Chapter 3

The blow left my head ringing, blood filling my mouth, my cheek throbbing.

I'd been cherished my whole life, held in the palm of someone's hand, and I had never been humiliated like this. For a moment I couldn't take it in.

But something like it had happened once before, back when I got married.

To be with the man who was now my husband, I gave up everything and walked away from my own family, and I put on my wedding dress with a full and happy heart.

Then I got to the reception hall and found out the day was being shared with the younger brother, and the brother's wife was even wearing a gown just like mine. Mine was the real thing. His was a knockoff.

The moment my mother-in-law saw it, she rushed over, grabbed at my dress, and demanded to know what was going on. I had to change into something else.

The brother's wife was unhappy, so my mother-in-law actually told me to give my dress to her and to wear her own old wedding gown from years ago for my ceremony.

I burst into tears right then, wronged beyond words.

"Do you want to embarrass your husband's brother and his bride like this? Be good and just change."

My father-in-law backed her up too, while my husband stood there dumbly to the side, watching his parents with a coward's face, not daring to say a single word for me.

"As the eldest brother's wife, this is exactly how you should be. Help the younger ones more."

My husband soothed me softly, and back then I believed that if I was good enough, did enough, helped every single one of them, they would surely see how good I was.

So after that I worked myself to the bone, earned everything I could, gave them whatever they asked for, all for one word of praise as a good eldest brother's wife.

Later I got pregnant, and I went to find my mother-in-law with my heart full of joy, telling her happily that she was going to be a grandmother.

Who knew she would raise her hand and slap me: "How do you have the nerve to smile! You know perfectly well your brother's wife can't have children! You got pregnant on purpose, didn't you, just to spite her?"

My tears fell in an instant. Why couldn't I have what she couldn't? Why did the brother and his wife get every ounce of my mother-in-law's favor?

I was an only child. I didn't understand this kind of bias, and I cried myself sick at home.

Then the youngest son called me to come eat, saying my mother-in-law wanted to apologize, and because a thread of hope still hung in me, I went out with him. But he pushed me down the stairs, and my baby was gone on the spot.

In my ears was the younger brother's devilish laughter.

When I got pregnant again, I never told my husband's family, not until the child was born. Only then did they see my son.

The pain in my face was still sharp now, and it seemed to overlap with that pain from years ago, growing worse.

The mother-in-law in front of me was still screaming and thrashing, calling me cold-blooded, cursing me for insisting on settling accounts with my own family, for tossing them money like charity and now wanting it back.

"Susan James, don't you forget! My son gave up his chance to go abroad to help you! And this is how you repay our family!"

"My son chose economics for your sake. Otherwise he'd have had a far better future!"

The color drained from my face at once, and my mind went straight to what had happened all those years ago. Back then I was in a car accident and couldn't manage many things on my own, and my husband gave up his spot to study abroad and devoted himself to getting me through recovery.

In those days he never complained of the hardship or the exhaustion. He said as long as I got better, he'd do anything.

Back then, one word from me and he would go all over to find whatever good food I was craving, then bring it to me as fast as he could.

Back then I swore to myself that I would be good to him, good to his family, that I would repay them well.

But I did all of this, so why was it still my fault? All I wanted was for things to be fair.