Just before the wedding started, Wallis Fox's male assistant said he'd help fix my parents' hair and makeup.

Then he turned around and stamped two bright-red meat-inspection stamps on their faces.

"Inspection cleared. Premium-grade pork."

Rupert Weiss held up the meat-inspection stamp, laughing so hard his shoulders shook.

"Sir, ma'am, this makes it more festive."

"You two look like fat hogs just picked out of the market."

The whole room burst out laughing.

My mother froze where she stood, fumbling to wipe the red mark off her face.

But the foundation smeared, and her whole face only looked worse.

She forced a smile at me.

"Carter Matthews, I'm fine. It'll wipe right off."

My father kept his head down too, his fingertips smoothing the hem of his suit jacket over and over.

It was the suit he'd bought new for the wedding, and already the cuff was smudged with a patch of hair gel and foundation.

He gave a careful, apologetic smile. "A wedding should be lively, right?"

I was shaking with rage. I started forward.

But Wallis stepped in front of Rupert first.

"Rupert was just trying to lighten the mood."

"Your parents already said it's fine. Don't blow this out of proportion."

My parents looked a mess, yet they kept shaking their heads at me, afraid of embarrassing me.

Afraid, too, that they'd ruin my wedding.

In that moment, I suddenly smiled.

My parents couldn't bear to put me in a hard spot.

But Wallis could bear to let them be mocked in front of everyone.

If that was how it was.

Then I wasn't going through with this wedding.

……

Rupert stood behind Wallis, and his smile quickly faded.

"Carter, don't be angry."

"I really wasn't trying to humiliate them."

He dropped his voice low, and it sounded like a sincere apology.

"I just saw them sitting in the waiting room the whole time, not knowing what to do with their hands."

"I was afraid they were too nervous, that they'd embarrass themselves up on the stage during the tea ceremony."

"So I only wanted to get them to laugh a little."

As he spoke, he lowered his eyes.

"I didn't think you'd mind this much."

The laughter around the room slowly died down.

But the way the guests looked at my parents still carried a slight, mocking contempt they hadn't quite pulled back.

My father stood with his head bowed.

That new suit wasn't actually expensive.

He'd saved for a long time before buying it at the mall in our small town.

The sleeves ran a little long, and the shoulders didn't quite fit.

But before we came, he'd tried it on in front of the mirror again and again.

And he'd asked me carefully, "Carter, if I go to your wedding like this, will I embarrass you?"

I'd smiled then and fixed his tie for him.

"How could you?"

"Today you'll be the most respectable father in the whole place."

But now he stood in front of a room full of guests.

A meat-inspection stamp on his face.

His cuff smudged with a mess of foundation and hair gel.

He was the one who'd been humiliated, and still he was afraid of being a burden to me.

"Carter, it's really fine."

"Don't fight with Wallis."

My mother nodded quickly too.

Her face was very pale, but she kept forcing a smile.

"Assistant Weiss is young, he likes to joke around."

"He meant well, helping us get dressed up."

"See, everyone had a laugh, and the wedding's livelier for it."

Watching them force those smiles, I felt something press down hard on my chest.

But Rupert seemed to take my mother's words as backing.

He let out a soft sigh and said quietly,

"Even your mother says it's fine."

"Carter, if you really make a scene over something this small, wouldn't that just embarrass them more?"

Wallis frowned at me.

"Did you hear that?"

"Your parents have better sense than you do."

I stared at her, stunned.

We'd been together five years.

I thought Wallis Fox, at the very least, understood how much my parents meant to me.

My father was never good with words.

In his younger days he hauled steel bars on construction sites until his fingers got crushed out of shape, and even then all he did was smile and say it didn't hurt.

My mother went down to the market before dawn on winter mornings to unload cargo so she could keep me in school, and the cracks the cold split into her hands still ached every time it rained.

They swallowed the hardest years without a word.

Only on the day my acceptance letter came did they say quietly,

"Carter, from now on you stand tall as a man."

"Your mom and I aren't much, but we'll never let you be looked down on."

And yet today.

They stood awkwardly in the middle of a hall full of laughing guests.

Two red stamps on their faces. Grade-A Pork, Inspected.

Humiliated so badly they couldn't even lift their heads.

And still carefully making excuses for Wallis Fox.

But Wallis couldn't see any of that.

All she could see was Rupert Weiss with his head bowed.

So every fault became mine, the immature one who didn't know better.

I drew in a breath and walked over to my parents.

"Dad. Mom."

"Let me take you to wash it off."

My mother panicked at once.

"The tea ceremony's about to start. How can we leave now?"

She pressed down hard on my hand, dropping her voice.

"Carter, everyone here today is Fox family."

"Don't give them something to laugh at."

My throat tightened.

They'd already been made into a joke.

And they were still worried about me being laughed at.

Then Rupert Weiss spoke up, low and soft,

"Why don't I... touch up their makeup for your parents right now?"

My father actually nodded on reflex.

"All right, all right."

Rupert picked up the powder puff and stepped up to him.

But after two light pats his hand jerked to the side, and the puff jammed straight into the corner of my father's eye.

The eye swelled red in an instant, and still he didn't flinch away.

He only murmured, "It's fine, it's fine."

I couldn't hold back any longer. I grabbed Rupert Weiss by the wrist.

"Enough."

Rupert frowned, but his voice stayed just as soft.

"Carter, are you really going to raise your hand at your own wedding?"

The next second Wallis Fox stepped in front of him, her voice going hard.

"Carter Matthews."

"Don't push this too far."

"Rupert's already trying to fix it. What more do you want?"

I watched her shield him, and all at once she felt like a stranger.

Five years ago, the first time Wallis Fox came to my home.

My father was so nervous he could barely get a sentence out.

Pouring wine at the table, he spilled a little on the cuff of her sleeve.

She stood up right away and steadied him, smiling.

"It was me, I didn't hold it steady."

"Don't be nervous. We're all family now."

That night my mother pulled me aside and whispered,

"That Wallis, she's really been raised well."

I'd thought so too.

Thought she truly respected me, truly respected my family.

But it turned out respect was something that could run dry, too.

Or rather.

The moment she wanted to shield someone else.

My parents' dignity counted for nothing.

The wedding coordinator hurried over.

"Miss Fox, Mr. Matthews, we're about to begin the tea ceremony."

"The elders are all seated."

Wallis Fox finally looked at me, lowering her voice.

"Carter, stop this."

"Get up on the stage first."

I didn't move.

I only turned my head toward the head table a little way off.

The Fox elders sat under the lights, dressed to the nines.

Every one of them poised and dignified.

While my parents stood in the corner, red stamps on their faces, tense and out of place from head to foot.

Rupert was still standing off to the side, head bowed.

Wallis lowered her voice to soothe him.

"It's fine. I'll handle it."

All at once I felt exhausted.

If her way of handling it meant making my parents swallow the humiliation and finish the ceremony,

if it meant making me choke this down,

then this wedding ended here.

The next second, the emcee spoke up with a smile. "And now, please welcome the couple to serve tea to both sets of parents."

The moment the applause broke out,

my parents were already being half-nudged, half-ushered onto the stage by the staff.

The red stamps on their faces still weren't fully wiped away.

The foundation had smeared into a mess, sweat at their temples cutting the color into streaks, and it only made them look worse.

Onstage, Wallis's parents sat dead center.

The lights were bright, the chair backs draped in festive red silk.

My parents were placed off to the side.

Two low stools carried over at the last minute, without even a red cushion.

When my father sat down, his knees nearly hit the corner of the table.

He shrank his legs back, uneasy.

Somewhere along the way, Rupert had come up again.

He held a tray, smiling gently.

"Carter, let me help you pass the tea."

I looked at him coldly. "No need."

He didn't take offense, just said in a low voice,

"I only want to help."

Wallis frowned.

"Carter."

"Don't embarrass anyone up here."

I looked at her.

And suddenly I thought of half a year ago, when Wallis took me to try on the wedding suit.

Rupert came along too.

One line from him, "This one's too old-fashioned, it doesn't suit Ms. Fox's standing," and Wallis had the clerk take away the suit I liked.

I said that was the one I'd spent months choosing.

Wallis only smiled.

"Rupert has good taste. You can't go wrong listening to him."

It was the same later with the wedding flowers.

I wanted white lisianthus.

Rupert said red roses were livelier.

So Wallis had them switched to red roses.

She said, "Rupert's always running events with clients. He has an eye for these things."

But I was the one getting married.

So it turned out that from that point on,

my wedding had already stopped being my wedding.

And now, even my parents' dignity wasn't allowed to be dignity.

Rupert held out the teacup.

It was poured too full.

The steam rose hot enough to sting the eyes.

Just as I reached to take it, his hand tipped.

The scalding tea splashed onto the back of my father's hand.

My father flinched hard, shoulder jerking up, scrambling to steady the cup.

"It's fine, it's fine."

"Don't spill it, don't hold up the kids' tea."

My chest went tight.

Rupert raised an eyebrow, faking an apology.

"Sir, I'm sorry."

"I thought you'd have a steady grip."

"Are you maybe a little too nervous?"

A few low laughs came from the crowd right away.

Someone said under their breath,

"First time the groom's family's seen anything like this, probably."

"So far below the occasion, isn't it."

My mother heard it.

Her face paled, but she still reached over to wipe the water off the back of my father's hand.

"You didn't get burned, did you?"

My father shook his head. "It's fine."

But the back of his hand had already gone red across a wide patch.

Those hands, I'd watched them my whole life.

Rough, broad, covered in fine cracks.

When I was in college, money at home was tight.

He was afraid I'd feel small in front of my classmates.

Every month he wired me an extra five hundred.

While he himself ate the cheapest boxed lunch on the construction site.

Once I came home and caught him crouched at the roadside, gnawing on a dinner roll.

When he saw me, he hurried to hide the roll behind his back.

Smiling, he said, "Dad already ate."

Hands like those, that had held up half my life for me.