Chapter 2 — Weddings Without Brides

Ten minutes later, the Luc family's chat group began exploding messages continuously. Luc's mother sent a long recording, saying that To Tinh's mother was seriously ill. The Luc family respected the friendship between the two families over the years, so they were willing to help the old lady fulfill her last wish. She also deliberately added another sentence, that Tham Kieu had already agreed, everyone should not go out and talk nonsense. I don't agree at all. But no one in the group asked my opinion.

“Kieu Kieu is still the most understanding person, finding a daughter-in-law like this is very difficult.”

"To Tinh in the morning, Tham Kieu in the afternoon, it's all a happy thing."

“Anyway, we haven't registered the marriage yet, just doing the ceremony doesn't count as anything.”

The last sentence was sent by aunt Luc Tram Chu. She quickly withdrew it, but I was able to take a screenshot. Luc's mother called me.

"Kieu Kieu, why haven't you said anything in the group? Everyone is praising you, so come out and say something, lest your relatives think we're forcing you."

I look at those hypocritical compliment messages and just find them ridiculous.

“Didn't you already agree on my behalf?”

“We are all one family, who says they are not the same?”

“So why can't the bride on the card be a family member?”

Luc's mother was stunned by me, her tone immediately turned cold:

"To Tinh's mother and I are afraid that we won't survive this surgery. Why are you comparing yourself with a sick person? You're 32 years old this year, not 22. If you cancel your wedding once, what will the outside say about you? Tram Chu is willing to marry you, and the Luc family has always respected you. Now I'm only asking you to give up 90 minutes, don't block your own way of life."

My hand touched the wedding countdown board placed on the table. The white wooden board reads: "Only 4 days left until the wedding of Tham Kieu and Luc Tram Chu." That was the gift Luc's mother gave her last month. She said, the most important thing for a family is to be tolerant of each other. It turns out that the meaning of the word "tolerance" is that they can agree to anything on my behalf, and I don't even have the qualifications to say "No".

"In those 90 minutes, she was Luc Tram Chu's bride. So what are you?"

"Fake is still fake. Only in the afternoon will you be real."

“If it was fake, why send cards to more than three hundred people?”

Luc's mother spoke faster:

"Old people want to see everyone giving them blessings. You have to calculate every single detail like that, it looks very heartless and meaningless, you know?"

"I'm just asking for the last time. Did you take the wedding invitation back?"

"Don't withdraw. All relatives have received it. If they withdraw, how will To Tinh and her mother have the face to look at anyone else?"

“What about you?”

"Kieu Kieu, don't be stubborn anymore. Tram Chu will come look for you when he gets home from work in the afternoon."

She hung up. I waved my hand, the countdown board fell down, the back of the wooden board had an uneven streak of white paint. Looking at that rough spot, I suddenly remembered the night Luc Tram Chu proposed. At that time, my father had just had heart bypass surgery. He spent ten consecutive days accompanying me to the hospital, helping me get medicine, and staying up at night to watch over the hospital bed. The day my father was discharged from the hospital, he hid the ring under the medicine bag, saying that from now on my family's difficulties were also his difficulties. From that moment on, I believed that he was the man I could spend my life with. But since To Tinh returned home, his kindness began to flow in only one direction. In the middle of the night she had a stomach ache, he drove drive 40 km to deliver medicine. Her office leaked, and he abandoned my birthday party to help her move the machinery. Her mother was hospitalized, he went to register for an examination, find a doctor, and contact the hospital room on her behalf. Every time like that, as long as I expressed my unhappiness, he would say: In the face of life and illness, trivial emotional matters are not worth worrying about. Now, he definitely considers my wedding a "trivial matter". The phone vibrates continuously.