Married to the Poor Boy Who Kept His Promise

3: 3

The next day at noon, I pushed open the door of the private room at the Goldbrook Grill.

Besides Roland and Virginia, two of Roland's subordinates were at the table, along with Miles Lawrence's wife.

Roland pointed at an empty chair.

"Sit."

"There are outsiders here today, so you can't turn around later and say we bullied you."

I didn't sit.

"What are we discussing?"

Virginia took a document out of her bag and slapped it down on the lazy Susan.

The title read: A Declaration That the Bride's Mother Shall Never Cohabit and Shall Return the Betrothal Gifts.

She pushed a pen across to me.

"Sign it, bring the furniture back, and apologize to me."

"Then we'll call it over."

I flipped to the last page.

It also stated that after marriage my salary would be handed over to the husband to manage, and the bride's mother could not claim any of the couple's joint property on grounds of retirement, medical care, or anything else.

Roland rapped his knuckles on the table.

"Evelyn, my colleagues are all here."

"You guarantee your mother never sets one foot in the apartment again, and on the wedding day I'll still come to bring you to the ceremony."

Miles Lawrence's wife glanced at me.

"Young lady, once you're married, your husband's family has to come first."

"A mother from a single-parent home tends to lean on her daughter. Roland's just spelling things out early, heading off trouble before it starts."

"Do you know who paid the down payment on this apartment?"

She paused, caught off guard.

Roland cut in at once.

"Both our families put in for it together."

"The deed's in my name because it was easier to run the loan through my connections."

I took the receipt from the Housing Finance Office out of my bag and laid it beside the document.

"Yesterday afternoon, I terminated my registration as co-guarantor on the pre-marital property loan."

"Starting next month, I'm no longer paying Roland's mortgage."

Roland picked up the receipt and read it through twice.

"Who told you to do that?"

"It's my account. I did it myself."

He slapped the receipt back down on the table.

"The mortgage is eight thousand six hundred a month. You don't pay it, and you plan to live on air after the wedding?"

"It's your apartment. You pay for it yourself."

The two subordinates exchanged a look and said nothing.

Virginia held the declaration up in front of my face.

"You sign first."

"Once you're married, that account of yours has to come out anyway."

"Who drafted this declaration?"

"I had someone write it up. Every line is proper."

"You demand my mother never come through the door, but I keep paying your son's mortgage. You call that proper?"

Roland stood up.

"I'm leaving you some face. Don't throw it back in mine."

I picked up the declaration.

Sophomore year, that winter, he went out to the windy corner to help my mother pack up her stand, and said the smell of cooking smoke on her was the warmest thing he knew.

Yesterday, he had someone write that same kitchen-grease smell into the reason she couldn't come through the door.

I set the declaration back on the table.

"Do you have any other conditions?"

Virginia ticked them off on her fingers.

"You hand over your salary after the wedding, and cook at my place twice a week."

"When your mother's sick or old someday, you don't touch Roland's money."

"When you have a child, it takes the Head name, and she doesn't come help with the confinement either."

Miles Lawrence's wife frowned.

"Handing over the whole salary really isn't necessary, is it?"

Virginia lifted her chin.

"A daughter-in-law in the Head family keeps to the Head family's rules."

I put the receipt away.

Roland clamped a hand down on the document folder.

"You think cutting off the guarantee is going to scare me?"

"The wedding's only five days off. You call it off now, and who's ever going to want you?"

I pulled the folder back.

"That's not your concern."

"You come dragging along a burden of a mother who sells breakfast, and you've still got the nerve to put on airs with me?"

The room went quiet.

I looked at him.

"Say that again."

"Was I wrong?"

"That reek of poverty on your mother, what family wants to touch that?"

"You wreck this marriage, and I'd like to see who dares marry a shrew like you the day after."

I picked up the declaration and tore it down the middle.

I ripped the rest into shreds and dropped them into the bowl in front of Virginia.

"On the wedding day, come stand at the entrance of the Fortune Hall and watch."