His First Love Wore My Wedding Ring

The day my mother got her diagnosis was the day I first heard the voices.

She stood in the sun for a full half hour, clutching the report, before she worked up the nerve to ring the doorbell.

"Son, could you take a look for me? Is this something they can treat? How much would it cost?"

Bent low, her voice was thick with the deference she reserved for her son-in-law, the medical-school professor.

"Small things don't need treating. Big things... there's no money at home right now."

"It stinks in here! Dad, close the door already! Grandma Harding's still waiting for you to look over her business plan!"

She froze where she stood, the foot she'd started to step forward pulling stiffly back.

"No money, my foot! Isn't there still a two-hundred-thousand-dollar investment deal in that drawer, the one for his first love's mother?"

"You can find another husband, you can have another kid, but you only get one mother!"

"This guy's got money to open a salon for his ex's mom, but no money to treat his own mother-in-law. The heroine must be blind!"

The voices rose and fell around me, and my heart cramped with a sharp ache.

Just like they said, I found the big contract: a two-hundred-thousand-dollar stake in the salon.

My breath caught.

Then I looked back at the security footage and saw my mother smiling, embarrassed,

pressing a few jars of her homemade sweet osmanthus preserve into their hands as she left.

"Little ones love sweet things. I made this specially for Nate."

What my mother didn't know

was that the one who loved sweets as a child had been her daughter, and that her grandson only poured the preserve down the drain before I got home, his face twisted in disgust.

A marriage like this, a mother-and-son bond like this.

It was time to let it all go.

1.

"Seen enough? Nate's hungry. Go make dinner already."

Fergus Sawyer leaned against the doorframe, his eyes drifting idly to the computer screen.

When I didn't get up, a flicker of impatience crossed his face.

"Back for two minutes and you're already checking the cameras. What lies did your mother tell you about me?"

"If she really were sick, wouldn't she have told you? You know how many scams there are out there preying on old country women through those short videos. Some old man probably fed her a line."

"And anyway, there's no cash lying around the house right now. Can't you be a little more sensible instead of picking a fight with me over something this small?"

My hands shook with anger. I tapped the screen and turned it toward him.

"I was checking the cameras because Nate's gold keepsake locket is missing!"

"Didn't you just take two hundred thousand to open a salon for Stephanie Harding's mother? So how is there no money?"

"You say my mother has no boundaries. What about Stephanie's mother? An ill-bred thief!"

On the screen, Stephanie's mother lifted the gold locket off Nate and walked away like she owned the place.

Fergus's face went dark. He killed the feed with a sharp click.

Before he could get his excuse out,

Nate shoved the door open from the hall.

"Don't slander Grandma Harding. I gave it to her. She loves it!"

When I had Nate, the labor nearly killed us both. We almost lost him.

At his hundred-day celebration, my mother melted down her three wedding gold pieces and had them forged into that keepsake locket for him,

praying my child would grow up safe and whole.

"The kid doesn't know better, fine, but do the grown-ups not know better either? What a wretched old woman!"

"This is Fergus's doing, teaching him day in and day out to shy away from his own grandmother and cozy up to a thief instead."

"See? Fergus is going to side with Stephanie and her mother again. Is that how much sway a first love has?"

The comment stream had it right.

Fergus knew exactly what was going on and played dumb,

and when the two of them, big and small, looked at me, their eyes were full of smug triumph.

"Stephanie's coming over for dinner soon. You slander people off a video like that, you'd better apologize to her face when she gets here!"

"Yeah! Mommy has to say sorry to Grandma Harding!"

I said nothing, only stared hard into their father-and-son eyes, my lips trembling.

Something turned uneasy in Fergus's chest for no reason he could name,

and when the doorbell rang downstairs, even he didn't know why he felt relieved.

Fergus and Nate, Stephanie and her mother, sat there like a family of four.

The moment I came downstairs, the laughter cut off,

as though I were the intruder in this house.

"Rita Pruitt, come eat, Nate's starving. Good thing I cooked for these two boys of mine!"

Fergus sat across from Stephanie, already wearing that mild, easy smile.

Nate kept cramming his mouth with the junk food I never let him have, mumbling around it.

"So good! Aunt Stephanie and Grandma Harding are so nice to me!"

"Not like that jam thing Grandma sent. I dumped all of it. It was sticky and gross!"

My mother had stood in the sun for half an hour that day, her clothes soaked through with sweat.

Stephanie and her mother snorted with laughter, as if they'd heard something hilarious,

and when their eyes swept over me, the contempt in them was barely contained.

"All right, Nate, don't talk like that while we're eating..."

"And Grandma smells bad, I don't like her! She shouldn't come over ever again!"

Nate cut Fergus off before he could finish.

Heat shot straight to my head.

I slapped him across the face. It was the first time he'd ever been hit.

Stephanie snatched him into her arms,

and the room filled with the boy's crying.

"I hate you! I don't want you to be my mommy! I don't want you to be my mommy!"

"Stephanie, honey, Nate's just a child, how could you do that!"

Stephanie's mother stroked his head, all tenderness.

I stepped forward and Fergus shoved me aside with brute force,

my back slamming into the island, the pain bringing out a cold sweat.

He only spared me a glance.

I didn't want to stay one second longer. As I left, Fergus's voice came from behind me.

"Walk out that door and don't come back!"

...

By the time I made it back home, my mother was out under the blazing sun bringing in the rice.

"Mom!"

She turned, her eyes filling with delight and helpless surprise.

"It's boiling out, what are you doing here!"

"Come inside, Mom'll cut you some watermelon!"

She reached to take my hand as she talked,

and the small, fine cuts on her fingers came into view.

"Mom, why didn't you call me when you came to the house?"

She slipped at that, nearly stumbling into the paddy, a flash of panic in her eyes.

"Oh! I just wanted to see the city a little, and stop by to look in on you and Nate on the way."

She wouldn't meet my eyes, and her laugh came out forced.

"See, the son-in-law says there's no money, and the mother-in-law just believes it. She's scared of becoming a burden, of dragging down her daughter's marriage!"

"Heroine! Your mother's diagnosis is pressed down at the bottom of that drawer! Go look, quick!"

"Poor thing, a mother who won't even dare tell her own daughter she's sick."

The voices came one after another, and my heart pricked all over with a dense, needling pain.

While my mother was busy cutting the watermelon,

I opened the drawer, my hands sure of themselves, and found the pathology report.

"Uterine prolapse with necrosis. Removal required."

My mother had spent decades as a tea-picker to carry me out of those mountains,

and there was no telling how many nights she'd lain awake swallowing the pain before she finally found the courage to get herself checked.

"Sweetheart! Here, have some water—"

The plate hit the floor, and my tears hit the floor with it.

"Mom... I want a divorce."