Chapter 4 - The Ledger of Regrets
By Monday morning, the story of the cake had metastasized through Wade’s extended family like an infection.
Darlene, realizing that Bethany was no longer standing behind her, shifted her narrative entirely. By midday, my phone was receiving messages from Wade’s cousins and aunts. The tone was no longer about Lucy—it was about my "disrespect" toward an elder, my "inflexibility," and how I was using my newborn daughter as a tool to alienate Wade from his relatives.
You've only been in this family for three years, Maren, one text from Cousin Celia read. Darlene built this family. You humiliated her in front of her sisters.
I sat at my dining table, ignoring the buzzing phone, while Aunt Gwen sat across from me with a legal pad and three thick manila folders.
"We need to audit everything, Maren," Gwen said briskly, clicking her pen. "Before you married Wade, you had twelve thousand dollars in your personal savings account. Where is that money now?"
I blinked, pulling my mind back from the fog of post-partum anxiety. "It's... it's in our joint account. We used part of it for the hospital bills and the baby furniture."
"And the rest?" Gwen pressed.
"Wade transferred some of it to his mother last winter," I admitted softly, the realization hitting me like cold water. "He said Darlene needed a temporary loan to fix her roof after the ice storm. He said she’d pay it back when her insurance claim came through."
Gwen noted it down on her pad, her lips drawn into a thin, tight line. "Did she pay it back?"
"No," I whispered. "Every time I brought it up, Wade said it was rude to press family about money."
Gwen closed her folder with a decisive snap. "Darlene doesn't view you as a daughter-in-law, Maren. She views you as an incubator for her family's legacy and a resource to be tapped when convenient. The moment you demanded an identity for your daughter that existed outside of her control, you became an enemy."
The front door opened, and Wade walked in carrying his briefcase. He looked pale, his eyes rimmed with red. He dropped his briefcase on the floor and walked straight into the kitchen, setting a small white box from a local bakery on the table.
He opened the lid.
Inside was a small, round vanilla cake with yellow flowers. Written in crisp, blue icing were the words: WELCOME, JUNE.
"I went to the bakery during my lunch break," Wade said, his voice raw, looking at me with pleading eyes. "I had them make it exactly how you ordered it, Maren. See? Look. It says June. I brought it home for us. Just the three of us."
I looked at the cake. It was the exact cake I had wanted forty-eight hours ago. But standing here now, looking at the blue frosting, it felt like an insult—a cheap plastic bandage placed over a deep, infected wound.
"Where were you when your mother slapped me, Wade?" I asked softly.
"I was right there!" he insisted, taking a step toward me. "I was shocked! I didn't know how to react!"
"You knew how to react," Gwen interrupted calmly from the table. "You grabbed your wife's arm and told her to apologize to her attacker. Your instincts weren't shocked, Wade. They were conditioned."
Wade rounded on Gwen, his restraint snapping. "Get out of my house! You've been poisoning her mind since Saturday! This is between me and my wife!"
"Gwen stays," I said, standing up from the chair, my hands rested protectively over June’s sleeping form in her bouncy seat. "And you need to pack a bag, Wade."
May you like
Wade froze, turning back to me, shock paralyzing his features. "What?"
"You're going to stay at your mother's house for a few days," I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my chest. "Because until you decide whether you are a husband to me or a servant to Darlene, you don't belong in this apartment."
