Chapter 5
1549words
She didn't choose to post tearful accusations on social media, nor did she go door-to-door crying about her experiences. Such approaches would be too direct and might trigger suspicion rather than sympathy. Instead, she chose a more ancient and lethal method—gossip.
The community where we live is a typical American middle-class neighborhood, where most neighbors have known each other for over a decade. Here, everyone maintains a veneer of respectability, upholding the illusion of perfect families, while secretly harboring an almost ravenous curiosity about others' private lives.
Mom intended to exploit precisely this.
Her first target was the community supermarket. At three in the afternoon—peak shopping time for housewives gathering ingredients for dinner—Mom pushed her shopping cart, wearing a plain gray cardigan, her face pale with faint dark circles under her eyes. It was a perfectly calibrated appearance of weariness, enough to attract attention without seeming hysterical.
Sure enough, after walking just a few steps, she "happened to run into" Mrs. Miller who lived diagonally across from our house.
"Oh, Katherine, dear, you don't look well." Mrs. Miller stopped, showing concern on her face, but her shrewd eyes scanned Mom up and down like radar.
Mom forced a smile and sighed softly. "It's nothing, Jane. I just haven't been sleeping well lately."
"How are you and Damian doing recently?" Mrs. Miller asked with feigned casualness—what she really cared about. "I haven't seen his car parked in the garage for several days."
This question was like a needle, precisely piercing through Mom's pretense of calmness. Her eyes instantly reddened, her lips trembling slightly as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she just shook her head.
"Some things... Ah, it's embarrassing to even speak of it..." Mom lowered her head, her voice carrying a hint of choking, then quickly pushed the shopping cart away, leaving Mrs. Miller with a lonely and fragile retreating figure.
Mrs. Miller stood in place, watching Mom's back, excitement flickering in her eyes. She immediately took out her phone and began typing rapidly in their "Housewives Chat Group."
I knew then—the first seed had been planted.
In the following days, Mom used the same approach to have "chance encounters" with familiar neighbors again and again—in the community garden, after yoga class, on the way to pick up packages. She never said much, only used hesitant sighs, smiles while holding back tears, and that signature phrase "it's embarrassing to even speak of it" to successfully cast a giant web of curiosity over the entire community.
Rumors began to ferment, with more and more versions emerging, but all pointing to one core issue—that there was an improper relationship between Damian Scott and his sister-in-law Rachel.
The second step of the public opinion battle took place at the homeowners' association meeting.
Mom was one of the committee members, and this organization—composed of several highly respected and influential neighbors from the community—served as the supreme court of community public opinion.
The meeting was held in the living room of the committee chairperson, Mrs. Hoffman. The topic of the day was supposed to be about community landscaping issues, but everyone's mind was clearly elsewhere.
When a brief silence appeared during a break in the discussion, a straightforward committee member who was also known as the neighborhood "busybody"—Mrs. Grace—finally couldn't help but directly question Mom.
"Katherine, we've all heard some rumors. Just tell us directly, is it true? We heard that your sister Rachel and your husband..."
All eyes instantly focused on Mom.
Mom's body suddenly trembled, as if struck at a vital point by these words and could no longer support herself. She lowered her head, her shoulders began to heave uncontrollably, and her suppressed sobbing sounded particularly clear in the quiet living room.
"I'm sorry... I..." She looked up, tears already covering her pale face. "I really don't know what to do... I treated her like my own daughter, I gave her all the best... but I never thought she would... she would with my husband..."
Mom couldn't finish her words, interrupted by a more intense bout of crying. She covered her face, and the pain and despair of being doubly betrayed by her closest loved ones was precisely conveyed to everyone present through her sobs.
This completely ignited the sympathy and sense of justice in everyone present.
"Oh my God! This is practically incest!" Mrs. Hoffman covered her mouth in shock.
"That Rachel, I've long suspected she was trouble! All day dressed up so flashily—turns out she was seducing her own brother-in-law!" Mrs. Grace said indignantly.
"And Damian! How could he do such a thing! Katherine treats him so well, keeping the house in perfect order, yet he's messing around, and with his own sister-in-law!"
The neighbors present all comforted Mom, their tones filled with condemnation for Damian and Rachel. Within three days, the entire community, from the mailman to the gardener, knew about the Scott family's shocking scandal.
The pressure of public opinion quickly transferred onto Dad.
He was pointed at and whispered about in the community. When walking the dog, neighbors who used to greet him warmly now avoided him like the plague. More seriously, some of his old business clients also began hearing rumors, and one after another found various excuses to cancel their cooperation.
Dad finally couldn't sit still anymore. He called in a fury, and as soon as the call connected, he erupted in a barrage of roaring.
"Katherine! What the hell are you doing! Have you been badmouthing me everywhere?"
On this end of the phone, Mom was sitting calmly on the balcony of Grandpa's house, watering an orchid. She put the phone on speaker so Grandpa, Grandma, and I could all hear.
"I haven't badmouthed you, Damian." Mom's voice was as calm as a deep pool of water, without the slightest ripple. "I just told friends who care about me what happened between us. I only told the truth."
"The truth? Do you have any idea that because of your 'truth,' my business is about to be ruined!" Dad roared on the other end of the phone.
"Oh? Is that so?" Mom asked indifferently in return. She put down the watering can, picked up the scissors, and methodically cut off a yellowed leaf. "But didn't you say before that I was nothing without you? Didn't you think that since you controlled all the money in our family, I could only beg for your mercy?"
Mom paused, her voice carrying a hint of icy mockery.
"Now, I just want to show you, Damian. In this society, sometimes reputation is more important than money."
Dad was so choked up he couldn't speak. Only his heavy breathing came through the phone, filled with impotent rage.
Aunt Rachel also quickly felt this pressure.
She went to the supermarket to shop, and the cashier recognized her, not even bothering to look her in the eye, and when giving change, almost threw the coins onto the counter. When she walked around the neighborhood, she could always feel countless gazes boring into her spine from behind, those whispers piercing her ears like needles.
"Look, that's her, the one who seduced her own brother-in-law."
"Truly shameless, I heard she's still living off her sister's money."
"Women like her deserve to be shunned from decent society!"
She finally broke down and called Dad in tears: "I can't take it anymore, Damian! They're all cursing at me! I don't even dare to go outside!"
Dad comforted her over the phone: "Darling, don't mind them. Once Katherine and I are divorced, we'll move somewhere else to start a new life where no one knows us."
But Rachel knew better than anyone that his words were nothing but empty comfort. In this information age, in this society built on connections, as long as they wanted to live a decent life, there was nowhere they could truly escape the judgment of public opinion.
Meanwhile, I wasn't sitting idle either. Through the school's legal aid center, I helped Mom connect with a very professional divorce lawyer.
The lawyer was a woman in her forties named Amanda, sharp and capable, with neat short blonde hair and eyes as piercing as an eagle's.
In her office, Mom laid out all the evidence she had collected—those photos, recordings, hotel records—in front of her.
Amanda carefully reviewed all the materials, then looked up at Mom, with admiration flickering behind her glasses.
"Mrs. Scott," she began, her voice clear and powerful, "legally speaking, your case is very favorable. You can get almost everything you want. But I have a suggestion."
"Please go ahead," Mom said.
"Before formally filing a lawsuit, I suggest we first completely destroy the other party's reputation." Amanda's lips curled into a professionally cold smile. "Public opinion is an extremely powerful weapon. When a person has already 'died' in a social sense, the pressure in court will make them more likely to surrender. They will voluntarily make concessions, just to end this nightmare as quickly as possible."
Mom looked at Amanda and slowly nodded.
"I understand."
Amanda's gaze met Mom's in the air, and the two intelligent women reached a consensus in that moment.
Mom calmly added: "My parents' golden wedding anniversary celebration will be the final blow."
