The Notorious Wicked Woman Who Fights the Wicked Mother-in-Law

Back in elementary school, a boy set my hair on fire when I wasn't looking. My parents went to have words with his family, and they said kids don't know any better.

So that same day I set the boy's hair on fire, and the next day I found my chance and set his little sister's hair on fire too. When his family came to our door to have it out, my dad said kids don't know any better.

In middle school, a classmate accused me of stealing his eraser, so I had my dad buy a few thousand erasers, and I handed them out at the school gate. Every single student got one.

And the classmate who'd framed me transferred out after that.

In college, after a party, a boy in my class walked me home.

Later, when this boy confessed to me and I turned him down, he started spreading a filthy rumor around campus, saying he'd slept with me that night.

So I took my recording to the police, and after that this boy never showed his face on campus again.

And I became the poster child for being sharp-tongued, mean, and someone who never let a slight go unanswered.

Over time, I had no friends left, and no boy ever chased after me.

I'd already made my peace with growing old alone. And then, right around then, my current husband, Dustin Lambert, came into the picture.

Dustin was my coworker. Like me, he was past thirty and unmarried. The difference was that Dustin had two exes.

Both of those relationships had gotten to the point of talking marriage, and both had ended in a breakup.

According to Dustin, his mother was an extremely domineering woman, and both of his exes had broken up with him because they couldn't stand his family.

Dustin figured that marrying me would be a case of fighting poison with poison.

I agreed without a second thought.

That same day, Dustin took me home to meet his parents.

We got to Dustin's front door and it was shut tight. He knocked for a good while before a woman in her fifties, well-preserved for her age, opened it.

Dustin had shown me a photo of his mother. The woman in front of me was my mother-in-law, Ethel Chavez.

Ethel looked me up and down, like she was inspecting a piece of merchandise.

"Come in."

Her voice was ice-cold, her nose in the air, her eyes practically up on her forehead.

Dustin led me into the living room. Ethel sat down on the sofa, but she didn't offer me or Dustin a seat.

And Dustin's father, Phineas Lambert, lay on the sofa reading his paper. He didn't so much as glance at us.

Five minutes went by, and Dustin and I were still standing there while Ethel had already picked up a cup of tea and started sipping it.

I knew this was Ethel putting me in my place.

I just pulled Dustin down onto the sofa with me. The second she saw it, Ethel jabbed a finger at me and said loudly, "No manners at all. Did I tell you to sit?"

Sitting on the sofa, I said, unhurried, "May I ask what you mean by manners? A guest comes to your home, you won't let them sit, you won't pour them any water. Now that's a household with real manners."

Ethel visibly froze, as if it had never crossed her mind that I wouldn't give her the slightest bit of face.

"Youyou dare say I have no manners? Youyou're the younger one here, and you don't know your place at all..."

I looked at Ethel up there on her high horse and didn't give her an inch.

"You're the one who insisted on bringing up manners. I'm just filling you in on what the most basic manners are. Back in preschool, my teacher taught me that when a guest comes to your home, you invite them to sit. Don't tell me you never had a teacher teach you that?"

Seeing Ethel about to blow up, I went on, "Oh, that's right, I remember now. Dustin tells me you're a university professor, no less."

"Youyou're my daughter-in-law, that doesn't make you a guest."

"Well, if I'm your daughter-in-law, then I've come home to my own house, haven't I? I sit down when I feel like it. That doesn't seem to have anything to do with manners, does it?"

Ethel's high-and-mighty face went a deep, blotchy red the moment I finished with her.

Sensing she couldn't handle me directly, she swung her aim at Dustin.

"Dustin, this is the fine wife you brought home? Let me tell you, we do not approve of this marriage."

"Mom, Amy and I already signed the papers. We're legally married now."

Ethel clearly froze for a beat, and Phineas, who'd been reading his newspaper, set it aside.

At last they were actually sizing me up, their new daughter-in-law.

"No. A woman who dares to talk back to her elders is not someone this family will take."

Watching Ethel bear down like that, I finally understood why Dustin's last two girlfriends had both been pushed into breaking up with him.

"Does it matter whether you'll take me? We're legally married now. If you've got it in you, make your son divorce me."

Ethel's eyes shot straight to Dustin.

"Dustin, you take me down to the county clerk's office right now and get the divorce filed."

Dustin's fists clenched in anger, but the second he met his mother's dark, sullen face, all the fight went out of him like air from a deflated ball, and he took a fearful step back.

"Fine, Dustin. So your wings have hardened, have they? You won't even listen to me now. Just you wait."

With that, Ethel pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

"Get back here, sweetie. Your brother brought home some wife, and she's got the nerve to talk back to me."

She hung up and made another call.

"Gwyneth Lambert, honey, come home quick. Dustin brought a wife home, and she dares to talk back to me."

Two calls done, Ethel stretched out on the sofa, crossed her legs, and settled in with the look of someone who had me right where she wanted me.

I stretched out on the sofa too, crossed my legs, glanced at Dustin beside me, and said flatly, "Go downstairs and buy me a bubble tea."

Dustin heard it and went straight for the door, only for Ethel to call him back.

"Dustin, are you even a man? She says jump and you jump? Doesn't she have her own legs?"

Seeing Dustin's feet stop, I shot him a hard look.

"Dustin, if you don't go today, I'm divorcing you on the spot."

Dustin didn't say a word after that. He walked out the door, and let Ethel curse and threaten at his back without paying it any mind.

In the end all Ethel could do was point that finger back at me.

"Amy, let me tell you something. Now that you've come through the Lambert family door, you'll follow the Lambert family rules."

"Didn't you just say the Lambert family wouldn't dare take a daughter-in-law like me?"

I cut a glance at her and kept going. "Ms. Chavez, tell me, which of those lines is the true one and which is the false one? Or is it because you're a university professor, so talking to you is like a reading-comprehension test, and you're the only one who gets to decide what it all means?"

"Heh heh"

Phineas couldn't hold it in and let out a laugh, only to get stared right back into silence by one look from Ethel.

Just then came a knock at the door.

The first through it were a couple in their thirties.

They were Dustin's older brother, Bernard Lambert, and his wife, Edith Finch, both senior managers at their company, dressed in business suits, carrying the air of executives even here at home.

Behind them followed a woman of about thirty as well. Dustin had shown me her photo too, his older sister, Gwyneth, a high school teacher with a natural sternness to her face.

Now I got it, why Dustin had no say at all in this house. Because he was just an ordinary employee.

Dustin jogged the last few steps, pressed the bubble tea into my hand, then pulled me to my feet to make the introductions.

"Amy, this is my big brother and his wife, and this is my sister."

I'd barely started to greet them when Bernard waved a hand and said, "Dustin, marriage is one of the biggest things in life. Don't you think this was awfully rushed?"

Bernard turned his eyes on me and pulled a document out of his briefcase.

"If you want to marry into the Lambert family, there are rules you have to follow. Everything this family has built, it built on these rules."

Then he simply started reading the thing out loud.

"Rule number one. Your parents' word is law. It is never to be defied."

When he finished, Bernard shot me a look. "You already broke rule one. Your very first day in this house and you're talking back to my mother."

Ethel jumped in right away. "Exactly. This Amy has no manners at all. I say one thing and she fires back three."

The whole family sat there staring at me.

I picked up the document and said, in no hurry at all, "Actually, I think I fit rule one just fine."

"Fit it how? You talk back to my mother and you still have the nerve to call yourself dutiful?"

"Of course I'm good to my parents. I never talk back to my mother. But Ethel here is your mother, not mine."

I turned to look at Ethel.

"Have I ever eaten a single meal in this house? Did you ever raise me?"

"You married Dustin, so from now on you do as I say. That's the rule in the Lambert family."

Gwyneth, the older sister, was right there to pile on.

"That's right. A mother-in-law is a mother too. You don't even understand that much?"

I ignored the whole lot of them and fixed my eyes on Bernard's wife, Edith.

"Edith, you married into the Lamberts too. Have you followed all these rules?"

Edith clearly hadn't expected me to speak to her. She cleared her throat and said, "Naturally. I've always done exactly as Mom says."

Bernard cut in coldly from the side. "You think everyone's as ill-bred as you, talking back to my mother her first day in the house?"

"Right. The manners in the Lambert family are a cut above what you'd find in ordinary homes."

I looked at the whole aggressive lot of them and turned to Ethel without a moment's hesitation. "Well, since your daughter-in-law says she never talks back to you, why don't you prove it to me?"

At my words the Lamberts all looked over, Bernard especially, his brow knotting tight, as if he could sense something bad was coming.

But there was no backing down now. If they backed down, everything they'd just said would be worth nothing.

"Of course. Edith is a daughter-in-law of the Lambert family, and she's always done as I say. Whatever I tell her to do, she does."

"Is that so? Then if you told her to eat dirt, would she eat it?"

The living room went dead quiet. The Lamberts all sat there with their eyes bulging at me, and even Dustin was yanking hard on my arm.

Ethel pointed at me, her finger shaking.

"YouyouDustin, look at what you've dragged home. Is there a shred of decency in this? She's nothing but a foul-mouthed shrew."

Bernard was furious too. "To say something that disgusting out loud. She really has no upbringing at all."

Faced with the whole Lambert clan hurling accusations at me, I kept my grip tight on the one point that mattered.

"Isn't that what you all said? That Edith is the Lambert family's daughter-in-law, and she does whatever she's told? Eating a mouthful of dirt won't cost her a pound of flesh, so surely she can manage a little thing like that?"

"Ugh"

Edith clapped a hand over her mouth and bolted for the bathroom to throw up.

"Get out of my house right now. The Lambert family has no daughter-in-law like you."

I picked up my bag and turned to leave.

At the door I looked back at Ethel and said mildly, "Professor Chavez, next time you brag, maybe work out your story a little better first."

"You"

Ethel jabbed a finger at me, and came up with nothing. In the end she took it out on Dustin.

"Dustin, you go to the study right now and copy out the old family code of conduct a hundred times. You don't eat until you're finished."

Dustin glanced nervously at Ethel, then at me, misery all over his face.

I looked at him with a faint smile on my lips.

Some things nobody else can do for you. If you can't walk out of it yourself, then you deserve to spend your whole life under someone's thumb.

Something seemed to firm up in Dustin when he saw my smile. He strode over to my side, took my hand, and walked out the front door with me.

"Dustin, you dare disobey me? Just wait. See how I deal with you."

Once we were outside, we got in the car. I drove, Dustin sat in the passenger seat, his face uneasy.

"Amy, do you think we went a little too far today? My mom's always been domineering. She lost face this time because of you, and there's no telling how she'll get back at us."

I kept driving, and answered without any hurry, "So you think I should have just let your mom push me around today, done whatever she told me to?"

"II didn't mean that."

"I know you didn't mean that, and I know what you're thinking. If you want to give in, you can go back right now and apologize to your mom, promise to do whatever she says from now on."

Dustin heard that and his hands clenched into fists. "Not this time. Not anymore."

"As long as you can hold the line, that's fine by me. Your mom wants to push me around? No chance."

Before I could even finish, Dustin's phone rang.

He put it on speaker, and Bernard's voice came through at once.

"Dustin, you gave Mom such a scare her blood pressure spiked. She's in the hospital now. Get down here and look after her immediately."

Pure command in Bernard's tone. He hung up before Dustin could get a word in.

Dustin looked at me, worried. "Amy, my mom's in the hospital. Shouldn't we go over there now?"

"Of course we're going to the hospital. But once we're there, you do as I say."

"Okay. Whatever you say."

"Then your job is this. From the moment we walk into that hospital, you record every conversation with your mom. Every word, every move."

"Okay. I promise."

Dustin and I got to the hospital. Ethel was lying in the bed scrolling on her phone, not looking the least bit sick.

The moment she saw us come in, she started up in that snide tone. "Well, well, and who might these two be? Isn't that my most unfilial son and that woman with no manners?"

That set the patients in the beds nearby all turning to look.

Dustin's face went red. I didn't care about any of that. I said it straight out. "Professor Chavez, you have two sons and a daughter. You get sick, and the first ones to come to the hospital and take care of you are your most unfilial son and this woman with no manners."