me?"

I tugged at the corner of my mouth.

Truly funny. Me wearing it makes me the dutiful daughter-in-law, but him wearing it makes him a joke? Isn't that a bit of a double standard?

I didn't say it out loud, though. I just looked at Phil.

"Phil, stop making a fuss. This is all for Mom. Just bear with it. Kneel and walk a few laps around, and once Mom's had her fill, I'll take it off you."

Phil was furious. He wanted to speak again, but I didn't give him the chance. I picked up that dirty, stinking shoe and stuffed it straight into his mouth, so he couldn't get a word out.

Watching me humble him like that,

Faith couldn't spare a thought for pretending to have dementia anymore.

"Millicent, are you sick in the head? Take it off him now. Phil is a grown man. Touching filthy things like that brings bad luck!"

But I held onto Faith and wouldn't let go.

"Mom, we can't be messing around now."

"It took everything I had to beg the head of the old farming collective to let Phil help me with the walk of disgrace. If you stop it now, aren't you slapping him in the face?"

"And the collective head said I'm a loose woman, that Phil moved in with me before marriage and got me pregnant, which makes him guilty of indecency. If we don't parade him and hold a public shaming, he'll be dragged off and shot."

"Or do you want Phil to die?"

Six:

Faith was so furious she could barely get a word out, stammering into silence. In the seventies an indecency charge really did exist, and if she refused to play along, it would prove she'd been faking all this time.

So she didn't dare speak. She just kept crying.

But that wasn't enough for me. Without a trace, I signaled the people I'd planted in advance.

It didn't take long.

They rushed up with rotten eggs and spoiled cabbage leaves and started pelting and battering Phil.

Phil's relatives and friends jumped in at once to stop it, saying I was making a scene.

I turned to the crowd and raised my voice.

"An offender like this deserves to be denounced."

"Don't any of you forget what you promised me just now. It's 1970 right now, so hurry up and keep playing your parts. If you upset my mother-in-law, I'll bring her to your house to make a scene and throw black dog's blood all over your door."

"And don't forget, when my mother-in-law has one of her episodes, it's no joke."

The ones who'd wanted to intervene froze on the spot.

Everyone knew about Faith's episodes.

Her first one came the night of our engagement. She dumped out the candlelit dinner I'd carefully prepared and ladled out a whole pot of pig slop for me to eat.

I couldn't take it, so I held up my phone and told her it was 2026.

She calmed down, then turned with the bowl of slop in her hands and made for the balcony to jump. It took us everything we had to talk her down.

After that, we understood. You couldn't expose her when she was having an episode.

So after we'd registered our marriage and moved in together, when she had an episode and ordered me out to the collective for the predawn shift, I didn't call her out. I just pulled the covers over my head and stayed put. But the next second she mistook Phil for her father-in-law and me for a "loose woman," and came after me with a rolling pin until I was covering my head and scrambling for cover...

And every last one of these stories, Phil eventually turned into dinner-table gossip and told to everyone. Nobody dared cross her, all of them terrified that one wrong move would land them on Faith's list.

So one by one they climbed up onto the stage too, copying the people before them, pelting and battering Phil.

Seven:

This time Faith really looked ready to drop dead from rage.

She hadn't stopped me from hanging the shaming placard and the filthy shoe on Phil because she'd assumed it was just a couple of laps around the square. She never imagined I'd actually rile the whole crowd into denouncing him.

Watching Phil with the filthy shoe stuffed in his mouth, unable to cry, unable to shout, was worse for her than being killed.

But she still didn't dare tell the truth. She only clutched my hand and cried.

"Millicent, save Phil, quick. They can't keep hitting him."

"Crawling into bed before the wedding was your doing. How can you pin it on Phil?"

"I already begged the collective boss, and he said there's no need for a denunciation, just the walk of disgrace. If you carry on like this, are you trying to get your own husband killed?"

I put on a troubled face.

"Mom, I know the collective boss is looking out for you."

"But a widow's doorstep breeds gossip. If we don't set the example, how are we ever going to work in this village again?"

"Don't worry. A denunciation doesn't kill anyone."

Of course Faith knew a fake denunciation wouldn't kill anyone. But how could she bear to watch her own son bullied at his own wedding?

So she picked up the old prop dinner knife again.

"If you don't get Phil out of this, I'll kill myself right now."

Of course I knew she wouldn't.

But I didn't try to stop her.

I just clicked my tongue a couple of times.

"Mom, if you kill yourself now, there's nobody around to see it."

"And besides... you can't die right now. If you die, who's going to take care of Phil?"

My expression turned even grimmer.

"The collective boss didn't tell you, did he?"

"An offender who isn't shot has to be paraded and denounced. And during the walk and the denunciation, there's one very important step..."

I let my face go heavy, and it caught Faith's attention at once.

"What step?"

I sighed.

"That step is... confiscating the offender's tools of the crime."

Faith knew perfectly well what an offender's tools of the crime were. Her eyes went huge.

"You wouldn't dare."

Before I could answer.

Not far off, Phil let out a shrill, agonized scream. And that scream sounded exactly like a boar being cut, just like what I'd seen on TV...