My Brother-in-Law Habitually Stole From Me, Even the Poisonous Fish

Ever since I married Polly Barnes, her younger brother made a habit of dropping by to help himself to whatever he wanted from my home.

In half a month, he came ten times.

Every time he took what he pleased without a shred of guilt, and the total came to more than two hundred thousand dollars.

With the household budget stretched to breaking, I couldn't hold it in any longer. I went to where Samuel worked and asked him, to his face, to stop.

I never expected him to spit at me in front of everyone, his mouth full of filth.

"Eric Graves, what kind of man are you? You can't see past the smallest thing. How are you ever going to make my sister happy?"

My wife stood there with her head down and said nothing.

I swallowed the humiliation and turned to leave.

A week later, I was promoted to Head of Surgery, and I threw a banquet for all my friends and relatives.

During it, Samuel took the fish out of the foam cooler beside me and cooked it up himself.

What he didn't know was that the fish was a tiger pufferfish, and it was deadly poisonous.

...

Samuel Barnes spat in my face, and the air around us froze in an instant. You could have heard a pin drop.

Everyone stood there sizing me up, settling in for a show.

And yet my wife, Polly Barnes, kept her head down and said nothing, as if none of it had anything to do with her.

I lifted my eyes to the pair of them, brother and sister, and couldn't help thinking they really were cut from the same cloth.

Behind me, Samuel wasn't finished. "My sister let you sleep with her for five years, and you nickel-and-dime us over a few things we take. I really don't know what she ever saw in you."

I didn't answer.

On the way home, I bought a bottle of water at a convenience store, poured it over my face, and scrubbed hard.

Just then a text came in: my promotion to Head of Surgery.

Inside me, a vast net began to take shape.

My eyes went steady as I pulled out my phone and sent two messages.

"Melvin Greer, order me a tiger pufferfish."

"And book the whole Fresh Breeze Grand for a full day."

Only when the reply came back did I feel the weight lift off my chest.

At the entryway, I heard my mother-in-law's complaints rising and falling.

"Polly, I'm not just running my mouth, but you really need to have a serious talk with Eric."

"How could he dress Samuel down in public today like that, making him lose face?"

"We're all family. Why be so petty? It's not like it's anything big."

Samuel was right there beside her, pouring fuel on the fire. "Sis, your taste is genuinely terrible. How did you end up settling for a hopeless case like him? After all these years, he's still just an ordinary resident."

Polly said, worn down, "I don't have a job, after all. The bills are mostly on him."

My mother-in-law's face soured instantly.

"So what if you don't have a job?"

"What capable man doesn't provide for his wife, spoil his wife? A man who lets his wife worry about money is just useless."

"And so what if Samuel borrows a few things from you two? That's all it is, borrowing. Once he makes it big, he'll pay you back."

"If the marriage works, stay in it. If it doesn't, get out. With my daughter's looks, the next man will be ten thousand times better than Eric Graves."

Polly didn't dare cross her mother, and answered under her breath, "I understand."

The words had barely left her mouth when I pushed the door open.

They shot me resentful looks. I ignored them.

I walked straight to the bedroom, dragged out my suitcase, and started packing my clothes.

Polly looked puzzled, and demanded, "What exactly do you think you're doing?"

I snapped the suitcase shut, stared at her, and said coldly, "There's been a serious traffic accident in Millbrook recently. The hospital is short on medical staff. I'm going to stay at the hospital so I can be on call around the clock."

Polly took out her phone, found no trace of the accident I'd described, and said furiously, "Eric Graves, so this is the pathetic excuse you're using to run away from this family."

"My brother does some things wrong, sure, but you're his brother-in-law. You should show him a little more patience."

"And my mother isn't wrong either. If you had even a shred of ability, I wouldn't be caught in the middle like this."

My fist tightened, just slightly.

Then I lifted my eyes, face blank, and said calmly, "Say whatever you want."

With that, I pulled up the handle and walked toward the entryway.

Behind me, Polly caught up and grabbed my hand. Before she could get a word out, her mother cut in. "Polly, let go of him."

"This isn't a house he can walk out of and walk back into whenever he pleases. If he leaves, he doesn't come back."

Samuel stood off to the side, stirring the pot. "Sis, a man like this needs a lesson before it'll sink in. With his little salary, he can't do a thing. Give it a week and he'll come crawling back."

My mother-in-law's and Samuel's jeers echoed in my head as I stepped firmly out the front door.

And then I moved into the hospital staff housing.

I lay on the bed, feeling a satisfaction I'd never known before.

A ping. I quickly checked my phone, and when I saw the message, the corner of my mouth curved into a smile.

Monday, the moment I reached the hospital entrance, the warm congratulations started pouring in.

I answered every one of them like it was nothing.

I'd packed my schedule until there wasn't a gap in it, running the same two points over and over, hospital to staff housing and back, so I'd have no time to think about anything else.

Samuel Barnes, who loved nothing more than making himself the center of attention in front of me, had stopped coming around to cause trouble.

Polly, who used to like showing up at the hospital to walk me home, stopped coming too.

But now and then a message from her would land on my phone.

"Eric Graves, even being angry has a limit."

"You still can't see what you did wrong."

"Fine, keep hiding like this if you can. We'll stay at a standoff for the rest of our lives."

I deleted them without a word and pretended I'd never seen them.

The next day, I'd just stepped out of the operating room when I ran straight into Samuel.

He was dressed head to toe in labels, the chain at his waist catching the sunlight and gleaming, his hair styled just so, and none of it could hide the cheapness bred into his bones.

My mother-in-law and Polly came close on his heels.

My mother-in-law took my hand, all warmth and eagerness.

"My good son-in-law, you've been promoted to Head of Surgery. Why didn't you tell your family the good news right away? Keeping even us in the dark, honestly."

"News this good has to reach every relative in the family. Listen to me and let's throw a proper celebration."

"Let everyone get a look at the fine son-in-law of the Barnes family."

The way my mother-in-law could flip her face faster than turning a page left me stunned all over again.

But what she wanted happened to be exactly what I wanted.

I lowered my eyes and played along. "Whatever you say."

My manner had them all nodding, satisfied.

The banquet would be held at the Fresh Breeze Grand, with Polly sending the invitations out to friends and relatives.

The moment the crowd walked into the Fresh Breeze Grand, every eye was drawn to the lavish, finely appointed hall.

Samuel called over a staff member and ordered off the menu from on high, like he was the host of the whole thing.

"Bring your most expensive drinks and dishes to every table, one of each."

"Giant deep-sea conch, seafood bisque, duck slow-braised with rare herbs and ginseng, braised premium shark-fin soup, all of that. The rest is up to you. For drinks, wine."

I shot a look at Melvin Greer, who was posing as a staff member, and he caught my meaning at once and laid a document down in front of Samuel.

"This is the itemized bill for what you've ordered today. Would you mind signing it and adding a fingerprint?"

Samuel had a flicker of hesitation, but the crowd's cheering swept his sense of direction away.

He signed his name with a flourish.

They gathered around him, laughing, and in the laughter there was pretense, there was envy, there was indifference.

As if he were the star of this banquet.

But it didn't matter. Soon enough he wouldn't be laughing anymore.

I set the tiger pufferfish I'd paid a fortune for off to one side.

Samuel noticed and asked, curious,

"Eric, what've you got in that foam box?"

I kept my answer vague on purpose.

"Just a fish."

The Fresh Breeze Grand belonged to Melvin Greer's family. Watching Samuel sit there with everyone fussing over him, I felt the corner of my mouth pull into a mocking smile.

I walked into the back kitchen like I owned the place and gave the staff my instructions.

"Everything in the Fresh Breeze Grand today goes on Samuel Barnes's tab. The customer is king, so every dish he orders uses the most expensive ingredients."

"Put them on every table. Don't hold back on anything."

The head chef leaned in close to my ear and warned me carefully,

"Mr. Graves, a spread this big, can the people out there actually cover it?"

The corner of my mouth ticked up.

"What the customer wants isn't ours to decide."

"All we can do is give the customer what he asks for."

Seeing how firm I was, the head chef threw himself into the work and started arranging the food and drinks.

I leaned against the wall of the back kitchen. The washing, the chopping, the searing in the wok, none of it grated on me. If anything, it settled something in me.

Little by little the kitchen filled with the rich smell of cooking.

Samuel had the look of a man without a care in the world. He'd tipped his chair back with his feet up on the table, idly fiddling with his phone, when he suddenly bellowed,

"Why isn't the food out yet? You people are unbelievably slow."

Not long after, the staff brought the dishes out in a neat procession.

"Giant deep-sea conch, seafood bisque, duck slow-braised with rare herbs and ginseng, braised premium shark-fin soup, each one plated with an eye-catching flair, a pleasure just to look at."

Brandy and fine wine were carried up from the cellar and set out at every table to breathe.

Looking at the costly dishes and drinks on the table, Samuel's freeloader friends gaped and cried out,

"Getting to eat a full-blown gourmet feast like this in my life, I owe it all to Samuel."

"A spread like this, there's no amount of envy that could get you here."

"That settles it, from now on I'm rolling with Samuel."

The Barnes relatives chimed in from the side, faces wreathed in smiles.

"Eating at a grand banquet like this, and Samuel still thought to invite us. He really is such a good, devoted boy."

"Not like that Barnes son-in-law, Eric Graves. We just wanted him to bump us up the line at the hospital, and he came up with every excuse to put us off."

"At the end of the day he doesn't carry the Barnes name. A big-shot doctor like him, why would he ever think much of poor relatives like us."

The one talking was Polly's cousin-aunt. Back then her son had only scraped a bit of skin off, yet she'd screamed for emergency treatment when there were patients ahead of him who needed surgery.

The hospital ran on triage. There was no way they'd jump her son up the line over a scratch that small.

Hearing himself praised by being measured against me, Samuel doubled over with delight. He raised his glass and launched into a grand speech.

"Thank you all, family and friends, for thinking so highly of me. Everyone eat as much as you want, do whatever makes you happy."

"As the host, I should do my duty by you all. Everything spent today is on me."

The words were barely out before the room broke into loud applause.

Everyone lifted their glasses to toast Samuel.

"To today's host, may everything go your way, may fortune pour in, may luck shine on you."

Amid all the flattery, Samuel steadily lost himself.

He stood on the platform and made his grand pledge.

"From now on, if anyone in your family comes down with an ache or a fever, just come to my brother-in-law. For my sake, he won't charge you a cent."

The words had barely landed before the whistles rolled up one after another from below.

"Samuel, you're a legend!"

"A generous guy like Samuel, that's who I respect."

Samuel's face swelled with pride at the praise.

While everyone was busy chewing through the food, he came over to where I stood and taunted me,

"Your own celebration dinner turned into my stage. Doesn't sit too well with you, does it?"

"I just love the look on your face when I've got you pinned under my foot and there's nothing you can do about it."

The old me would have bristled at a line like that from Samuel.

Now, thinking it over, what about him was worth getting angry about.

I didn't even lift my head. My voice stayed flat.

"Whatever makes you happy."

Seeing how calm I was, Samuel's face darkened, his eyes full of displeasure.

Then his gaze dropped to the watch on my wrist, and a nasty smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"So the new Head of Surgery has money to burn. Nice watch you bought yourself."

"Good watch. Give it to me."

Then, in a tone like an order, he said to me,

"Take it off. It's mine now."

I calmly slid the watch off and handed it over.

He studied it for a while, still not satisfied, and called a staff member over.

"Bring me your VIP menu. I want to add more dishes."

The staff member flattered him as he passed Samuel the menu.

Samuel went straight for the priciest items, his voice easy.

"A bowl of aged fish-maw soup for everyone."

"One steamed wild grouper each."

"Bring out all the broth-stuffed yellow croaker you've got."

He finished ordering, satisfied, then threw a taunt my way.

"The invite's in my name, but you're the one paying."

"Doesn't that hurt?"

I took an unhurried spoonful of the seafood bisque, then wiped my mouth.

"Whoever ends up paying is the one who'll be hurting."

Samuel figured I was just talking tough, and his eyes went to the foam cooler beside me.

"There's a big foam cooler over here. Let's see what's inside."

I deliberately stepped in front of him to block his view.

"Samuel, that's not something you should touch."

The way I blocked him only made him more curious. He signaled two of his friends, and they pinned me off to the side.

With everyone watching, he pulled the lid off the cooler.

Inside was a fish, gray-brown with irregular dark markings and a pure white belly.

Someone gasped and suggested,

"That fish has a pretty unusual look. It should taste amazing."

"Why not have the chef stew it up?"

Hearing this, Polly walked over to Samuel and quietly warned him,

"Samuel, there's already so much food, plenty for everyone. Stop ruining your brother-in-law's fish."

Samuel raised an eyebrow at me and gave a scornful snort.

"This is nothing. Me taking a little of his stuff is me doing him a favor. Sis, stay out of it. I'm just curing him of that penny-pinching attitude."

The mother-in-law jumped in too, all arrogance.

"I say Samuel's doing the right thing."

"You can't just keep coddling this man, or he'll walk all over you. He made Head of Surgery and didn't even tell us. Does he still see us as family at all?"

Polly looked at me, opened her mouth, and in the end said nothing.

The mother-in-law and Samuel shot me a smug, taunting smile, triumph all over their faces.

I acted like nothing was wrong and kept sipping my soup.

Someone suggested, practically drooling,

"So how do we cook this fish?"

"Shouldn't we leave it to the head chef?"

Samuel's eyes darted around, and I knew he was cooking up something rotten. Sure enough, he volunteered on the spot.

"I'll cook this fish. Let everyone taste what I can do."

Hearing that, I smiled to myself. Exactly what I wanted.

Behind this fish's pectoral fin was a large black spot rimmed with a pale outline. Anyone who knew fish would recognize it as a tiger pufferfish, one that had to be handled by someone holding a professional chef's certification.

The others went back to their seats. Samuel shooed off all the chefs and went in to prepare the fish himself.

Soon the staff carried out the dishes Samuel had newly ordered, plate after plate.

And the tiger pufferfish Samuel had prepared and cooked himself was set on the table along with them.

Watching this, the friends and relatives in the room started praising Samuel all over again.

"Never knew Samuel was this generous. And he can cook, too, no trouble at all."

Samuel didn't bother with modesty.

"It's nothing. Anytime you want more, just come find me."

I looked at the fish on the table, its liver and intestines still inside, the very parts loaded with deadly poison. They were in for it soon enough.

I hadn't touched a single bite of that pufferfish. I waited until they'd all eaten their fill, a smile playing at my lips.

Samuel patted his belly, let out a burp, and said with all his usual bluster,

"Eric Graves, don't forget to pay for this meal."

The words landed, and the whole group, just about to move their legs, suddenly didn't dare take a step.

Because Melvin Greer had come in with a group of bodyguards and blocked their way out.

"You'd be the first person to try dining and dashing at my Fresh Breeze Grand."