2: 2
A confused look crossed Anne's face.
"Bill, there's nothing I can do. Maybe... maybe you should just listen to my mom..." She looked at me, her eyes swimming with tears, the same way she'd looked at me the countless times before when she'd pushed me to give in.
But this time, I didn't want to give in.
"Annie." My voice came out dry. "You're always like this. There's nothing you can do. But just because you can't do anything, does that mean you have to put my whole family in this position?"
My mother let out a scornful little laugh at that and started to say something, but my father held her back.
The truth was, my mother had never much liked Anne. It wasn't that she looked down on her for coming from a single-parent home. It was that Anne was always so soft and helpless, with no mind of her own, and my mother worried I'd have a hard life because of it.
I'd spent a long time talking my mother around before she reluctantly agreed to Anne and me.
"Bill, I'll support any decision you make. But marriage isn't just about two people. It's about two families." When she saw I was set on marrying Anne, my mother asked me, "If someday you and Sophie have a falling-out, and Anne takes her mother's side, what will you do then?"
What had I said back then?
I couldn't remember.
But now, here I was, caught in exactly that kind of impossible spot.
Anne was still pressing me. "Just do what my mom says. Our relatives and friends are almost here. If they see all this, won't it make things awful for me and my mom?"
She was right. My parents had told the relatives too. My aunt had just texted to say she was already on her way.
Seeing me hesitate, Sophie raised her voice at me. "Hurry up and bow! The guru said it won't work once noon passes! If your family doesn't kneel and bow today, you'll have three years of bloody disaster, and our Annie will suffer right along with you!"
Talk like that, on a day meant to be happy. My mother's face went dark, and she couldn't hold it in any longer. "Are you cursing us, in-law? What bloody disaster? On a good day like this, you come out with talk like that!"
My father frowned too, his voice low. "You're Anne's mother, so we didn't want to say anything harsh. But this is going too far. Their engagement is a happy occasion. What's the meaning of carrying on like this?"
Sophie rolled her eyes the moment she heard it, planted both hands on her hips, and started yelling right at my parents. "What do you two know? I'm doing this for Anne and Bill's sake! Why can't you understand that?"
The more she talked, the more worked up she got, until spit was practically flying onto my father's face.
If they wanted to make things hard for me, I could take it. I'm a man, after all.
But making things hard for my parents crossed a line I wouldn't allow.
Because whether it was my parents or Anne, they were the people who mattered most to me.
I looked down at Anne. "Do you think this too?"
She took my hand. "Bill, just bow to my dad, and then we can get engaged nice and smoothly, all right?"
"Annie, you know as well as I do that this puts us in an impossible position." I pulled my hand out of hers and took out my phone. "I'm calling the relatives right now. The engagement is off."
