Chapter 19.2

Jeff skipped work that day, not telling Tina about the change to his plan. Instead, he spent the whole day with his father and Mr. Lawrence. He needed to untie the knot in his girlfriend's heart for their relationship to progress smoothly. Even if afterwards Tina wanted to get married 10 years later, he would gladly agree because he knew she wasn't avoiding it anymore.

"Any progress report today?" Mr. Strider asked his new good pal.

Ever since they met, they hit it off instantly. They both had the same quiet personality, so they had a lot of the same hobbies. Even without Jeff, they met each other frequently at golf courses, the library, chess parlor, and badminton court. It was a fresh union.

"Same old, same old. I'm just thankful that she still feeds me and hasn't moved out of the bedroom yet," Mr. Lawrence replied as he filled their glasses with chilled beer.

"I don't think I ever asked, but how deep did you hurt your wife?" Jeff asked, taking over the bottle from Tina's dad.

Mr. Lawrence sighed as he tried to recollect the memories he never wanted to remember.

His mother wasn't like that when he had first gotten married. She had liked Mrs. Lawrence very much. She was from a good family, had good manners, and knew a lot about home-keeping.

Maybe because of the slander she suffered during her marriage, Martha had a lot of expectations of him, especially being the favorite son. Every time she addressed Mrs. Lawrence, she'd always state that she was eagerly awaiting the presence of her little grandson.

His older siblings who started families earlier than he did already had children, but Martha was the most excited for his own children. At least that was the case up until Mrs. Lawrence had Tina and Lina.

The moment Martha learned that they weren't trying for any more children after Lina, she was so devastated and her fight with Mrs. Lawrence began from that time. Not only did she try to set him up with several women, she went to the point of bringing these women into his marital home and introducing them right in front of his wife as women who were ready to bring beautiful sons to their home.

On every occasion, he'd ask Mrs. Lawrence to be understanding, and that Martha was old and doing all these out of anger. Every time, she had to be the understanding party. Because of his bias towards filial piety, he allowed his wife to endure more and more torment from his mother.

There was a time Martha had even tried to hand Tina and Lina over to some aunt on her side of the family without their consent, so that him and his wife could have some alone time to make a male child. Til this very day, he remembered the anger in his wife's eyes and voice.

If he was to make a judgement about his marriage, he'd think that it was at that time that his relationship with Mrs. Lawrence started to strain. It was that time that she no longer endured his mother's insult for his sake, but for the sake of her children.

Every single time that he defended his mother's ridiculous actions after that incident, she had very little reaction and couldn't stand being in the same space with both him and Martha. It wasn't until his siblings interfered did things between them get better.

He never expected his mother's outrageous behavior to go on for more than 30 years. Now that his children were grown up, he couldn't help but feel that Mrs. Lawrence was losing her reason to hold on to the marriage.

Of course, he didn't talk about everything, he only picked out some memories that he believed affected his marriage to retell to his friend and daughter's lover.

Jeff drew a sharp breath in as he listened to Tina's father.

The hurt indeed ran deep.

"Friend, I think you should sit with your mother and talk things out. I salute your piety, but you went about it in the wrong way. You gave your mother way too much power and let your wife be at her mercy. You have a tough path to walk on," Mr. Strider comforted.

"If I am allowed to say something," Jeff cut in.

"Sure, go on boy," Mr. Lawrence replied, taking a sip of beer from his glass.

"First issue is Martha's preference for males and her disappointment of never getting a grandson from her favorite son. Second issue is her plain disrespect for your wife. Third issue is her indifference and lack of care towards your daughters. Fourth issue is your preservation of your mother even when she's in the wrong, and lack of protection of your family from her verbal abuse."

"If we are going to solve anything, we need to start from Martha. I mean 'we' as in 'you.' It's amazing that you respect your mother so much, but this time, she has to be the one to endure," Jeff plainly told Mr. Lawrence the truth he'd observed from the situation.

Mr. Strider agreed with his son. It was time for his buddy to start doing more for his wife and express how he really felt to his mother.

Someone has got to give in and that someone, this time around, would be his mother.

She already has grandsons. Unfortunately, they weren't from her favorite son, but she does have grandsons.

The scary thing was perhaps, her verbal attacks had become a habit more than it was her feeling. So much years had passed, and she couldn't possibly change the outcomes of things. Most likely she knew that and acknowledged that fact, but she couldn't stop herself from attacking his wife every time because it had become a habit of hers.

Mr. Lawrence nodded accordingly also. He admitted that Jeff and his father were both right. He needed to start with Martha.

"I think I know what to do now. I'll meet my mother tomorrow to express my thoughts," he said after a while.

"Good step," Mr. Strider said as he raised his cup and the three guys cheered.

Jeff stuck around with the old guys all day, and at this moment, they were playing scrabble.

As Mr. Strider was spending his usual 15 minutes casually deciding what words to lay down, Jeff got a message from Tina informing him that she was on her way to meet Jerry.

"Take care." He sent her a brief reply.

About an hour later, he got another text from her.

"He's married with two gorgeous daughters."

After reading that, he smiled happily. Once again, it was Mr. Strider's turn, so he had time to reply his girl.

"What a responsible young man!"