Every one of these things, Rhys had told me himself.
My heart ached for the way his family ground him down, and because I'd fallen for him I started looking after him on my own, until one thing led to another and we ended up together.
I had carried his suffering in my heart all along. Yet he himself had forgotten it.
I thought saying all this would shake Rhys back to his senses.
I never expected him to suddenly fly into a rage.
"You don't need to drive a wedge between me and my family! Marrying you doesn't mean I have to cut ties with them!"
"My brother's grades were bad, but he really did skip school on purpose for my sake! Saying he wanted the money for a computer was just so I wouldn't feel guilty! I was the one who misjudged him back then."
"It's my own fault the betrothal gift was so small, but you have no right to slander my family!"
Rhys and Tracey Fox stood off to one side, as if I were the one tearing this family apart.
The sweetness of being newlyweds had shattered completely. Even with my eyes stinging, I didn't back down.
"Fine. The hardship you went through was a misunderstanding, the wrongs you suffered were a misunderstanding. But the car is part of my dowry, and that is no misunderstanding!"
When we got married, Rhys said his family had no money for a house, and he wouldn't agree to let my parents pay for one either.
To spare his pride, I took only an $18,000 betrothal gift just to go through the motions, and after the wedding I moved out here with him to this run-down house in the distant suburbs.
His workplace was only a ten-minute commute away, but it took me a solid hour-plus to get back to my own company!
My parents were furious that I'd insisted on marrying Rhys, who was so far beneath us.
But they still couldn't bear to see me suffer, so they quietly bought me the car I loved most as a dowry gift.
Who would have thought that I registered the title yesterday, and today Tracey listed it on a used-car site.
I used to think it was enough that Rhys and I loved each other. Now I could see.
My parents were right. Rhys's heart was never in this little home of ours at all!
"What do you mean, your dowry? You married Rhys, so what's yours belongs to the Gilberts. I'm carrying a Gilbert child in my belly, and selling the car to raise the baby is only right and proper!"
Tracey turned to Rhys and goaded him.
"Your wife clearly doesn't think of herself as a Gilbert. Drawing such hard lines, isn't she?"
"Your brother's dead, and you're just going to stand there and watch your wife bully his widow?"
Brenda Abbott, fresh from her evening dance class, heard the shouting and immediately took their side.
"What's all this yelling, all this commotion!"
She shot a glare at Rhys. "You call yourself a man? You just stand there and let your wife throw a fit? Married barely a minute and you can't even keep your own woman in line! You spineless good-for-nothing!"
When she looked at me, Brenda smiled and asked, "Sweetheart, what is all this fuss about? Your sister-in-law's pregnant. What could be so important that you have to upset her?"
"If something's really not to your liking, you can have a proper talk after she's had the baby. Carrying on like this, if you upset her into a miscarriage, that'd be a sin on your head!"
At that, Tracey instantly clutched her belly, her face twisting in pain.
"Ow, my stomach hurts so much—"
Brenda steadied Tracey and frantically ordered Rhys around. "Hurry up and get your sister-in-law to the hospital! Are you just going to stand there and watch your brother's last bloodline slip away?!"
The three of them made to rush off.
I let out a sharp shout. "Until the car is settled, nobody is leaving!"
Tracey, who'd been playing weak a second ago, turned vicious in a heartbeat and pinned the blame on me.
"I've already gone into distress and you still won't let me go to the hospital! You shameless, poisonous woman, are you trying to kill me!"
Listening to her interrogate me with a voice full of strength, I let out a cold laugh and shot back, "Distressed enough to plant your hands on your hips and curse at me? Then you must be in pretty good shape. The baby's made of iron, nothing's going to happen to it."
I walked to the door, locked it, and picked up my phone to call my parents.
