“Is that Sorensen cripple coming along too? Just looking at her ruins my appetite.”
“Bertha didn’t invite her. When’s that useless cripple, who can’t even have kids, going to kick the bucket?”
“I still don’t get why Elias insisted on marrying that filthy, lowborn trash. Was he trying to drag the Levy name through the mud even further?”
Their jeers rang through Levy Manor, biting and harsh, dragging me back to that rainy night two years ago. It was the night someone shoved me to the cold floor of a cellar and hurt me.
Screams bounced off the walls, sharp and loud. It felt like a nightmare I’d never wake up from. Even now, I could still hear them.
Elias looked regretful, but he continued pushing me forward, insisting on getting me inside in no time.
“I’m sorry, Jean. I never thought they’d talk about you like this. I’ll make them shut up,” he consoled.
I didn’t respond. Before, whenever he said things like that, I’d always stop him—trying to be considerate and to keep the peace with the Levys.
But now, I finally saw what it was for. He said those things because he knew I’d stop him. He ruined my reputation, left me broken, and still let his family tear me to shreds. This was his so-called love.
I went along with it. “Go ahead. Yell at them for me.”
“What?” Elias stopped in his tracks, thrown off when I didn’t stop him like I usually did.
I scoffed, rolled my wheelchair forward, and shoved the door open with both hands, making my entrance in front of the Levy family. They thought they could cover it up—but not this time. I wasn’t letting it go.
“Thanks for the concern, but sorry to burst your bubble—I’m not dying anytime soon,” I mentioned.
The room went completely quiet. It was clear they knew I’d caught every word.
Bertha Hammond, my mother-in-law, was the first to speak up. “Who said you could come back? I haven’t even welcomed you into this family, yet here you are, showing up uninvited! Do all the Sorensens lack manners?
“You’re nothing like Laura, even though she grew up in the same house as you! Now that you know everything, let’s be honest. Divorce Elias if you’ve got any sense. Don’t drag him down with your broken body.”
After what felt like forever, Elias finally appeared behind me. “Mom, that’s enough. No matter what, Jean is still my…”
He trailed off, unable to call me his wife in front of Laura.
Laura jumped in quickly, trying to calm things down. “Exactly, Bertha. You shouldn’t say that. Jean is the one Elias married, after all. No one wanted things to go this way.”
Bertha made a disgusted sound and spat, “Who knows? None of this would’ve happened if she’d had some sense. She’s probably just some dirty tramp. Thank goodness Quentin married you instead.”
Almost everyone had seen the pictures of me, covered in grime, left undressed in a trash heap. By bringing up my past, Laura was making sure no one would forget.
She was turning me into a disgrace so that Bertha would see her as the perfect one in comparison.
It hit me all at once why Elias insisted on dragging me to these monthly dinners. He was setting me up to look bad so Laura’s goodness could stand out even more—locking her in as Quentin’s wife.
