Chapter 3

Right—six 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 rats—you 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 clean—so 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 back—they 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 body—I'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 features—no 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 explained—around 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 heart—show 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 grave—it'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.