The Rusted Wedding Ring Meets the Rainy Season Again

1: 1

Half an hour before the month-old celebration, my husband suddenly stripped away every decoration that had my daughter's name on it.

He lit a cigarette and explained, My brother passed while Bonnie was still carrying Hunter Abbott. Hunter's already a year old and he's never had a party.

The baby just turned a month old. She won't remember any of it. Let's turn this into Hunter's first-birthday party instead.

I went cold all over.

My phone was still lit up. My parents, all the way out in the country, had texted to say they were almost downstairs.

Now the month-old celebration had become my nephew's first birthday. How was I supposed to explain that to them?

Seeing me frozen, Nathan Winfield spoke up.

"You gave way once already. Giving way one more time is no big deal, is it?"

A year ago, at our wedding, all it took was Bonnie saying she envied my ceremony, and Nathan handed her my wedding dress on the spot.

He coaxed me then.

"My brother went so fast, Bonnie never even got a proper wedding. He and I were twins. Think of it as granting a widow's wish. Be understanding."

Back then my parents were far away, and I'd just found out I was pregnant.

I didn't want them to worry, so I could only stand there and watch my widowed sister-in-law and my husband go through a wedding ceremony.

Now the gold bracelet and the safety lock I'd prepared for my daughter were both on my nephew instead.

My nails dug hard into my palms.

The wedding ceremony went to the widow. The baby's party went to the widow.

Then this family might as well go to the widow too.

The emcee was still running through a nervous rehearsal.

Nathan's decision had come so late that the whole team was in chaos.

Bonnie Rowe sat dead center, holding Hunter, watching the crowd rushing around for her, a smile in her eyes.

The banner with my daughter's name on it lay under her feet like trash.

I drew a deep breath, pulled the banner out, wiped off the black shoe prints, and put it in my bag.

"I'm going down to meet my parents."

Before I'd finished, the emcee reached out and stopped me.

Her tone was unpleasant. "For the first-birthday party later, we're short someone to clear the floor after the confetti cannons."

A broom was already shoved into my hands. She went on, "You sweep up after that, then leave right away."

I looked at the broom and, for some reason, laughed. "You want me to do the cleaning?"

"That was my idea."

Nathan came over at the sound of it.

He'd changed into the suit custom-made for the baby's month-old celebration, and it made him look sharp and polished.

Catching my eyes on him, Nathan gave a soft laugh. "In a bit I'll go up on stage, standing in for my brother as Hunter's father."

"It's a first-birthday party, after all. A child can't be without a dad."

"So this time, bear with it and handle the backstage work."

"I'll make it up to you next time. I promise."

I'll make it up to you next time.

Since I'd married into the Winfield family, I'd heard that line more times than I could count.

You cook this New Year's Eve, I'll make it up to you next time.

You were away on business when we took the family photo, so you're not in it, I'll make it up to you next time.

Bonnie's baby is too little and you're pregnant, so we won't visit your family this Spring Festival, I'll make it up to you next time.

But next time was always followed by another next time.

The day that promise came due never arrived.

The emcee came hurrying back, flustered. "Mr. Winfield, Ms. Rowe just said she wants her parents at the head table, so Ms. Fox's parents"

Her eyes darted between me and the widow, full of unease.

"Put Bonnie's parents at the head table."

Ignoring the disappointment in my eyes, Nathan went on, "Lois Fox, there's an empty corner over near the storage room."

"Have your parents sit there."

"It's Hunter's first-birthday party, after all. There's no reason for your parents to be at the head table."

2: 2

My head was so numb it throbbed, my tongue stuck at the back of my throat, and it took a long time before I found my voice again.

"Nathan, forget for a moment that this was supposed to be the baby's month-old celebration. Since the wedding, this is the first time you're meeting my parents."

"They're well past sixty. They sat on a train for four hours to get here, and you seat them next to the storage room?"

Nathan sighed. He tucked my hair behind my ear and put on a helpless look.

"Your parents came all this way just to see you."

"What difference does it make where they sit?"

"Besides, didn't you say they've never once left that little town?"

"At their age, getting to see a big city at all is an honor for them."

My face must have looked bad enough, because Nathan added another line.

"I'm not looking down on them. When the baby turns one, I'll book a nicer hall, get your parents the top-tier flights and hotel. That works, doesn't it?"

Listening to Nathan hand out charity to my parents, my chest went tight, and the whole scene felt like something I'd lived through before.

When we married, we'd talked over the bride price.

Nathan glanced at the slight swell of my belly and rested his hand there, light.

"After the baby's born there'll be plenty of places we need money."

"Let's keep the bride price small. Ten thousand is enough for your parents to farm the land for years."

"When it's busy in the fields, I'll go over and help out. After all, they've basically gained a son."

I had only ever said my parents lived in the countryside. I had never mentioned what they did.

I told myself the misunderstanding would clear up the moment Nathan came home with me even once.

But every time I asked to visit my family, Nathan found a way to put it off.

Either the company wouldn't give him leave, or he wasn't cut out for rural life.

At first I genuinely believed those excuses.

If I hadn't seen him willing to forfeit his whole perfect-attendance bonus just to take his widowed sister-in-law's father in for a follow-up exam.

If I hadn't seen him break out in a rash all over from an allergy and still go to the farm resort with his sister-in-law and Hunter.

Maybe I really would have believed every excuse he gave me.

"His sister-in-law has it hard enough raising Hunter alone."

"You're a woman too. You of all people should understand how exhausting it is."

That one line, you're a woman too, cut me off every time.

Whenever I brought up how he favored her, he'd put on that here-we-go-again face.

Bonnie has it hard.

So when a light bulb went out at her place, Nathan made a special trip to drive over and fix it for them.

And when the baby spiked a high fever in the middle of the night, all I could do was flag a cab in the rain on the street.

By the time I reached the hospital my underclothes were soaked through, and I was sick for a month afterward.

So she never had to lift a finger with the cooking, the cleaning, any of it.

Every matter in this house, big or small, the first call always came to me.

His younger sister took a fall, and I had to nurse her at her side.

His great-uncle went out of town, and I walked the little dog left at his house every day.

Even pregnant, I did the cooking and the laundry, all because his sister-in-law said she was allergic to detergent.

Years of swallowed grievance clogged my throat until my eyes went red.

"Where's the baby's father?"

The emcee asked into the microphone.

"That's me."

Nathan straightened his boutonniere and was about to step forward when my voice cut him off.

"If you really mean to take my late brother-in-law's place at Hunter's first-birthday party."

"Then we get divorced."

By the last two words, my voice was shaking.

Nathan turned back, his face already gone dark.

"Divorce?"

He lifted his eyes, and the moment he saw my hands trembling exactly as he'd hoped, he gave a contemptuous little laugh.

"Lois, you know better than anyone the pain of a broken home."

"I know you'd never let our baby go through that."

"There's a good girl. Don't throw a tantrum. I'm going to rehearse."

With that, he turned and walked toward the stage.

He didn't spare me another glance.

"Lo, where's the venue?"

The message came through from my parents.

I wiped the tears off my face. "Mom, Dad, don't come."

"The month-old celebration is canceled. And have the family lawyer draw up a contract."

"I'm divorcing Nathan."

3: 3

The phone went back into my pocket, and my fingertips were still trembling.

Nathan wasn't wrong. No one understood the misery of a broken home better than I did.

The first time Nathan and I met was at the diner where I worked over the summer.

He was one of the college kids who came around to hang out.

Little by little, we got to know each other.

Nathan used to ask me why I pushed myself so hard, why I was busy in that diner from morning till night.

I'd just wipe down the tables and smile, saying nothing.

Until the day my birth father cornered me in a back alley.

He still had a half-drunk bottle in his hand, staring at me through bleary eyes.

"Heard you've been working here."

"How much are they paying you? Hand it over."

"I don't have money for your drinking."

I clenched the loose bills in my hand.

Two months. Four thousand eight hundred dollars. Exactly one year's tuition.

He backed me into the corner, step by step, and I thought there was no way I'd get out of it without a beating.

But then Nathan showed up at the mouth of the alley.

He grabbed my hand and we ran for it, running until we'd left the man far behind.

Nathan looked at the cigarette burns on my arm without a word, and finally said, "Don't be scared. I'll protect you, I promise."

And he kept that promise.

As an upperclassman at the same school, Nathan got me a financial aid grant for low-income students.

He even partitioned off a small room in the place he rented, so I'd have somewhere to rest when I got back late from my part-time shifts.

Nathan was like a little boat in the sea of misery my life had been.

He finally brought some light into all that darkness.

After that, my mother remarried, and my stepfather is good to me now.

But those old days still hung over me like a nightmare.

Before I had the baby, I developed prenatal anxiety.

I was always insecure, afraid Nathan and I would fall apart, terrified my baby would end up walking the same road I had.

It was Nathan who reassured me, again and again, slowly smoothing every last bit of that fear away.

And now here he was, tearing that wound back open, bloody and raw, for another woman.

Trying to use my past to force me into giving in.

The air went thin.

My chest kept heaving, and instinct pulled me toward the balcony for some fresh air, but I overheard my mother-in-law and her friend talking.

"Up on that stage just now, your son and Bonnie really made a perfect pair."

"Of course they did. Childhood sweethearts, the real thing."

There was pride in my mother-in-law's voice. "You know, the two families originally arranged for Nathan and Bonnie to marry."

"Then out of nowhere this Lois Fox shows up. I disliked her the moment I laid eyes on her!"

"And now look, she's gone and had a girl on top of it. A waste of money."

"How could she ever compare to Bonnie!"

"Good thing she's so easy to fool. Back when we were buying her wedding jewelry, I made an offhand remark, told her the stone in her bracelet had richer color and better quality than Bonnie's."

"And Lois Fox believed it."

"Truth is, hers is just a knockoff."

"Nathan knows, of course. They grew up together, after all. Anything that's good for Bonnie, he's going to turn a blind eye to."

All at once the bracelet on my wrist clamped down like a handcuff, biting into me.

Back then Nathan and my mother-in-law kept telling me how precious that bracelet was.

I'd always thought it was proof that they valued me, that they cared for me.

That they cherished me, carefully, every moment.

I never imagined that in their eyes, it was proof of how easily I could be fooled.

A marriage this full of holes couldn't go back, no matter how good it had once been.

When I looked back, up on the stage, Bonnie was straightening Nathan's tie like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Hunter stood beside them, pointed at Nathan, and called out "Daddy," and everyone there burst out laughing.

Since this family already had a father and a mother.

Then it was time for me, the outsider, to bow out.

4: 4

The broom was shoved back into my hands.

The emcee didn't even look up. "The support staff have some initiative. Time to start sweeping up, I'd say."

Just yesterday she'd been calling me Ms. Fox with every other breath, telling me that choosing their hotel was the smartest decision I could have made.

Seems the hotel wasn't the only thing I got wrong.

Bonnie finished greeting the guests around her, all smiles, then saw the broom in my hands and her eyes crinkled with delight.

"Lois, you really shouldn't have worn that today."

"Who wears a formal dress to sweep floors? You'll change into something else in a bit."

"And I should pin a staff badge on you too, don't you think?"

She looked at my blank face and waved a hand. "This is exactly your problem. Not a shred of humor in you."

"Nathan already told me. We're leaving ten minutes for you to celebrate the baby's month milestone."

"And that's time I squeezed out purely for Nathan's sake."

"So you'd better make it count."

She pointed at the confetti scattered on the floor. "Can't even do one small job properly. There's still trash right here."

"Sweep it up, quick!"

From the day I married into the Winfield family, they'd picked at everything I did.

No sense of humor.

Couldn't cook.

Not gracious enough.

Couldn't read the room.

For a long time, I actually wondered whether I really was as useless as they said.

It's only now that I finally see it.

In this house, no one was ever on my side.

That's why every single thing I did could be picked apart.

"Family" always meant my mother-in-law, Nathan, and the widowed sister-in-law.

I was always the outsider.

And now even my baby was being made an outsider alongside me, his month-old celebration stolen right out from under us.

I didn't want my child growing up wronged the way I had, twisted out of shape in a family like this.

The moment I swept the confetti into the trash can, my head suddenly went clear.

I didn't want to live this life anymore.

The banquet was winding down. Before she went up onstage, Bonnie murmured, "Lois, everyone did come here for Hunter and me, after all."

"So just go up after I've finished speaking."

Nathan appeared behind me out of nowhere and wrapped his arms around me. "I already told Bonnie. She's leaving the last ten minutes for us."

"Stop being upset. Look how generous she's being."

I twisted my lips into something like a smile.

Her handing me ten minutes of the first-birthday party was generous.

Me giving up the entire month-old celebration, though, that was just taken for granted.

I looked around.

Almost everyone at this banquet was the widow's or Nathan's relatives and friends.

Two weeks ago, when we were drawing up the guest list, Nathan had used the excuse that my family found travel inconvenient to cut the fifty relatives we'd planned for down to just my parents, two people.

After that, I never asked about the list again.

Now I could see it clearly. This first-birthday party had been planned a long time ago.

"Lois."

Bonnie stood up onstage, looking down at me. "Come on up. Say whatever you'd like to say."

She still thought I'd cave like always, rush through a couple of sentences, then put down the mic and hand the room back to her and Nathan.

I took the mic, looked out at the crowd of relatives and friends below, and began.

"I'm so happy everyone could come to our first-birthday party today."

"They say good fortune comes in pairs."

"Besides Hunter's first birthday, there's one more piece of enormous good news."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nathan carrying the banner with our daughter's name, about to head up.

I snatched the banner away and pulled him to the center of the stage.

"And that news is this. Nathan and I have decided, today, to get a divorce."

"And he is about to marry his own widowed sister-in-law, Bonnie Rowe, in wedded bliss!"