On Memorial Day, I Dug Up My Child's Locket

For six years of marriage, my husband and I had always gone back to visit our own family graves separately.

This year I went to the cemetery in Louis's hometown, hoping to surprise him.

But after searching for a long while, all I found was a low grave mound with the name Lyons carved on it.

The people from the village told me.

"That's a Lyons child who died young a few years back. Poor little thing."

Louis had told me his elder brother's posthumous child was born on the very same day as my sononly one died young and the other was healthy and sturdy.

So every year he'd bring our son back to his hometown to visit the grave, to ease his brother's wife's grief over losing her daughter.

Looking at the low mound, I felt a tightness in my chest out of nowhere, so I simply hired someone to fix it up.

But one dig of the shovel turned up a baby's protective locket.

Exactly like the one I lost in the delivery room five years ago.

...

I froze for a moment, then instinctively picked it up.

I turned it over, and there were eight words carved on the back.

"Peace and smooth days, every blessing in full."

Even the strokes of the engraving were the same as the one Harry lost.

Back then, Louis had blamed himself for being careless, saying he must have lost it while showing the baby off to relatives.

Later, when his brother's wife heard about it, she added a thirty-gram gold locket, saying it was a gift for the child.

Reason told me this had nothing to do with me.

My Harry was clever and well-behaved. My parents said he'd inherited our Simmons genes, and they'd poured their hearts into raising him.

How could he not be my child?

But the locket seemed glued to my hand; I wanted to let it go and couldn't.

As if something had come over me, I sent a message to my dad.

"Dad, when you get a chance, could you pull the security footage from the maternity hospital the year Harry was born?"

"I found a baby's protective locket at the cemetery in Louis's hometown, exactly like the one you had blessed back then."

Right after I sent it, I heard Harry's affectionate voice behind me.

"Mommy, I want you to carry me."

I thought Harry had seen me, and my furrowed brows relaxed at once.

I really was foolishthinking, just because of a locket, that the Harry I'd raised with my own hands wasn't my own flesh and blood.

But when I turned to look, I saw him nestled in the arms of his brother's wife, Yvette James.

And standing beside them was my husband, Louis Lyons.

Yvette gave him a helpless smile.

"Look at our sonbig as he is, and still so clingy."

Louis's eyes were full of tenderness as he reached out and wrapped his arms around the two of them.

"A son takes after his father. I can't do without you either."

Since when could Louis not do without anyone?

In six years of marriage, he'd spent half his time at the company.

Under the fine excuse of easing my father's burden.

After I gave birth, whatever romance and sweetness we'd once had dissolved into thin air.

He could be hospitalized for a week with appendicitis without my knowing a thing.

When I was in a car accident, I couldn't get through to his phone no matter how I tried.

In his words, distance made the heart grow fonder.

Anything too passionate, anything he wasn't sure of, he'd never been able to hold onto.

He always asked me to give him a little more time.

I'd thought this Memorial Day visit to the family grave would be a good chance to break down the barrier in his heart.

Now it just seemed ridiculous.

He didn't bring me because he'd long since had someone else at his side.

Sure enough, someone spoke up.

"That young couple from the Lyons family is here. If you care about this grave, you can just ask them."

I stood frozen in the shade of the tree, cold washing over me in waves.

Couple?

"Aren't they in-lawsan uncle and his brother's widow?"

The man shoveled a cap of earth onto the grave.

"Seven years ago, yes. Then the eldest Lyons boy died in a car accident, and the two of them got together."

"I hear he's done real well for himselfruns a big company in the city, and once Memorial Day's over he's planning to move the whole family out there."

"Oh, rightdidn't you see their son? Fair-skinned and bright, a real city kid. When he turned one they threw dozens of parties, and I even walked off with a bag of celebration eggs..."

My ears were ringing, and the whole world spun.

On his first birthday, Louis really had brought the child back to the countryside.

If what they were saying was true.

If Harry was their child, then where was mine?

I thought of that low, run-down little grave, and my chest went so tight I couldn't breathe.

Impossibleabsolutely impossible!

I couldn't hold back any longer and rushed straight out to demand an answer.

"What do you mean, making my son call you 'Mom'?"

A flustered look crossed Yvette's face, and she instinctively glanced at Louis.

"Louis"

Louis hadn't expected me to come over. A flicker of panic crossed his handsome face, and he immediately put distance between himself and Yvette.

"Roberta, it's a misunderstanding. Calm down."

Only then did I realize my whole body had been shaking.

I looked at the man I had loved for six years, and tears rolled down my face before I could stop them.

"Yvette said Harry is your child."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Louis's mother hurried in to smooth things over.

"Listen to yourself. You're a daughter-in-law of the Lyons family, but haven't I always loved you like my own daughter?"

"Your sister-in-law lost her own baby so early that she can't help treating Harry as her own. That's all it wasa slip of the tongue."

The baby's protective locket dug into my palm, itching and aching.

I steadied my emotions and turned to Louis.

"Is what your mother said true?"

Louis pressed his lips together, his eyes evasive.

"Of course."

"Every year when she visits the grave, your sister-in-law thinks of the child she lost. I only had Harry call her Mom to comfort her."

Then he changed the subject.

"Weren't you going home to visit the family grave on Memorial Day? What are you doing here?"

Louis had a habit of instinctively changing the subject whenever he lied.

A chill went through me.

He really was lying to me.

So I simply went along with what he said.

"I keep having nightmares these last few days. I dream of a child with a face all bruised blue and purple, crying out 'Mom' at me. A master told me to come check your family cemetery, to see if there's something wrong with the feng shui."

The moment I said it, all three of their faces changed.

Louis's mother most of all.

She raised her voice.

"That's all feudal superstition! It must be that your father-in-law was upset you never came to visit the grave, so he sent you a dream to hurry you along!"

Her words plainly contradicted themselves.

One moment it was feudal superstition, the next it was a dream from the dead.

I didn't pick at it. I only looked at Louis and Yvette.

"I hear that when a child dies young, you're supposed to hold a memorial rite to help them pass on. Could it be that your sister-in-law never held the rite back then, and the childseeing how much you dote on Harrywas unhappy and came looking for me?"

Yvette clutched Harry tightly and shuddered all over.

"Yvette, what you're saying is too frightening."

"She was just a baby girl who died young. She didn't even have a name yet. How could she come back to cause trouble? You must have been too worn out lately."

Louis instinctively stepped in front of her, his eyes toward me faintly displeased.

"This is a modern society. Stop talking about all these spooky, scary thingsHarry is right here."

The next second, Harry threw his arms tightly around Yvette's neck.

He looked at me pitifully.

"Mom, I'm scared."

Louis's mother wiped the cold sweat from her brow and reached out to pull me along.

"Come on, no more of this frightening talk. Let me show you the graves. Six years married, and this is the first time you've come home to visit the family graveLouis always says you're too busy."

Rightsix years of marriage, and Louis always said he'd definitely take me to visit the family grave on Memorial Day next time.

Even when I made it clear how badly I wanted to go back to his hometown with him, he always found a hundred reasons to turn me down.

"The graves back home are all up in the hills. It rains every Memorial Day, so you'd have to slog through the mud, and there are outhouses all along the way. Could you really stand it?"

I thought about it, swallowed my disgust, and said I could.

Then he'd say:

"There's nothing back home. Mom's sentimental and won't tear down the old house. At night, rats run all over the ceiling. You're terrified of ratsyou definitely couldn't handle it."

As dumb as I was, even I knew he was turning me down on purpose.

Back then, I thought he was afraid to let me see how poor he'd been growing up.

But people from his village said he'd done very well for himself, that he'd rebuilt the family home into a three-story mansion.

There were no outhouses at all like he claimed; the house was full of smart toilets.

He'd even hired two women, one to cook and one to cleanso how could there be rats running around?

And Harry had known the real conditions back home all along, yet he still lied to me right alongside his father.

I took a step back, pulling away from my mother-in-law's grasping hand.

The anger I'd been holding down finally broke loose.

"What's going on with that couple!"

I pointed at the villager, my voice shaking with fury.

"Why do the people from your hometown say the two of you are husband and wife?"

"I'm the one who married you, aren't I!"

"Louis, just how much have you been hiding from me!"

Seeing that she couldn't keep a lid on things, Yvette dropped to her knees in front of me with a thud.

Her eyes were full of fragile, wounded innocence.

"This is all my fault."

"Roberta, you're a big-city woman. You don't understand how hard it is for us country women."

"After I was widowed, my own family wouldn't take me backthey wouldn't even leave me a burial plot. Louis only held a wedding banquet for me in the village because he was afraid people would bully me."

Still lying to me.

Looking at their whole family, for the first time I felt how utterly absurd this marriage was.

Harry suddenly lunged at me, hitting and clawing.

"You're a bad person!"

I caught his hand, and he snarled and bit down on me hard.

Blood ran down my wrist.

Yvette wiped at her tears, but the corners of her lips quietly curved up.

Louis yanked Harry away, frowning as he snapped at him.

"How could you go biting people!"

Yvette pulled the boy into her arms too, and apologized to me with a face full of remorse.

"Roberta, don't be angry. Harry just cares about me too much."

At a glance, they looked like the real family of three.

Looking at Harry's little face, so full of defiance, my heart ached like it was being stabbed.

The clothes on his bodyI'd compared every fabric myself.

The knitted bag hanging on him, I'd made after taking a tutorial apart and redoing it several times.

Yet those familiar featuresno matter how I looked at them now, they looked like Yvette.

I steadied my breathing and turned to Louis.

"Harry isn't my child, is he?"

"Give me back my child, and we'll get a divorce."

Louis's brow furrowed hard.

"Have you lost your mind? You believe every bit of gossip people throw at you?"

"Mom already explainedaround here it's the custom to call people uncle and aunt. Harry is just a little close to your brother's wife, so he calls her 'Mom,' that's all."

"She's a widow, with no one to lean on for the rest of her life. Harry's learned to protect her since he was little. What exactly did he do wrong?"

My mother-in-law chimed in beside me, trying to talk me down.

"Roberta, you've got a generous heartshow a little mercy to your poor sister-in-law."

"It's only in the village that Yvette counts as the second son's wife."

"There are several families in the village where one man carries on two branches of the family line, but I never once entertained that idea. When it comes down to it, you're the one I think of as my second son's wife."

I couldn't help letting out a cold laugh.

No matter what I said, they always had an excuse ready.

Even my mother-in-law, who'd been saying all the nice things, started losing patience.

"If it weren't for our Louis, how would your family's company be making that kind of money?"

"Six years of marriage, and I've never once seen you cook me a meal. Yvette is far more devoted than you."

"Don't make a fuss over a little thing like this. Isn't it a good thing to have one more person to love Harry? Clinging to that broken old graveit's nothing but bad luck."

When she finished, she shot Louis a reproachful look.

"Next time, just don't bring her along. Your mother's worn her lips out talking."

Louis pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated.

"Roberta, stop acting crazy."

I was shaking with rage, and I dialed the police right then and there.

"Fine, then let the police come."

"I'd love to see how the baby's protective locket I made for my child ended up in a graveyard hundreds of miles away!"

The instant she saw the locket in my hand, my mother-in-law's face went white.

The police arrived on the scene quickly.

But my mother-in-law flatly insisted I was crazy.

"She's a lunaticgrabbing my son and calling him her husband!"

Yvette was wiping away tears too.

"This woman has been going around the village asking questions, insisting I stole her husband."

I never imagined they could be this shameless.

Once I'd caught on, they first tried to cover it up, then begged, and finally turned it all around and blamed me!

I simply took out my marriage certificate.

"Officer, we are legally married."

"I suspect my husband colluded with his family to swap and kill my child, and I demand a DNA test on the deceased."

I thought one marriage certificate would be enough to shatter their lies.

But the officer slowly frowned.

"Ma'am, this marriage certificate of yours is fake."

"The official seal at the bottom is clearly wrong."

"That's impossible!"

I snatched the certificate back and looked at it over and over.

Yvette gave a gentle little smile and produced her own marriage certificate.

"Officer, this is our marriage certificate. It proves that everything we just said is true."

"The grave she's talking about belongs to my child, who died youngmine and my ex-husband's. Everyone in the village knows that."

I stared at the date on the certificate, completely stunned.

The registration date was seven years ago.

So back then they hadn't just thrown a wedding banquet.

"Louis, why?"

A buzzing filled my ears, and I was drowning in anger and confusion.

But Louis wouldn't even look at me. His voice was cold as ice.

"Officer, this person is mentally unstable. Nothing she says can be trusted."

"You can ask around. If we'd really been married for six years, how could the relatives back home not know her?"

Harry chimed in too.

"Officer, she's a bad woman."

Even though I'd already guessed Harry wasn't my own child.

Hearing those words come out of his mouth still chilled me to the bone.

Their whole family had been scheming against me from the moment we married.

The officer looked at me, his eyes serious.

"Do you have any real evidence?"

My mother-in-law cut in at once.

"What evidence? She's mentally ill!"

"She saw my son get promoted to company president, so she came playing crazy to suck up to him!"

No wonder Louis could frame me without a flicker of change on his face.

It turned out he figured he already controlled my father's company and no longer needed this fake, burdensome marriage.

Seeing I'd discovered the truth, he'd just decided to break what was already broken.

At that very moment, the roar of an engine came racing up from behind me.

My father's deep, steady voice came through.

"I have evidence."

When I turned and saw that familiar figure step out of the car, I couldn't hold back my tears any longer.

My mother pulled me into her arms and comforted me softly.

"It's all right. Mom and Dad are here now. No one can bully you."

Louis panicked and hurried forward to greet him.

"Chairman"

The word had barely left his mouth before a bodyguard blocked him off.

The secretary beside my father handed over a stack of documents.

I scanned the contents, and they were shocking.

It turned out Louis had done far more than this.