Chapter 4

4: 4

4

Pansy's face went red, the vein at her temple jumping with every beat.

"You've lost your mind! Melvin, is this the fine wife you brought home?"

Melvin tugged at my sleeve, his voice all pleading.

"Tessie, sit down and talk."

I shook his hand off.

"I can say it just as well standing. Beryl knelt for three years, until her knees were ruined."

"This rule makes no sense. It's time it went."

Beryl kept her head down, shoveling rice, her chopsticks giving one small tremble.

My father-in-law, Maurice, opened his mouth as if to argue back.

But one look at my face and he thought better of it and shut it again.

"No sense?"

Pansy shot to her feet.

"What do you mean, no sense? In this house what I say goes, and that makes it sense!"

"Ask Beryl, ask your father, which of them didn't come up this way?"

Maurice set down his bowl, lowered his head, and said nothing.

I caught something flicker deep in his eyes, but he dropped his lids again just as fast.

"You knelt your way through it too, Mom?"

Maurice let out a sigh. "Ah."

"The homely bride's finally worn her way into being the mother-in-law. Tessie, just do as your mom says."

The resistance I'd felt before gave way, bit by bit, to a pang of pity.

I drew a deep breath and looked straight at Pansy.

"Mom, don't you love playing the cultured one?"

"Then surely you've heard the line the reformers wrote."

Pansy blinked.

"What line?"

"Just because it's always been so, does that make it right?"

I said it word by word, steady and firm.

"Maybe this backward custom passed for normal before, but now I, Tessa Langford, have married into this family."

"And I will never let a custom like this get passed down another day!"

Pansy slammed a hand flat on the table, the bowls and chopsticks jumping.

"Don't you stand there stirring up trouble!"

"Get one thing straight, I am your mother-in-law!"

"I'll ask you once: from now on, will you kneel to serve the meal or not? If you won't, then don't ever sit at this table again!"

"Then I won't sit at the table."

I stood up with a cold smile.

"Not only will I not sit at the table, I'll move out."

My family had long since set up a bridal villa for me.

I'd only come to stay a few days, and only to show respect to my in-laws.

Since they didn't care for that courtesy.

Then I couldn't be bothered to keep it up either.

I turned and headed for the door.

"Stop right there!"

I paid no attention, didn't so much as break stride.

At the kitchen doorway, I heard my mother-in-law behind me, breathing hard.

"The world's turned upside down. What kind of thing did we marry into this house?"

And my father-in-law, murmuring to soothe her: "Now, dear, don't get yourself worked up, you'll make yourself ill…"

Melvin hurried after me and caught me by the wrist.

"Tessie, is it worth falling out with my parents like this?"

"If you don't like it here, we'll move out."

"Out of sight, out of mind, all right?"

Looking at the plea on Melvin's face, something in me softened again.

At least there was one person here with sense, willing to stand on my side.

"Move out. Yes, we're going to move out."

"But not now."

Half my anger drained away in an instant.

"Melvin, since I've married into this family, that makes us all one family."

"Your mother is muddleheaded and a bully."

"Beryl has swallowed no small amount of grief in the years since she married in."

"And since we're all one family, there's no way I'm going to stand by and watch it happen."

Melvin's eyelid twitched, and he asked, testing the waters.

"Tessie, what are you going to do?"

I smiled.

"Nothing at all. I'm a new bride just married in, what could I possibly do?"

"You know me. Tessa Langford has always played by the rules."

Melvin took two wary steps back and looked up at me.

"Whenever you get that look and start saying you play by the rules."

"Somebody's guaranteed to end up in trouble."