Chapter 4

Everyone in the room froze.

My mother recovered first, rushing to the door to block me.

"You're giving up your family? Pearl Henson, do you even hear yourself?"

"I carried you nine months, I raised you, and now, over a little money, you want to cut us off?"

I stopped walking.

"It isn't about the money."

"You stopped treating me like family the day you packed fake funeral money into my dowry chest."

My father pointed at me, his hand shaking.

"You just try walking out that door! Don't you ever set foot in my house again!"

Once, that kind of thing would have scared me.

Scared that I'd really become the ungrateful daughter everyone whispered about, that on every holiday everyone else would have a home to go back to while I stood outside the gate.

But now I looked at this courtyard plastered with wedding characters and felt nothing but a stranger's distance.

I was the bride, and in this place there wasn't one warm meal for me, not one person willing to stand in front of me.

Seeing that I wouldn't speak, my mother softened her voice again.

"Pearl, that was just anger talking."

"The money's spent, it's spent. We'll have your brother pay you back, little by little."

"Just get married today first. Don't give people something to laugh at, all right?"

She reached out to take my hand.

I stepped back.

Her hand hung there in the air.

Then Michael dropped to his knees.

Not to me.

He knelt in front of my mother, sobbing, snot and tears everywhere.

"Mom, I was wrong. I won't buy the apartment."

"Sis, don't do this. I swear I'll pay you back someday."

Stella's face changed. She yanked at him and couldn't budge him.

The relatives around us started murmuring.

"Fake funeral money in a dowry chest, that's just vicious."

"No wonder her in-laws won't come in."

The words cut at my mother until her face went ashen, and suddenly she lunged over and threw her arms around my legs.

"Pearl, I'm begging you."

"If you leave today, your brother's marriage is finished, and this family is finished in this town."

It was the first time she'd ever begged me.

But she wasn't begging me not to hurt.

She was begging me to keep covering up their shame.

I pried her fingers loose, one at a time.

"Don't worry, Mom."

"Starting today, you'll never need me to hold up this family's face again."

I walked to the offering table and picked up the wedding gift ledger.

The groom's bride price, the dowry cash, the wedding envelopes, all of it written out, entry by entry.

Every recipient's name was my mother's.

I handed the ledger to my mother-in-law.

"Mom, Brandon and I will get this money back."

"I don't want to cancel today's wedding over them."

"But I'm not walking out the door of this house."

Jeanette took the ledger.

"Good."

"We'll come collect you from the hotel."

I went back to my room, took off the veil, and changed into a pair of flats.

The stylist asked quietly, "Pearl, do you want your makeup touched up?"

I looked at myself in the mirror.

My eyes were red, my lipstick smudged.

But somehow it sat easier with me than the bride from this morning, the one forcing a smile.

"No touch-up."

"Just like this."

I picked up the new red chest my mother-in-law had brought and headed out.

Brian blocked the doorway, his voice gone rough.

"Pearl, you really don't want us anymore?"

I looked at him.

"Brian, you're not my parents' knife."

"But a moment ago, when you grabbed me, you sure looked like one."

The color drained from his face.

No one stopped me again.

The courtyard gate opened, and the sun outside was blinding.

The Sawyer family's car was parked at the mouth of the alley.

Brandon stood beside it, a fresh bouquet in his hand, holding it out to me.

I put my hand in his palm.

Behind me, my mother cried out my name.

Each cry more frantic than the last.

I didn't look back.

The moment the car door shut, my phone buzzed.

In the family group chat, my father had sent one line.

"Pearl Henson, walk out today and you never come back."

I stared at that line and calmly tapped leave chat.

The car pulled out of Willow Lane.

The red lanterns, the ash from the firecrackers, the people who'd come to gawk, all of it fell away behind us, little by little.

I had no family home anymore.