3: 3
3
I had barely stepped down from the platform when my mother pushed through the crowd and grabbed my hand.
"Charles, what's going on?"
My parents were seated at the very edge of the ballroom, closest to the door.
At this wedding, they were the only two relatives on the groom's side.
The relatives back home had wanted to come, but Diana thought they didn't know how to behave and would embarrass the Chase family.
Rowena had said the same thing: "We can just throw a thank-you dinner out in your hometown later. Don't bring too many people."
So my parents had ridden coach for over ten hours, coming all this way alone to attend their son's wedding.
My mother's dress didn't fit right; she had taken in the waist herself, stitch by stitch.
The father-of-the-groom flower pinned to my father's chest had already been crushed out of shape, but he still couldn't bring himself to take it off.
Not until he saw Saul wearing the groom's tuxedo that had been tailored for me, with my ring on his finger.
My father walked up to Rowena.
"Have him take that ring off and apologize to my son."
Rowena's face went faintly cold.
"It's just a bet, sir."
"Saul is only finishing the ceremony in Charles's place. After it's over, Charles and I will still sign the papers."
My father stood frozen for a few seconds.
"You hold the wedding with him, and send my son off to sign the license?"
"Then what is my son to you?"
Rowena frowned.
"We've always played games like this. Charles never used to make a fuss about it."
My mother was shaking with anger.
"He doesn't make a fuss, so that means you get to keep walking all over him?"
In her agitation her accent thickened, and her voice climbed with it.
Diana's expression darkened at once.
"Keep your voice down, ma'am."
"This isn't some country market where you people go shouting."
"Everyone here today is a Chase family client. You screaming like this, are you trying to make us the joke of the room?"
Lowered voices murmured all around.
"Country folk. No manners at all."
My mother's face flushed red in an instant.
She had come to demand justice for her son, yet now she was tightening her fingers, flustered, her voice dropping.
"I'm not making a scene."
"I just ache for my son."
Something pressed down hard on my chest.
She had done nothing wrong, and still she was instinctively explaining herself to the people humiliating her.
Rowena cut in, impatient.
"The wedding today goes to Saul first."
"Next month I'll come out to your hometown and hold a thank-you dinner."
"All your relatives out there can come to that. That's already more than enough face for Charles."
My father slowly lifted his head.
"You give him this million-dollar wedding."
"And then throw a few tables of cheap liquor out in the country and call it settled for my son?"
Rowena's face turned ugly.
"I already agreed to hold the second one. What more do you want?"
Only then did Saul, in the groom's tuxedo, come over and plant himself cozily in front of my mother.
"Ma'am, does it really matter where the wedding's held?"
"It wasn't easy for you and your husband to travel all this way."
He pointed toward the wedding favors in the corner.
"Grab a few extra boxes of the candy on your way out, hand them around to the neighbors. Then at least the trip won't be wasted."
My mother snatched her hand back as if she'd been burned.
My father ripped the red flower off his chest and slammed it down on the table.
"Yes, my family is poor."
"But we're not so poor that we'd trade our son's wedding for a few boxes of candy!"
The smile faded from Saul's face.
"Sir, I meant well."
Without a second thought, Rowena stepped between my father and Saul, blocking his line of sight.
"Enough."
"Saul has thought of everything for you people. Don't be ungrateful."
My father looked at her steadily.
"Back then you swore to us, right to our faces, that you would treat Charles well for the rest of his life."
Rowena looked away from him.
My father didn't ask again.
He didn't try to comfort me either. He only clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, and all at once his voice sounded far older.
"Charles, I misjudged him."
"We're not going through with this wedding. Your mother and I are taking you home."
My throat worked, and I nodded hard.
A whole hall of guests, all of them pressuring me to swallow it.
Only my parents, humiliated until they couldn't lift their heads, were still standing in front of me.
I took off the groom's flower on my chest and put an arm around each of them.
"Okay."
"Let's go home."
Behind me, Rowena suddenly let out a cold laugh.
"Since he insists on leaving, let's make another bet."
Saul perked up at once.
"I bet Charles won't last three days before he comes crawling back with his mom and dad to apologize."
Rowena watched my retreating back, her tone certain.
"It won't take three days."
"By this afternoon he'll cave and beg me to go sign the papers with him."
Saul asked with a grin, "So what are the stakes?"
"If he hasn't apologized to me by the end of today, the wedding house on the South Side is yours."
"Deal."
The two of them laughed behind me.
Even now, they were still treating whether I stayed or left as one laughable little bet.
I didn't look back.
As we walked out of the hotel, my father asked, careful and quiet:
"Charles, you're really not going to regret this?"
I glanced at the welcome board, where Rowena's and Saul's names stood side by side.
Then I gripped my parents' hands tight.
"The only thing I regret is that it took me until today to see them clearly."
