After My Wife Was Slapped, I Cut Off My Parents

My parents froze at the same time. The two of them looked at each other, as if they doubted they'd heard me right. Several seconds passed before my father, bristling with fury, demanded confirmation. "Elijah, are you telling me you'd throw over your own parents for your wife?!" His eyes were bloodshot as he glared at me. He was clearly livid. When I was a boy, nothing scared me more than his anger. But now, I felt calmer than I ever had. "Yes." One word. Clean and final. Not a shred of room for negotiation. Seeing how set I was, my mother knotted her brows and said, disappointed, "Eli, how can you be so heartless?" "This whole thing was your wife's fault to begin with. Not only do you refuse to set her straight, you're driving your father and me out over a mistake she made?" Leona's fault? What had she done wrong? She'd been married to me for fifteen years. For those same fifteen years, my parents had been over at my cousin's, propping him up. In fifteen years, Leona had never once eaten a meal cooked by my parents. She'd never received a scrap of their care or concern. Even during her recovery after childbirth, even with the baby, it was her own mother who quit her job on purpose to come help. And through all of it, Leona had never uttered a single complaint. Just the opposite. The moment she heard my parents were coming, she was the first to take time off work, and she waited on them with everything she had. And what did she get for it? Because of where one plate of fish was sitting, she was in the wrong, she deserved to be hit? Wasn't that insane? Seeing that I stayed silent, my mother changed tack and suddenly started playing the victim. "Eli, do you have any idea how your father and I ran ourselves into the ground helping your cousin raise his kids? We're sick all over from it." "We came to you counting on you to take good care of us in our old age, to let us live out our years in peace. You can't just cast off your own parents over a little thing like this." A little thing? My wife took a slap for nothing, swallowed an enormous injustice, and in their eyes that was just a little thing. But my father's pride, his so-called rules of the table, was a matter of earth-shattering importance? I frowned at my mother. "You wore yourselves out helping my cousin. What does that have to do with me? Why should I be the one to support you?" The instant he heard that, my father shot to his feet, beside himself. "How can you be so petty, keeping score like this?" "Amos is your cousin. He's family!" "He lost both his parents when he was small. If we didn't help him out a little more, how was he supposed to get by on his own?" "You're his older brother. Would it kill you to give a little and let him have his way?" Give a little. Growing up, those were the words I heard more than any others. The year I was five, my uncle and aunt both died in a car crash. Overnight, my cousin became a boy with no one to look after him. While my eldest uncle and my aunt were still discussing what to do with him, my parents didn't hesitate for a second. They took him home and said they'd raise him for the rest of his life. That night my mother called me into her room, stroked my head, and said, "From now on Amos is your real little brother. You have to be a good boy and give a little for him." I was too young then to know what favoritism was. All I knew was that from that day on, nothing was ever mine again. The good food went to my cousin first. New clothes went to my cousin first. Even the allowance I saved up had to be handed over for him to spend. I thought it was just something I had to give up as a kid, that it would get better once I grew up. But I was wrong. A heart that's already tilted doesn't right itself with time. When I finished high school and got into college, my father said the family had no money and told me to figure it out myself. I worked myself to the bone through an entire summer and earned forty-seven hundred dollars. I was still two thousand short. I asked my parents if they could help. My mother lowered her head and said nothing. My father had me write an IOU and told me to pay it back after I graduated. That same year, my cousin got into a community college. My mother happily threw more than a dozen tables' worth of a party for him. My father gave him fifty thousand dollars and told him to go travel and unwind. Later, I met Leona in college. After five years together, we decided to get married. When we were working out the wedding, my parents told me plainly, "The money for the wedding costs and the house, you figure that out on your own." "Your mother and I need to hold on to our money for our old age." I didn't say anything. I just gritted my teeth and worked like mad. Three jobs a day. I ended up in the hospital more than once from the strain. In the end it was Leona, aching for me, who emptied out her entire savings so that together we could pull off the wedding and buy the house. But when my cousin got married, my parents didn't say a word. They drained every last cent of the family's savings to cover his wedding costs, buy him a house, buy him a car. They even volunteered, throwing in money and labor to handle the renovations on my cousin's new place themselves. Because of all this, something had always sat wrong in me. I always felt I'd shortchanged Leona. But she just smiled and took my hand and said, "It's all right. We're still young. Whatever we want, we can earn it ourselves." "We're a family. Getting along in peace is what matters most."

Not long after we married, Leona got pregnant. By the time her due date came around, my career was just taking off. I was buried in work every single day, run ragged, and there was no way I could get free. So I steeled myself and called my mother, hoping she might come help look after Leona during her recovery after the birth. My mother was silent for two seconds. Then all she said was: "My back's bad. I can't do that kind of nursing. You two figure it out yourselves." And with that, she hung up. I was mortified. For a while I didn't even know how to face Leona. But when Leona found out, she wasn't angry, wasn't upset. She just comforted me gently: "Your mom isn't well. Let her rest." "I can manage on my own." She said she could manage, but on the day of the birth she hemorrhaged badly and nearly died. After the baby came, the doctor warned her she absolutely had to rest properly, recover properly, and not overexert herself under any circumstances. In the end there was no other choice. My mother-in-law quit her job on purpose and came to care for Leona through her recovery. Less than two months later, my cousin's wife turned up pregnant too. The moment my parents heard, they went straight to my cousin's place that same day and threw themselves into caring for his whole family. That caretaking lasted a full fifteen years. It wasn't until their grandnephew started junior high and went off to boarding school, no longer needing anyone to look after him, that my parents finally remembered I existed. But what they had in mind wasn't how much they owed me. It was how much they could get out of me. Even after everything they'd done, when they proposed coming to live out their old age with us, Leona agreed without a moment's hesitation. Because she didn't want to put me in a hard spot. So she swallowed every grievance, got up early to clean the room for my parents, bought groceries, cooked, and gave them the most genuine hospitality and respect. And what she got in return was a slap from my father and a stream of furious cursing. The scenes of those years were vivid in my mind. Once, I ached for my parents' love. So I taught myself to be good, taught myself to give way. But now, all I want is to protect the people who actually treat me like family. Facing my parents' accusations, I said without a flicker of expression: "You've already spent over ten years taking care of my cousin's family. So from now on, you can spend your old age with him." "To you, Leona and I are outsiders anyway. There's really no way we can look after you." My father's eyes bulged. He jabbed a finger at me and roared: "You heartless, ungrateful son!" "We've only just gotten here and you can't wait to shove us out the door?" I let out a cold laugh and said flatly: "I'm not shoving you out." "I'm doing you a favor." "Amos is the only one who matters to you anyway. Now I'm reuniting your whole family. Isn't that a good thing?" My father pointed at me and raised his voice: "Elijah, Amos is a child we raised with our own hands. So we helped him. What's wrong with that?" "You're a grown man. Do you have to nickel-and-dime over something this small?" My mother looked at me too, laying it on thick: "Exactly. Amos is Amos and you're you. You're both our sons. How could we possibly claim him and disown you?" "We came all this way this time just to spend time together, to enjoy our later years as a family. Isn't that all?" Looking at that hypocritical face of my mother's, I found it absurd: "Spend time together?" "Whose idea of spending time together is walking in the door and slapping their own daughter-in-law?" "Mom, don't think I don't know. You spent over ten years raising Amos's kid, and now you're too worn out to keep going. You don't want to be a burden on Amos, so you came to my place hoping Leona and I would wait on you in your old age." My mother's face froze. She said nothing. My father glared at me, beside himself, and shot back as if he had every right: "So what if that's how it is?" "Elijah, you're our own flesh and blood. Raising a son to care for you in old age, isn't that the natural order of things?" "You keep score this carefully with your own parents. Did a dog eat your conscience?" Truly laughable. When I needed them, they gave every scrap of their love, their money, their energy to Amos, lifting him up so he never wanted for food or clothing, smoothing every road ahead of him. Now that they're old, now that they're sick, they suddenly remember I'm their son. And come demanding I do my filial duty and support them in their old age. Where in the world do people get to have it that easy? I couldn't be bothered to argue with them. I just turned around and carried all their luggage to the door: "Raising a son for your old age, that's fine. But the one you've been raising all these years isn't me." "Go find whoever it was who benefited from you." Seeing me haul their bags out and turn them away, my father shook all over with rage: "Elijah, you ungrateful wretch!" "Aren't you afraid I'll tell everyone about this, and have every relative and friend curse you for being an unfilial son? So you'll never be able to hold your head up back home again?"

Leona's face changed the moment she heard it. She tugged at my sleeve, worried. "Elijah, let it go." "I'm fine. There's no reason to fall out with your family over me." I turned to look at her. Half her face was still swollen, and yet all I could see in it was her worry for my name. She was afraid people would talk behind my back. Afraid I'd be branded an ungrateful son. Afraid I'd ruin my own reputation for her sake. Seeing her like that broke my heart. I smoothed the hair from her forehead and said, steady and certain, "Leona, you're my real family." At that, my father jabbed a finger at my face, his voice shaking with rage. "You've turned on us. You've completely turned on us!" "We gave you life, we raised you for decades, and now we're the outsiders?" My mother stared at me too, as if she couldn't understand any of it. "Eli, how can your heart be this cold?" "So your father and I favored Amos a little. Is that so wrong? The boy's had a hard life, no parents, so we helped him out more. What's the harm in that?" "Why can't you be reasonable and give a little more?" The same old lines. My whole life, always the same. My cousin had a hard life, so I was supposed to be the strong one, the one who backed down, the one who handed over everything I had. I looked at them and said it out, word by word. "A hard life?" "Since we were kids he's eaten off me, used what was mine, taken everything I had." "When he grew up, you bought him a house, a car, covered the whole wedding, raised his kids for over a decade. You gave him everything." "And me?" "Growing up, everything I ate and wore and used was his castoffs." "I put myself through school on loans, gritted my teeth to get married, worked myself to the bone to support my family. When my wife couldn't so much as move during her recovery after childbirth, I begged you to come help take care of her, and you refused." "His wife just gets a positive pregnancy test, and you're waiting on her hand and foot like she's royalty." "Put your hands on your hearts and ask yourselves. Who's the one who ended up like an orphan with no parents?" "And who's the one who went too far, walking in throwing your weight around as elders, hitting people over some petty, backward little rule?" I finished, raised my hand and pointed at the door, my tone firm, leaving no room for argument. "Now, get out. This is my home, and you're not welcome here." My father glared at me, teeth clenched. "Fine. You've got some nerve." "Elijah, we'll see about this!" With that, he pulled my mother out of my home. As they took their luggage and left, my mother glanced back at me. That look was complicated. I couldn't read it. And I didn't want to. The moment the door shut, the tears Leona had held back so long finally fell. I held her, aching for her, and said softly, "Don't cry. From now on, it's just the two of us, and we'll live well." "No one's going to hurt you, not in the slightest." Leona buried her face in my chest and nodded hard. Maybe because a weight I'd carried for years was finally gone, I slept unusually deep that night. In the middle of the night, I was jolted awake by my phone ringing, sharp and urgent. I picked it up and looked. It was Aunt Priscilla. The second I answered, her heavy voice came through. "Eli, I heard you threw your parents out?" I gave a quiet "Mm." She was silent for several seconds, then sighed. "There's something I've kept bottled up inside for years. Today I have to tell you." And the next second, she said the one thing that turned my blood to ice…