Spent Millions on His Mom's Birthday, They Treated Me Like a Kitchen Maid

1: 1

1.

I spent a fortune on birthday gifts for my boyfriend's mother, and the moment I stepped through the door I was put to work slaughtering a chicken and cooking a meal for fifty tables of guests.

My son loves chicken. If you can't even kill a chicken, how are you supposed to take care of him?

"You can't even cook. My son won't get a single hot meal out of you. What's the point of marrying you?"

No matter how much I swallowed at his family's house, my lovesick head won out, and the very next day I went with Xavier Simmons to get our marriage license.

After the wedding, I even sold off my family's company to fund Xavier's business, and I built him up into the president of a publicly traded corporation.

Even when the company went bankrupt later, I swallowed my pride and borrowed money from every relative I had to pay off his debts.

When I finally scraped together enough and carried it home, I walked in on him in bed with his secretary.

I begged his mother to step in and settle it. Instead she snatched the money right out of my hands and shoved me to the floor.

"Years now and still a hen that won't lay. If my son's looking for someone new, that's on you."

When I hit the floor, I started bleeding and couldn't stop. I begged them to take me to the hospital, and instead they confiscated my phone and locked me inside the house.

By the time the debt collectors who came pounding at the door threw cold water on me to bring me around, Xavier and his mother had already made off with my money and were living it up overseas.

The creditors hounded me to death.

When I opened my eyes again, Xavier was granting me permission to visit his family's home in that gracious, doing-me-a-favor tone of his, dropping hints that I should bring plenty of gifts.

I laughed. "Of course! I'll be sure to prepare a whole lot of gifts for your mother myself."

I just wasn't sure they could stomach my kind of "gifts."

1.

The gifts I'd gone out of my way to buy for Darlene Finch, my boyfriend's mother, filled nearly half the living room.

Looking at all those gift boxes stamped with designer logos, everyone turned envious eyes on Darlene.

"That's our Xavier for you, always got a knack for it, snagging himself a girlfriend this rich and this generous. He's set for life now."

"Exactly. And what really counts is the girl's sensible and respectful. First visit and she brings all this. Looks more thoughtful than Xavier, if you ask me."

"Guess the Simmons family won't be wanting for anything from here on out."

"Darlene, you'd better tell that Xavier of yours to hold on tight to this pot of gold."

Called out by name, Darlene's face, smiling a second ago, went cold at once.

The look she slid sideways at me was pure disdain.

"Three generations of honest farming folk in the Simmons family, clean and upright. The wife we bring into this house had better be hardworking and capable."

"A girl who only knows how to spend money and live easy will run through any fortune, no matter how big."

"Besides, my son's got real ability. He's not the kind of man who lives off a woman."

Hearing that, I nearly laughed out of sheer anger.

The onlookers did laugh, though, their eyes on me and Xavier like they were watching a show.

Xavier couldn't stand people looking at him strangely, and his face flushed red.

So he turned on me, indignant.

"Today's my mother's big day. A birthday's supposed to be about good luck and good fortune. Did you have to make such a flashy show of yourself and upset her?"

"Or did you bring all this stuff on purpose, just to come to my house and flaunt it?"

"This is a small house. It can't hold a big shot like you."

Xavier cared about face more than anything.

It was the same in my last life. The gifts I'd handpicked and spent a fortune on earned me nothing but one complaint after another from them.

Yet somehow they never got noble enough to actually give the things back.

Instead, that very night they couldn't wait to tear everything open and hide it away, terrified someone else might have their eye on it.

But back then I was blind and dumb, and I actually took it to heart, apologizing over and over.

Now Xavier lifted his chin and turned his face away.

That was his usual arrogant act, waiting for me to come coax him out of his mood.

I sneered inside, but I still tugged lightly at his sleeve and murmured an apology.

"Oh, it's all my fault. I didn't even ask your mother what she liked, I just bought a bit of everything."

"You're right. A birthday's about good luck, so I really shouldn't have made such a show of it."

I nodded in agreement.

"Then why don't I return all of it?"

2: 2

2.

The words were barely out of my mouth before Xavier whipped around to look at me, his face full of disbelief.

"Ebony, what did you just say?" he asked.

"I said let's return the gifts."

I pulled out my phone and swiped at the screen, nodding as I spoke.

"Xavier, I always do as I'm told. You mustn't be angry with me."

"I'll call a courier right now to come pick everything up."

Xavier put his hand over my screen and hesitated. "You really don't have to return them."

Xavier and his mother were exactly the same. High-minded on the surface, greedy underneath, dying for something but forcing themselves to act like they couldn't care less.

I wasn't about to go running to put these things back in their hands.

I brushed his hand aside and said firmly, "No. I didn't think it through. Today is your mother's special day. How could I let these things steal her thunder?"

"And besides," I put on a shy, bashful look, "your mother only likes girls who are thrifty and frugal. I can't go turning myself into the kind of girl she dislikes."

Xavier glanced at me, then at Darlene, who was starting to panic. He'd hoisted himself with his own words, and for a moment he had no idea what to say.

In the end it was Darlene who cracked first. The instant my courier call went through, she rushed over and hung it up.

"You can't return them!"

"Huh?" I said.

Darlene let out a heavy breath. "I said you can't return them."

I looked troubled. "But I bought these in a hurry, and none of them suit your taste. Let me send them back and prepare something better for you next time."

Darlene's eyes started darting around, like she was genuinely turning my words over in her head.

From where she stood, I was her son's little lapdog, and whatever I bought "next time" could only be more, not less.

But how could Darlene bear to let a duck that was already in hand fly away?

"Next time" was some vague someday, but "this time" was sitting right there in her living room, in perfect condition.

Darlene cleared her throat. "Once a gift's been brought to the door, there's no sense sending it back. Word gets around and people will think I'm hard on people."

I blinked, still looking troubled. "But I bought these in such a hurry. What if you don't like them?"

Darlene put on a magnanimous air. "It's the thought that counts. There's no good or bad in that."

"Ebony, you're a guest. Naturally I'm happy with whatever you bring. Just don't go spending so much next time you come."

"Otherwise people who don't know better will think the Simmons family is greedy."

I quickly stepped forward, all smiles, and took Darlene's hand.

"I could tell just from your face that you're kind and merciful, like a saint. You'd never hold it against me for not knowing the proper way to give a gift on my first visit."

"No wonder Xavier turned out so wonderful. He learned it all from you!"

Darlene raised her eyebrows, pleased with herself.

A few words from me and Darlene didn't know which way was up anymore. Her face softened toward me quite a bit.

She even sat me down and let me have a sip of tea.

Then someone nearby said how pretty I was, that just having me sit in the room made the whole place look better.

They teased that they couldn't understand how a girl this pretty had fallen for Xavier.

Darlene's smile froze on her face.

In her eyes, her son was the finest man in all the world, and on top of that he had a rich young heiress like me, foolish and loaded with money, chasing after him and refusing to give up.

Darlene even thought I wasn't good enough for her son, that I was blocking better women from coming after him.

Her nose practically pointed at the sky.

"Good enough, not good enough, what does it matter? My son is the first college student our whole town ever produced, and the moment he graduated he stayed on to work in the big city."

"My son has a limitless future ahead of him. The girls lining up for him would trample my doorstep flat."

She looked me up and down, taking in my elegant clothes, and shook her head.

"Those girls all dolled up in fancy outfits, what good are they? Not steady, not settled, not one bit."

"If you ask me, a man should marry a girl who can work, so he's never short of three meals a day."

Xavier agreed completely with Darlene, and he put on his airs again, chiming in with a sneer in his voice.

"Ebony's been a pampered heiress since she was little. What would she know about work?"

"Besides spending money, what else can she do?"

The look Darlene turned on me carried a few more shades of disdain.

It had been like this in my last life too. Darlene found fault with me at every turn, and I argued back that I could work, that I wasn't lazy or good only for eating.

The result was that a guest who'd traveled a long way with expensive gifts got put to slaughtering a chicken and cooking dinner.

And now it was the same. Darlene spoke with exaggerated dismay.

"Can't do any kind of work at all?"

"Isn't that just useless?"

"Once you're married, how will you look after a man?"

Right on cue, the chicken in the coop let out a squawk, and Darlene said, "Look at the state of you. You'll be marrying into my family one day anyway, so I'll do you the favor today of letting you start your training by killing that chicken."

3: 3

3.

"You want me to kill the chicken?" I pointed at myself.

Darlene looked at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "What else? Before I married Xavier's father, I worked in his family's house for half a year. Everybody praised me for being hardworking and thorough."

"You think a lazy woman ever gets a man to want her?"

"It's my birthday today, and I'm in a good mood, so I'll teach you how to kill a chicken."

I looked over at Xavier. He assumed I was about to refuse, rolled his eyes, and his face soured all over again.

"Weren't you the one who kept whining that you wanted to come to my house? My mom's being kind enough to teach you, and you still have to go and upset her?"

I've been terrified of sharp-beaked animals since I was a child. Xavier knew that.

In my last life I begged Xavier for a long time, and he still made me kill the chicken.

He even said his mother making me do it was for my own good, and told me if I couldn't kill a chicken I might as well get out of his family's house.

I was wearing a white dress at the time.

I begged him over and over to let me change into something else, but Xavier's face was pure impatience.

"Aren't you the one who's used to wearing dresses? So what if you kill a chicken in a dress?"

The Simmons family was cruel, and even the chicken they raised was no better. The moment it saw I was scared, it came straight for me.

That big rooster chased me all over the yard. I fell more than once, and my dress got torn to pieces.

In the end the rooster crashed into the ground, and only then did I hack it once and get the thing killed.

The blood came spurting out and splattered across my face. I was so frightened I burst into tears, and out of instinct I turned to Xavier for comfort.

But he shoved me away in disgust and said I was making a fool of myself.

Darlene blamed me too, said I couldn't even do a little thing like this right, that she'd wasted all her good thoughts on me.

And the crowd laughed and laughed, said they'd never seen anyone so stupid, actually getting chased around by a chicken.

Seeing that I hadn't said anything for a while, Xavier gave me a push. "What are you doing? You really want to make my mom angry?"

He nearly knocked me over.

Coming back to myself, I said quietly, "But I'm really clumsy. Do you really want to teach me how to kill a chicken?"

When Darlene saw I wasn't refusing, her face eased a little. She picked up the knife lying nearby and handed it to me. "Go on."

I caught hold of Darlene's hand and asked, puzzled, "But how do I know when it counts as killed?"

Darlene let out a snort of laughter, as if she'd heard the funniest joke in the world. "How? Just let the blood out and that's it."

I nodded like I finally understood. "Then if I don't do it well, you can't blame me for it."

"Fine, I won't blame you."

As I walked toward the chicken coop, the chatter drifted up behind me.

"Isn't that big rooster of the Simmons' fierce as anything?"

"Sure is. Just a few days ago Darlene got pecked by it herself, scared her half to death."

"To kill this rooster today she even called in Grant Lawrence the hog butcher specially. Sending this girl to do it, isn't she deliberately making things hard for her?"

"Ugh, why do you care so much? Still, getting to watch a city miss kill a chicken today, now that's a rare sight."

They had no idea. The rarer sight was still to come.

Darlene said letting the blood out counts as killed, so today I'd let hers out properly.

I flipped the latch open with practiced ease, snatched up the rooster, and carried it over to Darlene like I was showing off.

"Auntie, look, I caught it!"

Darlene was stunned. "You caught it, just like that?"

Thanks to Darlene in my last life, I really did kill plenty of chickens after I married Xavier.

Darlene smoothed the hair at her forehead and gave me a sidelong look.

"Isn't that what work is. If you ask me you're just lazy, and it takes a"

"Aaah!"

Darlene never finished the sentence before she was screaming.

4: 4

4.

The big rooster in my hands got loose for a second and jumped straight onto Darlene's head.

Then it dropped a runny yellow load of foul-smelling droppings that slid right down from the top of her head onto her face.

It was so disgusting she looked like a woman gone mad, some kind of shrieking ghost.

The people who'd just been crowding around her scattered, several of them gagging.

"I've seen a chicken drop its load before, but on someone's head? First time. That is just too gross."

"If you ask me, Darlene brought it on herself. Who tells a girl visiting for the first time to go slaughter a chicken?"

"And the very chicken that pecked her a few days ago, no less. Serves her right!"

Darlene frantically tried to shoo the rooster off, but the terrified bird raked several deep gashes across her face and still refused to come down.

She was screaming her head off, and Xavier just stood there gaping, forgetting to move at all.

Only when she was crying like a lunatic did I finally react and pull the rooster off her.

Her face had gone red, whether from shame or fury I couldn't tell. Probably both.

She wanted to curse at me, but the sight of the rooster clucking in my hands shut her mouth.

She whipped around and yelled at Xavier instead. "What kind of trash did you bring home? Nothing but trouble for me."

Xavier snapped to and immediately turned on me. "Ebony, are you doing this to my mother on purpose?"

I put on a wounded look. "But didn't you tell me to slaughter the chicken, ma'am?"

He was about to say more when the rooster flew straight at him and dropped another load right onto his white shirt.

Xavier nearly gagged from his own stench, forgot all about scolding me, and rushed off to change.

Darlene was beside herself. "Ebony, are you a curse sent to ruin this family?"

She'd finally caught on, and she'd guessed right too. Too bad it was too late. This was only the beginning.

I was busy chasing the rooster all over the place and pretended not to hear her cursing at me.

I even promised her,

"Don't worry, ma'am, I'll do as you say. I'll have the chicken killed in no time."

So I chased the big rooster around the yard on purpose, and plenty of guests got caught in the crossfire.

Kids were scared into crying and begging to go home, and quite a few people actually did leave.

I knocked over a good number of bowls and chopsticks too, and tipped over a lot of the dishes meant for today.

In no time at all, my chicken-chasing left the whole place in ruins.

Darlene forgot all about cursing me and just kept begging me to stop, saying she couldn't afford the damage.

Xavier, freshly changed, told me to knock it off too.

I turned a deaf ear, determined to prove myself. "No. This chicken did so many bad things. I am killing it today no matter what."

The more I said it, the more worked up I got, swinging the knife everywhere, until I hacked apart the new table Darlene had bought specially for the feast.

She watched with her heart breaking, too pained even to go change her clothes, and hurried over to stop me.

I looked at her and shook my head. "No. This chicken is too awful. Look what it did to you. I can't let it off."

Darlene felt like her chest was about to seize up.

Right at that moment, the rooster stopped in front of me.

I brought the blade down in a straight line, right along Darlene's belly.

Clang. The rooster's head hit the ground.

I grinned, fishing for praise. "I killed the chicken. See, I told you I could do it."

I looked up just in time to see the chicken's blood spray straight into Darlene's face.

"Ouch! "

The shock nearly turned her insides out, and in the end she just fainted dead away.

Xavier panicked and wanted to rush her to the hospital.

"No need," I said. "I've got a way."

The next moment, when everyone saw what I was holding in my hand, they were all stunned...