Cassie wanted her fiancé to give her the exact clothes she had loved for weeks as a birthday present. Instead, her future mother-in-law came in wearing it. What happened was not only terrible, but it also revealed a frightening truth that made her doubt everything about the guy she was going to marry.
Everyone I loved came to the apartment Sean and I shared to celebrate my birthday.
Mom prepared me a chocolate cake with so much frosting on it that it hurt my teeth to look at it. My sister had hung up lights that sparkled.
The kind of wink that used to make my knees weak was the one Sean gave me across the room. There was still something inside me that was awake, but it was different tonight. Charged. Like he knew something was going to happen.
He had been acting peculiar all week, not answering questions about my party and giving me smug smiles.
I believed he was about to do something important.
I tried not to get my hopes up, but I had a feeling that he was going to give me the dress I had been wanting for two months as a gift for my birthday.
At that instant, the door to the entrance opened.
“I’m sorry I’m late!” Someone I know said something. “I had to look for a place to park.”
I couldn’t finish saying hello when I saw that Sean’s mom was wearing the clothes I had always wanted.
I couldn’t move and just watched Linda stroll through the crowd.
Sean didn’t even want to walk into the store when I originally showed him the dress.
He had said, “Why look at things we can’t buy?”
I still let him in, not knowing how swiftly his comments would come back to hurt him.
I assured him, “This is the one,” as I stared in the mirror in the dressing room and ran my hands over the soft, baby blue fabric.
He responded, “You look great,” but then he added, “darling, it costs $200.” Do you recall that we are building a budget?
Putting the dress back on the rack made me feel a little melancholy. We were saving money for the wedding, after all.
But I still thought about it.
I had sent Sean a lot of wedding photographs from the internet during the past three weeks.
I would also remark, “I want it so badly.”
He would constantly nod and smile. “Yes, it’s a nice dress.”
I thought he was just acting unpleasant and that he would give me the clothes as a birthday present, but then… I didn’t know who to trust.
When I got close to Sean’s mom, I gasped, “Oh my God.” “I wanted that dress!”
The words were too loud for me to hear. Linda was going to hug me, but then she stopped smiling.
“Really?” She uttered it in a voice that shook. “I didn’t know, sweetheart.”
She looked at Sean, who was walking toward us with the same smile he had all night.
“Sean gave it to me last week,” she added. “He said I had to wear it to your birthday because I earned it.”
I felt like I was in the ocean. I could hear people chatting around me, but I felt like I was cut off from everything.
“Time for a gift!” Sean appeared next to me with a small, wrapped gift and said, “Happy birthday, babe.”
He had a big, happy smile on his face, the type you get when you think you’ve done something really smart.
My fingers were numb when I took up the parcel.
There was a $50 Sephora gift card tucked up behind some tissue paper.
I adore cosmetics, but I couldn’t fake a grin while I stood there in my dream dress looking at that gift card while Sean’s mom talked to my family.
What’s up? What have I been missing? As I walked to the corner of the room, those questions kept coming back to me.
I sat in the old armchair that Sean and I had bought at a thrift store when we first moved in together and watched my birthday celebration happen around me. I attempted to figure out what had just happened, but the more I thought about it, the less clear it got.
My sister came up to me at one point and looked worried. “Are you okay?” You look a little pale.
I lied and grinned so hard that it appeared like my face would crack in half. I said, “Just tired.”
The remainder of the night went by in a flash. People played charades and ate cake. Linda asked Dad about his new job and informed my sister how beautiful the decorations were.
It was almost midnight by the time the last guest left and we had put the dishes in our small sink.
Sean was in a good mood when he cleaned the counters and sang.
He said, “Wasn’t that a fun party?” “I think everyone had a good time.”
It was too much for me. He wanted to talk about how fantastic the party was, but I was upset and didn’t know what to say. Who?
“Why did you give my dream dress to your mother?”
He didn’t give it a second thought. “I wanted to make you feel small.”
The words hit me hard. “What?”
He said, “You really liked that dress,” and then he smiled at me again, this time in a casual way. “I thought it would be a good test for us to see how you act when things don’t go your way before we get married.”
“An exam?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard!
I wasn’t paying attention when he started to explain why. I walked right by him on my way to our room.
Sean entered through the door. He observed me folding things, but it wasn’t until I started putting everything in my old college duffel bag that he appeared to get that I was going.
“Really?” he asked. “You’re going?”
I said “yes” without turning around. “Looks like your test didn’t go as planned, did it?”
That was all. I drove to my sister’s house, shut the door behind me, and slept on her couch for a week.
A week after I thought everything was done, my phone rang. The name Linda was on the screen.
“I need to talk to you,” she stated in a trembling voice. “It’s about the dress and the party you threw.”
We met up in a coffee cafe in the city. Linda looked smaller than she did at my birthday celebration, and she seemed to be carrying a shadow of remorse with her. She picked a table in the corner, away from the other people.
“Sweetheart,” she whispered, bending in and staring at me with a serious face. “I owe you an apology.”
I held my coffee cup with both hands. “You don’t have to say sorry. Sean did this.
“Yes, and I’m sorry to say it’s worse than you think.” She breathed in deeply. Sean told me that you chose the dress for me. He told me you wanted me to wear it to your party because you spotted it and thought it would look great on me.
My heart raced. “What’s going on?”
“He said you told him to surprise me with it.” With every word she said, her voice went quieter. “I knew something was wrong when I saw your face that night and you stated you wanted the clothing. You seemed so wounded and bewildered. I asked him what the truth was.
She stopped and used a tissue from her purse to wipe her tears.
“He admitted he had lied,” she claimed. “To keep you grounded,” he said. What he said. I can’t believe that my child would injure you like way. To both of us. I don’t want to say that he’s my son.
The coffee shop suddenly seemed too small. It’s way too hot.
Linda added, “I brought you something,” and she took a bag of groceries out from behind the table.
When I opened the bag, I was shocked. The dress was properly folded, pressed, and cleaned on the inside. It also had a bow on top.
With strength, “I don’t want it,” she said. “You own it.” You were always meant to have it.
It was like my eyes had been waiting for this moment, and they suddenly filled with tears.
“I wish I had known about this stupid plan of his.” I would have stopped him. She clenched her jaw and stared me in the eye. Linda said, “You shouldn’t go back to Sean. I already think of you as a daughter, so it hurts me to say this.” “He doesn’t deserve you or any other woman.”
Those words hurt me deeply.
It wasn’t just what she said that made me feel this way; it was how she said it—with love, passion, and the strong protectiveness I thought only family could give.
I reached across the table to hold her hand and said, “I won’t go back to him,” but that didn’t mean we couldn’t talk.
I promise Linda had tears in her eyes as she smiled.
She answered, “I’d like that,” and then she lightly squeezed my hand.
