"You apologize to Gwendolen right now and sit down for the reception like a decent person. If you actually dare walk out of this hall, then I no longer have a mother!"
I stopped, but I didn't turn around. I simply said one cold word, "Fine," and walked straight out.
After I left, the wedding went on as planned. The only difference was that the people who'd come to give their blessings had turned into people watching a spectacle. Before the reception even ended, what had happened was already common knowledge.
Everyone knew.
They all knew that Gwendolen had refused to call her mother-in-law "Mom" at the wedding, that she'd sneered and demanded her mother-in-law treat her like a stranger, and that she'd ended up making her mother-in-law so angry she walked out on the spot.
Gwendolen felt too humiliated to show her face. She didn't even go on the honeymoon they'd booked, hiding at home and crying for days.
Which had Karl beside himself, fretting over her.
He had no choice. He had to forget every word he'd said at the reception and slap his own face, texting me.
"Gwendolen and I only get married once in our lives. You ruined the wedding. Are you going to ruin our marriage too?"
"Hurry up and buy Gwendolen some gifts and apologize properly, or I really will disown you."
After Karl sent those two messages,
he followed up with a long list, including designer handbags, shoes, some gold jewelry, and skincare and cosmetics.
I didn't reply.
But I did buy everything on the list. Just not for Gwendolen. For myself. And I didn't just use it all, I made a point of posting about it on social media.
【Spending money on myself just feels so good!】
The second that post went up, Karl and Gwendolen completely lost it. This time they didn't text me. Instead they copied me and put up their own post taking veiled shots at me.
Saying I'd lost my mind.
Too bad their post landed without a ripple, and it didn't scare me one bit.
When that didn't work on me, they started a group chat, and in front of a whole crowd of relatives and friends, dropped a statement severing family ties right there in the group.
The relatives and friends all knew what had happened.
But in the spirit of family harmony making everything prosper, of urging people to make up rather than break apart, they still told Karl and Gwendolen not to be rash, and told me to give my child another chance.
I just took a screenshot and saved the statement Karl and Gwendolen had posted severing ties.
Then, copying the way Gwendolen used to reply to my messages, I sent back a "1" and left the group chat right away.
Less than a minute after I left the group, Karl's call came through.
"What's that supposed to mean, what you posted in the group?"
I gave a little laugh.
"Whenever I used to text Gwendolen, she'd always reply with a '1.' I asked you about it once, and you said it meant she'd already seen it. So why are you asking me now?"
Karl was nearly apoplectic.
"How is it you pick up the bad habits and never the good ones? This is a serious matter. How could you just reply with a '1'? That's so disrespectful."
"Gwendolen's crying her eyes out."
I, on the other hand, found it deeply satisfying.
"So it turns out you all know perfectly well that replying with a '1' is brushing someone off, that it's disrespectful, that it's something worth getting angry about."
"And here I thought you didn't know. Here I thought I was overthinking it. Here I thought it was a perfectly proper reply."
"But either way, as long as you understand what it means, that's enough."
Karl went mute.
Only then did it occur to him that throughout his years of dating Gwendolen, she'd been brushing me off this exact same way the whole time. At most I'd simply learned by example, paid them back in their own coin.
Seeing that Karl had gone quiet, I grew impatient and moved to hang up.
That got him panicking.
Through the phone came the sound of a door opening and closing. I figured he'd slipped out to the balcony.
