Something in me broke loose then, and I started to laugh, laughed until the tears ran down my face.
He still remembered people calling him a live-in son-in-law, a man with no backbone.
But how convenient that he'd forgotten the vows he swore when he was chasing me. He'd promised, over and over, that if he could only marry me, he'd gladly be my live-in husband in this life and the next, and he'd never let me suffer a single grievance.
He was the one who knelt in front of my parents and begged them to let me marry him.
He was the one, shameless, who said his family was poor and got my parents to buy him a big flat in a downtown building for our wedding home.
He was the one who thumped his chest and swore to my parents that he'd treat me well after the marriage, that he'd be a devoted son to them, that he'd care for them into old age and see them off at the end.
Back when his hand was out for my family's money and connections, devotion and duty were always on his lips.
Now my parents had traveled a thousand miles to celebrate his mother's birthday, taken every insult thrown at them, and he, for the sake of so-called face, was protecting his little childhood sweetheart and turning it back on my parents, calling them flashy and extravagant, calling us people who blew everything out of proportion.
I lifted a hand and wiped away the tears, looked straight at Russ, and said, steady,
"Fine. I'll give you your face."
I left the rest of it unsaid. If you're willing to give me up for the sake of face, then we're finished.
Russ saw the words and a huge grin spread across his face at once. He pulled me into his arms.
"Philippa, I knew you were the most gracious of anyone. I didn't misjudge you."
Not far off, a jealous, resentful stare was fixed on me. Rosalie watched me being held in Russ's arms, her face full of fury and grudging defeat.
Russ kept an arm around my shoulders and steered me back to the lively living room. The Abbott relatives stood around in twos and threes, laughing and chatting, everything warm and festive, which only made my parents look more out of place, wretched and ridiculous.
Just then Rosalie came hurrying over, dragging two sets of clothes.
I looked closer. Two sets of ragged, coarse country cloth, with a length of hemp rope for a belt. They looked like the mourning clothes people wore in the countryside for a funeral.
Rosalie put on a sweet, harmless smile.
"Uncle, Auntie, I was careless earlier, so I went and found you two clean outfits to make it up to you. Go on and change into them."
Before I could open my mouth to question it, Russ, at my side, nodded his approval right away, his voice full of doting favor for Rosalie.
"That's my Rosalie, always so thoughtful, always thinking of everything. Philippa, you should learn from her."
I stared at him, stunned. Was he blind? Could he really not see that the clothes Rosalie had brought my parents were mourning clothes, torn and old, reeking of mildew?
Seeing my parents' faces darken and the two of them go silent where they stood, Rosalie stepped up at once and started pushing my mother.
"Uncle, Auntie, hurry and change. The guests are all waiting. You can't go around in those rags and make Russ lose face."
My father's face turned to a black pool in an instant, anger in every line of it.
He was about to snap at them when two young men came forward too and shoved him toward the house.
"Uncle, Auntie's already changing. What are you waiting for?"
I moved to step in, and Russ locked his arm hard around my shoulders, pinning me against him, and murmured low in my ear,
"Philippa, your parents' clothes really are too showy. Rosalie's having them change into something more suitable is for their own good. You wouldn't want the relatives whispering that they stole my mother's thunder today, would you?"
Looking at how little any of it meant to him, I went cold to the bone.
My parents had spent half a month before this carefully choosing gifts and clothes to celebrate his mother's birthday.
My mother, wanting to fit in with local ways, had picked a plain-colored qipao on purpose, and she'd even chosen an expensive dress for Russ's mother and mailed it to her.
And now it was on the woman sitting in the seat of honor, pretending to be blind. His mother.
