At Son's One-Month Feast Wife Barred My Parents; I Quit

2: 2 2. "Daughter-in-law, we know you city folks like things clean." "We all bathed and changed into fresh clothes before coming over today." "I promise you, these relatives are honest people. There's nothing wrong with any of them." My mother had on an old-fashioned jujube-red dress with a small floral print. It was the best thing in her closet. She never wore it, just opened the closet every few days to look at it. The last time she'd worn it was at my wedding. Bianca just stared at me, her face full of resentment, and said nothing. Ulysses shoved my mother aside. "Oh, please." "It's been all over the news. That hometown of yours is famous for being an STD village." "So poor they'll do anything." "Selling blood, selling their bodies, selling their kids. Even the three-year-olds are crawling with germs." My father couldn't hold his composure anymore. He rubbed his hands anxiously and looked at Bianca, at a loss. "That stuff online is all nonsense. Everyone back home is decent." "My wife and I both had to get health certificates for work in the city. We really aren't sick." Deborah rolled her eyes, her voice sharp as a knife, cutting our family's dignity full of holes. "You've got some nerve saying that!" "Last time Bianca stayed at your place, just one night, and she came back with diarrhea and vomiting and a week of fever!" "She said you don't even have running water. You still use a well. Who knows how much bacteria is in it." Ulysses's expression turned mocking. "That well's how many years old now." "Who knows who's been spitting or pissing into it. The whole thing's a petri dish. Bianca really got the short end marrying you." My mother fell silent. Trembling, she picked up the lancet and jabbed it at her finger. The first try didn't go through. She was like a child who'd done something wrong. She said to me quietly, "I know my daughter-in-law likes things clean, so I didn't use the well at home." "I went into town a day early to buy bottled water." "Carried it back on a forty-minute walk." I reached out to grab the lancet from her. "It's not your fault." "Bianca got the runs because she insisted on eating that raw marinated seafood Ulysses bought on the way home." "It has nothing to do with our family." Ulysses's face changed. "Cut the useless talk!" "Today is Bianca's son's one-month celebration. Everyone coming is somebody, important bosses and family. If they catch some disease from you people, can you take the blame for that?" I looked at Bianca, all ten fingers clenched into fists. "I'll only ask you one thing." "You're set on humiliating my family today, aren't you." Bianca pressed her lips together and said nothing. Ulysses lost his temper. "How can you talk to Bianca like that?" "She gave you a son. She's your family's biggest hero!" "Your whole family should be down on their knees thanking her!" I shoved him back. "I'm asking her, not you!" Bianca lifted her head, her eyes full of hurt and resentment. "Aren't I doing this for the baby too?" "He's only a month old, when his immune system is at its weakest. I can't gamble with my son's health." The words had barely left her mouth. My cousin pulled two thousand out of his coat and pressed it into my hand. "Here's the gift for the baby. We'll skip the meal." "Your family's food is too fine. I can't afford it." He set down the money and made to leave. His wife and my second uncle stopped him. Nobody said a word. They just looked at me in silence. Everyone was holding it in. They didn't want us to lose face. Then Deborah blew up. "What is this supposed to mean, from your family?" "My daughter carries on your family line, and this is how you bully her?" My mother's eyes went red. She snatched the lancet back from my hand. And drove it hard into her own hand and my father's, tearing open a gash in each. "It's a joyous day." "Let's not make things hard for Rod." "It's just one little prick. It's nothing." "We're country people. We don't fuss over things like that."

3: 3 3. My cousin, the one who was always the loudest and pushiest, said nothing. She just pulled out the test strips and ran them on my father and my mother. One line. Negative. No infectious disease. No virus. Ulysses gave her a look, motioning for her to set the strips down on the table. I snatched them up and clenched them in my fist. I stared coldly at Bianca. "So you're never going to stop, is that it?" My father, who had been silent the whole time, grabbed me from behind. His voice slipped into our hometown dialect in his panic. "You finally got yourself a wife, finally have a child." "She's still recovering from the birth. Let it go, for her sake!" "If you turn on them now, you're saying I'm no father of yours!" Deborah didn't understand a word. She clicked her tongue. She turned to Bianca and said, "From now on you keep an eye on Rod. He's not to speak dialect in front of the child." "It's so backwoods. The kid picks it up and gets laughed at." My phone buzzed with a message. Linda had sent over a full year of my salary records. At the end she'd added one line. "Rod, if you ever get divorced, think about me." Four years of college, three years of work. Seven years as good partners. We'd never once crossed the line. When I was hospitalized with pneumonia, Bianca wouldn't come see me, afraid she'd catch it. Linda brought me meals for a week. Ulysses looked pleased with himself. From behind his back he produced a big bottle of disinfectant. He pressed the nozzle once, and a sharp, stinging smell filled the air. "On top of the STDs and the AIDS, we've got to kill off the bacteria you people carry too." Deborah nodded along beside him. "Rod, I've seen the videos online." "Out in the countryside where you're from, people don't wash their hands before eating." "Wash your face and your feet in the same basin." "Some of them have foot fungus growing on their hands." Bianca looked up at me. She reached out and took Deborah's arm. "That's enough." Not a rebuttal. Not an apology. Just a light, careless that's enough. Ulysses aimed the disinfectant at my father and gave it two sprays. The liquid dripped into my father's eye, stinging so badly it broke him out in a cold sweat. It rolled down his cheek, leaving his neck raw and red. My father said nothing. He raised his sleeve and wiped his face. Covering the corner of his tightly clenched mouth. When he was young he'd spent fifteen years breaking his back on construction sites. He'd put me through college on money he'd bled for. Never once said a word about how hard it was. Years under the sun had given him a skin condition, so even water hurt his skin. He wouldn't spend on a single bottle of water for himself, yet for my wedding he'd handed over two hundred thousand in bride price. I lunged forward and wrenched the disinfectant away from him. Just as I drew back my fist to bring it down, my mother caught hold of my sleeve. "Son, we've got all these relatives here." "How are we supposed to go on living after this?" She couldn't bear to lose her grandson. Couldn't bear to see me lose the life I'd finally built, rooting myself in the big city and taking a wife. Guests around the hotel hall were already craning their necks to watch the show. That only fired Ulysses up. He shouted at the top of his lungs, "Isn't Bianca doing all this for the child?" "You bunch of dirt-poor farmers, it took your ancestors' graves smoking with luck to land a girl like her." "Nobody's even giving you a hard time here." "We just want to kill off the viruses and bacteria on you. Is that really so much to ask?" Bianca stood on the step, looking at me. Her eyes full of disappointment. "Rod, you promised me you'd never let me suffer any hardship." I held it all in. A dull, crushing ache pressed on my chest. "Have I ever made you suffer?" "Before we married, you and your parents and your brother, four of you crammed into a rundown three-hundred-square-foot place." "You made three thousand a month, and you had to think twice about buying a pair of socks." "You marry me, and you're living in a new place, buying a dozen new outfits and pairs of shoes a month." "Answer me." "Have you suffered any hardship?" She said nothing.

4: 4 4. My parents grabbed the disinfectant. They sprayed it over themselves, hurrying. "It's the baby's one-month celebration. Whatever it is, we'll talk about it back home." "Bianca means well for the baby too." Some of the tightness left Bianca's face. She looked at me, a faint smile at the corner of her mouth. And she said it like she was handing down a favor. "They're about to start serving." "Let's eat first." My father stooped, forcing a smile onto his face. He waved my relatives toward the hotel. Before going in, he stopped at the glass door on purpose to smooth his hair. He carefully straightened the yellowing shirt on his back. I knew he was afraid of embarrassing me. When we reached the doorway of the banquet hall, everyone stopped. Eighteen tables in all. Seventeen of them had already been cleared away. Only one table was left in the corner, still covered with cold leftovers. My mother asked me, lost: "Rod, did the hotel make a mistake?" I called over a waiter. "It doesn't start until twelve-thirty, right? Why aren't they serving?" The waiter looked completely confused. "Your family booked it for eleven-thirty. Everybody's already eaten and gone." "Your wife told us to leave this table of leftovers on purpose. Otherwise we'd have cleared it long ago." Bianca stood in the corridor, her tone offhand. "You country people are small-minded. You hold grudges." "You don't even eat clean." "Spitting, coughing, chain-smoking, turning the whole banquet into a filthy mess." My fists clenched. "So you told my family to show up an hour late on purpose?" She nodded, righteous about it. "What else was I supposed to do?" "Wait around while your pack of poor relatives embarrassed me?" "Your family just doesn't know how to stay clean!" "They're filthy themselves, and I'm not even allowed to say it?" I looked at her. "Who was this table of leftovers kept for?" She said nothing. "I'm asking you. Who was it kept for!" Bianca turned her face away, guilty. "So what if it's leftovers!" "This is good stuff! King crab, deep-water abalone. You country folk have never even seen these!" Ulysses planted himself between me and Bianca, hopping around like a monkey. "Bianca was just trying to save a little money, wasn't she." "She actually wanted to feed you the good stuff." "You haven't had enough to eat for that many years, have you? Would you even know what to do with fine ingredients like these!" Everyone was watching me. I walked up to Bianca. I said just one thing. "Let's get divorced. You invited your family to eat, you pay for it yourself." While she stared at me, stunned, I picked up my phone and called the bank's customer line. "Hello, I'd like to cancel the card ending in 0266." "Yes, the salary card. Void the original card." Bianca froze. A second later she was screaming, pounding her fists against my chest. "Rod Abbott! What is this supposed to mean!" "Isn't this child yours!" I ignored her, turned, and slapped those infectious-disease test strips onto Ulysses's face. Behind me my mother-in-law shrieked herself hoarse. "Rod Abbott, do you have any conscience?" "Bianca gave you a son, and this is how you treat her!" Bianca came back to herself and chased after me. Wearing that same lofty, favor-granting look again. "Apologize to me right now. Write a written pledge." "Then the baby and I can still forgive you." I laughed. "Why should I apologize?" She lifted her chin, her tone taking it for granted. "Because I gave you a son." "If you don't apologize, I'll never let him call you Daddy!" This was the thirty-fourth time since the pregnancy that she'd used the child to threaten me. My parents panicked. Crying, they begged me. "Hurry and apologize to Bianca." "Your mom and I have thick skin. Skipping one meal is nothing." "But that's our family's child!" Bianca and my mother-in-law folded their arms. Waiting for me to give in, waiting for me to bow my head. This time I didn't give in. I helped my parents up. "I'm getting this divorce, and it's final. From now on, no one gets to put you through anything again." "I'm not even thirty. If I want a child, there'll be plenty of women willing to have one!" My mother-in-law let out a sneer. "Aside from our Bianca, who's foolish enough, what other woman would be willing!" I looked at Bianca, calm. And dialed Linda's number from my contacts. "I'm divorced. I want to have a child." "Are you willing to have one with me?"