Married Three Years, but I'm Not Her Match

Chase's POV

My mother-in-law, Carol Simpson, held onto my best friend, Shawn Lynch, and gushed over him for a long while before she finally noticed me still standing in the doorway.

"Who's this?" she asked.

Before I could answer, my wife, Jillian Luke, took the single-origin coffee beans and blood pressure medication from my hands.

"He's Shawn's friend, Chase Sherman. He's just helping Shawn carry the gifts."

With that simple remark, she wiped away three years of our marriage.

Carol opened the gift box, her face lighting up with surprise and delight. "Shawn, you remembered that Raymond loves this coffee?"

Shawn froze for a second, then quickly smiled and nodded. "It's the least I could do."

I was the one who had asked someone to buy the coffee beans straight from the source. I was also the one who had gotten the blood pressure medication a month in advance, based on Carol's usual medication routine.

In three years of marriage, Jillian had never taken me to meet her parents. She'd said her family believed in marrying someone of equal standing and might not be able to accept my background, so she'd asked me to give her a little time.

Still, I remembered exactly what coffee Jillian's dad, Raymond Luke, liked and what day Carol's medication would run out.

I'd always thought that as long as I did well enough, one day I'd be accepted by them openly.

"What a thoughtful young man," Carol said, patting Shawn's hand affectionately.

Nobody asked who had bought those things, just as nobody cared why I was standing in the doorway.

…

At the dinner table, Shawn sat next to Jillian as if it were only natural. I was given the seat farthest away.

While the food was being brought out, Jillian got up and pulled me aside.

"Is this what you meant when you said I'd get to meet your parents?" I asked.

"My mom saw a photo of Shawn and me a while back and assumed he was my boyfriend," she replied. "Her health isn't great, so I need you to put up with it and play along, just for today. No matter what, it doesn't change the fact that we're legally married."

Before I could say a word, she'd already turned back to pull out Shawn's chair for him.

Once all the dishes were on the table, Jillian picked every bit of cilantro out of the dish in front of Shawn and placed the peeled shrimp into his bowl.

The moment Shawn mentioned his stomach was bothering him, she immediately checked the temperature of the broth, then got up and brought him stomach medication.

"Didn't I tell you to avoid cold drinks because of your sensitive stomach?"

Her tone was reproachful, but every gesture was impossibly gentle.

In the second year of our marriage, I had come down with a 102-degree fever. I'd lain in bed, clutching the hem of her shirt, begging her to go to the hospital with me.

All she did was set some fever medicine by the bed. "I have an important meeting today. Just take the medicine yourself for now."

That day, the fever left me in a haze, and in the end, a neighbor had to call an ambulance.

But Jillian hadn't been like that when we were dating.

When I sprained my ankle one rainy day, she held me up and walked over a mile with me through the rain. By the time we got to the hospital, she was soaked through, yet she still crouched down to rub my foot.

She said, "Now that you have me, you'll never have to tough it out alone again."

It turned out I was no longer the one she cared about.

…

After dinner, Carol took out a gold signet ring. "This has been passed down to the sons-in-law of the Luke family."

With that, she slid it onto Shawn's thumb.

Shawn instinctively went to take it off, but Jillian pressed her hand over his. "Keep it on for now. It'll make Mom happy."

She said so naturally.

I looked down at my own bare fingers.

The day we made our marriage official, Jillian had said that once her parents accepted me, she'd hand me the Luke family heirloom herself.

I'd been waiting for three years.

Then Carol brought out a photo album to show me how close Shawn was to the Luke family. In the photos, he was with them on Christmas Eve, during a memorial visit to the family plot, and at Raymond's birthday celebration.

There was a family photo too. He stood beside Jillian in the center of the frame with her parents.

The photo was taken last Christmas.

That year, Jillian said her company was sending her overseas at the last minute.

Alone in our apartment, I made a Christmas dinner and waited from Christmas Eve into the early hours of Christmas morning.

At midnight, I texted her, "Merry Christmas." Six hours later, all she sent back was "Okay."

Carol closed the album and casually asked what my parents did for a living.

I told her that my parents had died young and that my grandma had raised me.

The smile on her face visibly faded. "No wonder."