The Weiss family had their Twenty-Four House Rules, and even a bride who hadn't married in yet was expected to live by them.

Breakfast on the table before six. No sleeping in. No takeout. No talking back. That was the life of a Weiss daughter-in-law.

When Irvin Weiss handed me that little red booklet, his voice was gentle.

"My mom's particular about a lot of things. Just bear with it for now. Once we're married, I'll change things little by little."

So I lived in the Weiss house for two years. I thought marriage was supposed to be this kind of endurance.

Until the day of my future mother-in-law's birthday, when I carried the soup out of the kitchen and saw a woman sitting in the living room.

She was sliding onto her own wrist the jade bracelet that Irvin's mother had promised to give me after the wedding.

"Auntie, isn't this too valuable?"

Phyllis Weiss was beaming so hard she could barely close her mouth.

"It suits you. Not like some people, who can wear gold and jade and still can't carry off the cheapness."

The woman looked up, saw me, and smiled.

"You must be Irvin's... girlfriend who acts like the maid, right?"

For a second the whole room went silent, and Irvin didn't say a word against it.

I set the soup bowl down on the table, smiled, and looked up at his mother.

"Auntie, you always say family doesn't keep score, right? Then my two years of maid's wages, family discount, twenty percent off, let's settle it today."

...

The only sound left in the living room was the soup bowl touching the table.

Phyllis's face darkened first.

"Kayla Swanson, you really have to make a scene on my birthday?"

I glanced at the bracelet. Last New Year, Phyllis had called me into her room.

She'd said, "This is passed down to the daughter-in-law of the Weiss family. Once you and Irvin register the marriage, I'll put it on you myself."

That night I'd been too happy to sleep.

Irvin had seen it and ruffled my hair, smiling.

"This happy?"

I'd said, "Does your mom finally accept me?"

He'd said, "Just be good, and she'll like you."

Because of that one sentence, I'd been good for two years.

Now the bracelet was on Marie James's wrist.

It suited her. It suited my humiliation too.

Marie stroked the bracelet, her eyes reddening fast.

"Kayla, I really didn't know this was meant for you. Here, let me give it back."

She made a show of taking it off, and the moment her wrist turned a little red, Phyllis pressed her hand down to stop her.

"Don't take it off. What if you hurt yourself?"

Irvin stood up too.

"I'll get some oil."

I thought of last month, when I cut my finger slicing fish and the blood dripped into the sink.

Phyllis told me to get the fish steaming first.

"The guests are about to arrive. Don't be so precious about it."

Irvin only said, "Put a bandage on it."

Now Marie's wrist had one red ring around it, and the two of them acted like the sky was falling.

I said, "Don't take it off."

Marie looked at me.

"I don't want what isn't mine."

Irvin's movement stopped.

"Kayla Swanson."

When he called me by my full name, it usually meant he thought I was being unreasonable.

Sure enough, his next line was exactly that.

"Marie just got divorced. She's not in a good place. Don't embarrass her."

I asked him, "When she called me the maid, how come you weren't worried about embarrassing me?"

He was silent for a second.

No one picked it up, because everyone in the room had understood.

Marie was Irvin's high school classmate.

Two months ago, she'd come back to the city after her divorce, saying she had nowhere to live.

One word from Phyllis, and she'd moved into the Weiss house.

I'd asked Irvin, "We're getting married soon. Is it really appropriate for her to move in?"

He'd been fixing Marie's suitcase at the time, and didn't even look up.

"It's hard for a woman on her own. Don't read too much into it."

I'd asked, "Doesn't House Rule Sixteen say unmarried men and women should keep their distance?"

He'd said, "Rules are rigid. People are flexible."

That was the moment I should have understood. The Weiss family rules only ever bound me.

Beside us, Agatha Weiss let out a scoff.

"You live in my family's house, you eat my family's food, and you've still got the nerve to ask for money?"

I opened the billing app on my phone.

"I transfer your mother five thousand a month for living expenses. I pay the utilities and the building fees. The eight thousand for your exam prep course — that was mine too."

Agatha's face went red.

"Wasn't that my brother who asked you to help out?"

I looked at Irvin.

"Are you paying it back?"

His face darkened.

"Do we really have to settle every cent today?"

"Weren't you the ones who started calling me the maid?"

I pulled up my notes.

Phyllis's medical checkup, thirty-six hundred. John Weiss's blood-pressure medication, twenty-one hundred. Agatha's interview outfit, eighteen hundred.

The relatives who came to stay, the grocery money I covered, twenty-four hundred. And two years of housework.

I used to think family didn't keep accounts with each other.

Now they'd reminded me I wasn't family.

Phyllis was shaking with rage.

"Irvin, look at her. She isn't even married in yet, and already she's like this!"

Irvin took a deep breath.

"Kayla, apologize to my mother."

I lifted my head.

"Why?"

"Today is her birthday."

"So she gets to give the bracelet that was meant for me to someone else, call me petty in front of everyone, and let Marie call me the maid?"

He paused.

"No one ever actually said that bracelet definitely had to go to you."

When those words landed, something in my chest took the hit.

Marie lowered her head.

"Maybe I should just go. It seems like I'm causing trouble between you two."

Phyllis grabbed her arm at once.

"Go where? You stay and keep me company. It makes me happy."

Irvin looked at me.

"Just hold your tongue. No one's throwing you out."

No one was throwing me out. But every word they said told me to get lost.

I went back to the room for my coat.

Outside the door, Phyllis was still cursing.

"She's banking on the wedding, that's all. Now she thinks she can put on airs."

Marie murmured something soothing.

"Auntie, maybe Kayla's just tired."

Irvin said, "Let her cool off. She'll come out on her own tonight."

I stood in the room, looking at the red-covered booklet on the nightstand. The Twenty-Four House Rules.

On the first page was Irvin's handwriting.

"Don't be afraid. You have me."

I stared at those words for a long time. Then I picked up a pen and wrote a line beneath them.

"Maid's wages billed separately."

At six the next morning, Phyllis called through the door.

"Kayla Swanson, where's breakfast?"

I didn't move. Ten minutes later, Irvin knocked and came in.

"My mom's stomach is bad. She can't go without food in the morning."

I said, "You can make it."

He frowned.

"I don't know how."

"Then learn."

He blinked, and his tone went soft.

"My mom spoke too harshly yesterday. We're going to try on the wedding dress today. Haven't you been looking forward to that for a long time?"

In his hand was a tube of hand cream. The brand I always used.

"I saw your hands had cracked again last night. Picked it up on the way."

Something in my chest stirred. Irvin wasn't completely incapable of being good to me.

When I worked late, he came back to pick me up.

When a relative said I had no family behind me to back me, he'd once said, with a cold face, "Kayla is going to be my wife."

It was these small scraps of kindness that made me find excuses for him, over and over.

I told myself maybe he just didn't know how to handle his mother.

Maybe things would get better after the wedding.

I took the hand cream.

"Let's go."

But the car didn't pull up at the wedding-dress shop. It stopped in front of a tearoom.

Marie was standing under the sign, wearing a pale moon-white qipao.

"You're here. The photographer's been waiting."

"Weren't we going to try on the wedding dress?"

He said, "Let me take a few opening photos with Marie first. It won't take long."

I looked at the dress on Marie James.

The crabapple embroidery at the collar—I had chosen it myself.

That dress was my toasting gown.

My voice went tight.

"Where did the clothes she's wearing come from?"

Irvin paused.

"That toasting gown of yours—I lent it to her for a while. You lent her my wedding outfit so she could take photos?"

"It was only taken in a little. We'll let it back out after."

Taken in. I stood where I was, and the cold crept through me inch by inch.

I'd tried seven shops before I settled on that dress.

I had no mother to help me pick out a wedding gown, no family to fill the room on my behalf, so I treasured it all the more.

It was the dignity I'd given myself.

And now Marie was wearing it, standing in front of the camera.

Irvin said, "Clothes are dead, favors are alive. Marie's opening photos can't go wrong today."

I let out a small laugh. That line again.

The rules are dead, the clothes are dead, and only my grievance is something I deserve.

Marie came over, her face full of apology.

"Kayla, don't blame Irvin. I told him I couldn't find anything suitable on short notice, and that's when he thought of you."

She touched the crabapple at the collar.

"Though the photographer did say this dress really suits me."

Irvin cut her off quietly. "Marie."

She fell silent, but the smugness in her eyes didn't quite hide.

I asked Irvin, "Did I agree to this?"

He said, "You wouldn't refuse."

I went still. So in his eyes, refusing wasn't even a possibility for me.

The photographer called out, "Miss James, let's do this set by the door first."

Marie looked at Irvin. "Should I go over, then?"

Irvin nodded. He waited until she was far enough away, then lowered his voice. "Don't embarrass her in front of everyone."

I asked, "And me?"

"What?"

"My fiancé gave my wedding dress to another woman to wear. Where does that leave me?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"No one knows it's yours."

That was worse than being cursed at. No one knows, so I can be sacrificed whenever it's convenient.

I turned and went to the bridal shop. The clerk saw me and looked a little awkward.

The clerk said, "Mr. Weiss says the wedding might have to be downsized."

I asked, "Why?"

"He said the bride's side has few family members, and an elaborate ceremony would just feel empty."

The bride's side has few family members. That meant me.

My father died young, my mother rarely contacted me after she remarried, and the only person who ever loved me, my grandmother, was in a nursing home in the small county town.

I was afraid the Weisses would think I had no family behind me, so I asked for no bride price, no procession, no three pieces of gold jewelry.

I thought that was me being considerate. It turned out to be their excuse to trim me down.

My phone chimed. Marie had sent a photo.

She stood in my toasting gown in front of the tearoom.

Irvin was steadying the frog buttons at her waist for her, his touch very gentle.

The caption read: "Kayla, you have such good taste. Lending me the dress to start things off well—don't be upset, okay?"

I looked at the photo, then looked at the hand cream in my bag.

He remembered that my hands crack. But he also remembered that Marie was short one good dress for her opening.

What he gave me was a few dollars' worth of comfort.

What he gave her was my dignity at my own wedding.

I dropped the hand cream into the trash.

Back at the Weiss house, Phyllis was sitting on the sofa, flipping through an almanac.

"The wedding gets pushed back three months."

I stood in the doorway.

"Why?"

"Marie's tearoom just opened. Irvin needs to help her more. There's no rush for the two of you."

Agatha rolled her eyes.

"Besides, after the scene you made yesterday, getting married now would just be bad luck."