Three Years After Daughter's Death, Ex Brings Look-Alike Forcing Marriage

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The third year after my daughter's death, her fiancé Edward Gilbert showed up at my door with a stand-in on his arm.

"Mom, tell Yvette James that if she still won't show her face, I really am going to marry someone else."

The stand-in clung to his arm, and everything about her, the way she spoke, the small unconscious gestures.

All of it matched my daughter exactly.

Three years ago, Edward called off the wedding an eighth time for the sake of his gravely ill first love.

After my daughter died, he went half-mad hunting everywhere for a stand-in, playing the part of a devoted man.

He thought Yvette had gone into hiding.

That this would force her out.

I looked at the stand-in, and the stand-in looked at me.

We traded a single, knowing glance.

Edward, oh, Edward.

You don't actually believe there are two people in this world who could coincidentally look alike, share the same temperament, and match down to every last word and gesture, do you?

"All right."

I smiled and took the invitation he handed me.

"On the day of the engagement party, I'll make sure Yvette comes in person."

"And when she does, we'll have a big gift for the two of you."

...

"Mom, I'll give her three more days. That's the last of it."

Edward watched me accept the engagement invitation and simply assumed I had already given in.

He straightened his cuffs from on high, his tone one of charity.

"As long as Yvette is willing to show up before the engagement party and admit she was wrong to me, the place of Mrs. Gilbert is still hers."

He paused, a flicker of impatience crossing his eyes.

"Mom, you talk some sense into her too."

"Playing dead to get back at me, this little scheme of hers is too childish."

"These three years I've spent finding stand-ins were just to ease how much I missed her. There has to be a limit to throwing a tantrum."

Pain?

I dug my nails into my palm, the only thing that kept me from smashing his head open.

How much pain?

Could it ever come close to my daughter's?

Three years ago, that foolish girl of mine was carrying his child, five months along, when she became the whole city's laughingstock at an engagement party with no groom for the eighth time.

After calling Edward more than a dozen times with no answer, the fury and grief overwhelmed her, and she hemorrhaged on the spot.

During that whole entanglement with Edward, she'd already been carrying too much worry, and her body was in a bad way.

The moment she reached the hospital, the doctors issued a critical condition notice.

The baby was too far along.

It lodged inside her body and simply would not come out, and the bleeding never stopped.

Blood soaked through the white sheets, wave after wave.

All I could do was stand outside the operating room and listen to my daughter clutch her belly, screaming and wailing in agony.

"Mom, it hurts so much! Save me!"

"I can't hold on... Mom! It hurts... it hurts so much!"

"Where is Edward? Where is he?!"

In the end, her blood ran dry, and so did her strength.

That face, once so full of life and always smiling, went paper-white and empty.

Her unfocused eyes stared at the ceiling as she mouthed her last words to me.

"Mom, I was wrong... I regret it..."

"I'm sorry, Mom... I've been an unworthy daughter..."

When she finished, she closed her eyes and never woke again.

That day, my tears flowed with my daughter's blood for three hours.

Then they ran completely dry.

And now the man who killed my daughter was standing here, talking to me about how much he'd suffered missing her?

I forced down the urge to tear him apart a thousand times over and said nothing.

The stand-in beside him, the one called Vivien Swanson, produced a perfectly measured look of grievance.

She gave Edward's sleeve a light tug, then looked at me with a provoking gaze.

"Ma'am, please don't be angry with Mr. Gilbert."

"If Yvette really does come back, I'll leave right away. I would never come between them."

"Mr. Gilbert loves Yvette so much. How could I ever compare to her?"

Her words made Edward frown.

On the surface he scolded Vivien, telling her not to talk nonsense in front of an elder.

But a hidden trace of self-satisfaction flickered in his eyes.

He turned and spoke to me in a tone that thought it understood everything.

"Mom, if Yvette finds out Vivien came today, she'll definitely make a scene again. Don't let her know."

"She's the jealous type. So easily wounded."

I looked at him, and the corner of my mouth curved into a smile.

"Don't worry. She won't find out."

The dead don't get jealous, do they?