Forgive My Ex-husband

Queena had made the decision not only to mend her relationship with her daughter-in-law, but to strengthen it. Melinda shared the same goal, and the next few days saw the two women bonding over the littles things.

They grew close enough for the older woman to joke once or twice that Melinda had become her sworn daughter, with Jonas coming a close second to her in terms of Queena's affection.

One of the activities they often enjoyed together was shopping, then later sitting at cafes. Yulia had done her best to thwart their mother-daughter outings, but was always shut down by Queena.

At first she thought the Gu madam was only acting on her feelings towards her husband's bastard, but seeing the way she interacted with Melinda gave Yulia a sense of foreboding. Queena was becoming Melinda's ally.

What started as malicious jealousy on her part became a paranoia that ate at her greedy heart, and she soon found herself scrambling to contact Emily so they could do something about it.

To her disgust, she couldn't reach the actress' phone no matter how many times she called.

This went on for a couple of days, until Yulia finally found a report on the internet saying Emily was off to some remote location in the mountains for a shoot.

She must be in some place without reception, which was why Yulia's calls couldn't get through. She threw her phone on the bed and stomped downstairs to cool her head.

She found Nelson, Melinda, and Queena in the living room as she descended. Her sister-in-law was holding out a piece of clothing to her grandfather, and Queena said something that made all three of them laugh. The scene only stoked the fire of envy that burned within Yulia, and she strode over to where they stood to join in on their conversation. "You seem to be having fun," she said as she approached, and her tone effectively hinted at what she was feeling. "What do you have here?" It was a coat with exquisite embroidery.

In her desperation for attention, coupled with the riot of ugly emotions that ran rampant in her heart, Yulia yanked the clothing from Nelson's hands with more force than necessary.

The fabric was ripped.

She stared at the piece of clothing with horror. An awkward silence fell into the room for a couple of beats.

Then the two elders burst into action simultaneously, Nelson abruptly pulling the clothing back to him, and Queena turning to Yulia in visible anger.

"You-"

Before she could start berating Yulia, however, Melinda had come in between them and put a reassuring hand on her mother-in-law's shoulder. Yulia turned away bitterly.

Nelson was glaring at her granddaughter. This coat was supposed to be a present, and he hadn't even had a chance to wear it yet, but this rude, foolish girl just appeared out of nowhere and ruined it. "Grandpa," Melinda said, her tone gentle. "I have been looking at embroidery projects recently, but I never got to actually doing it.

Would you mind if I make an experiment of my skills using your coat?"

She smiled at the old man as she reached for the piece of clothing. He let her take it.

Once again Melinda was salvaging the situation, and doing it with grace and class! Although he was still feeling sullen, Nelson would never think of ruining her efforts by staying cross.

"All right, you can do whatever you want with it. But be sure it turns out beautifully, or I will be very unhappy."

He gave her a conniving little smile then, to show her that he knew what she was trying to do.

Melinda returned the smile and only nodded. Beside them, Queena was sporting a pleased little smile herself, feeling rather proud at how her daughter-in-law handled the predicament. Yulia only hung her head in shame, and nursed her fury in silence.

It was then that Gavin interrupted them, "Sir, Madam, the post has arrived." He handed various envelopes to the two, mostly invitations to parties and some other events.

A hefty number of them were addressed to Nelson, and the others to Queena. Melinda, as usual, received none.

Nelson only grunted and waved them away. He never liked socializing. "You can take care of those for me," he told Gavin. "You know what to do."

Queena had opened one of the envelopes, and was reading through its contents. It was from Emily, an invitation to a party.

The actress included a postscript saying that she missed Queena and apologized for being so busy with her projects that she hadn't come by lately. Involuntarily, Queena's eyes darted towards Melinda. Her daughter-in-law still wore a little smile on her face as she folded Nelson's coat in her arms.

She was the very picture of gentility. Her gaze then drifted to Yulia, who was glaring at the stack of invitations with obvious avarice. She never received invitations either.

Once again Queena was reminded how different Melinda was from Yulia and Emily, and felt a sense of security that she was making the right choice with her recent change in associations. "Gavin, please refuse this invitation for me as well," she instructed, handing the post over to the butler with an air of nonchalance.

Melinda caught sight of the invitation's sender as it passed hands. She breathed an inward sigh of relief.

She couldn't deny that she had worried about what might happen if Queena decided to spend some time with Emily.

She had been so easily fooled before, after all. Melinda feared that the past few weeks of her gaining her mother-in-law's favor would all go to waste once the actress resumed her manipulations. Still, she wasn't expecting such a ready reaction. And she wasn't the only one. Yulia had also seen who sent the invitation, and could not believe she just witnessed a swift and firm refusal from Queena.

To think that she had been counting on Emily to end Melinda's recent days of bliss. She had to talk to the actress as soon as possible.

She finally reached her that night, and both of them were in a very foul mood. It would seem that Emily had already received the rejection of her invitation.

"Why didn't you warn me you were going to disappear to some godforsaken place with no reception?" Yulia spat over the phone.

"Don't you know that all this time that you were gone, that bitch Melinda had been sucking up to Queena? And now she's successfully gained her favor!"

Emily rubbed her temples. Why was Yulia laying the blame on her? How was she supposed to know that things would turn out this way?

Things were already going south for them and all that brat did was complain. "Are you saying this is all my fault?" she said coldly, and Yulia went silent on the other end.

Good, she should know her place. Emily heaved a long sigh of frustration. "Tell me everything that happened."

When their call ended, Emily dialed Queena's contact number. If she needed to do some damage control, she might as well target the concerned party directly.

"Aunt Queena, it's been a while!" Her voice was cheerful over the phone, but she made sure to inject a quality of sulkiness, alluding to Queena's refusal to go out with her. The older woman's reply, however, was short and cool. "Emily." There was no mistaking the shift of her affections, and Emily felt a small burst of panic. "Have you been busy lately, Aunt Queena?"

"Quite."

Emily bit her thumb as her mind raced. "Aunt Queena, you must tell me when you'll be free. We haven't seen each other for such a long time. I really miss your company.

I bought you a souvenir from my trip to the mountains. I was there for a shoot. I'm sure you will like my gift!"

She thought she might engage Queena's curiosity when she mentioned her present, but there was only silence from the other end.

Emily plowed on, grasping at whatever scheme coming to her on the spot. "Aunt Queena, I've heard something really interesting along the grapevine. Can I share it with you?"

"What is it?" Queena finally spoke, although her tone indicated that she didn't care much at all.

"I went to a periodical office a few days ago, and happened upon a little skirmish among the staff. Apparently there was someone who was trying to prevent a story from making its way to the press.

I found out that it was about a couple of writers, a man and a woman, both married. They were collaborating on a new book, and as such were spending a lot of time with each other.

At some point they were seen entering a hotel together, and some source said that they were, in fact, meeting up in hotels often."

Queena immediately thought of her daughter-in-law. She knew that Melinda was working on a new book with Kent, and she was aware that they had been rumored to have been romantically involved in the past.

She cleared her throat. "Is that so? I understand being a writer isn't such an easy task."

"Oh, for sure," Emily said earnestly. She had purposely told this story to bring Melinda and Kent to Queena's mind. "I hear that a lot of writers needed first-hand experience on the things they were writing, so as to keep the narrative vivid to the readers.

I suspect such was the case with those two writers. They were no doubt writing a romance. That's probably why they were trying so hard to stop the publishers from running the story. Having an affair with another married person is such a huge scandal after all!"

As soon as she heard the word "affair", a dark cloud descended upon Queena. Various memories from her own marriage swam into her vision. It took her a moment to get back to the conversation.

She pulled her thoughts together. They both knew what Emily was trying to imply. She was badmouthing Melinda again, slandering her in front of Queena.

It was only just occurring to the older woman now, but as she looked back to all her interactions with Emily, she realized that the actress spoke ill of Melinda quite often.

"Whatever the case," Queena said, her voice firm. "That is neither your business nor mine. As for the other thing that you seem to be overly concerned with, Emily, that's none of your business either. But regardless, I'm telling you now that Mellie is not an adulterous woman."

She had actually interacted with Kent in person. The man was a bit knowledgeable at calligraphy, and was highly intelligent. Queena could see that he adored Melinda, but except for the rumors, there was nothing else that indicated to an affair between the young writers.

A wave of desperation washed over Emily, and she faltered. Queena's tone made it clear that she wouldn't stand for any further comments on the matter. The actress was quick to laugh it off and change the topic.

They chatted some more about worthless matters before she hurriedly ended the call. Then she sat in her room, gritting her teeth and digging her nails into her palms in tight fists as she tried to think of another plan to bring Melinda down.

After she hung up, Queena made her way downstairs to get some water. She found her daughter-in-law warming some milk in the kitchen.

Melinda turned in mild surprise as she approached. "Oh, Mom, you're still awake?"

"Hmm," Queena answered. It was true she should have been in bed by now, but her conversation with Emily preyed on her mind. It troubled her enough that she knew she would have difficulty falling asleep that night.

"What about you? Are you up this late writing?" As she said it out loud, it suddenly occurred to Queena that Melinda might have been losing her writing time because she was always accompanying her. She must be making up for it by writing late into the night.

But her daughter-in-law only smiled. "I'm actually on my way to bed now." She removed the pot from the stove and poured the milk into a tall glass, and handed it to Queena. Then she went over to the fridge to get some more milk for herself, and repeated the process of warming it up.

Queena looked on, basking in the peaceful quiet and the feeling of comfort that such a mundane task brought about. Melinda really was an ideal wife, gentle and yet incredibly strong.

She thought back on Emily's vile words, and could not help bringing the actress up. "You dislike Emily very much, don't you?"

Melinda paused what she was doing for a beat, but when she spoke, her voice remained gentle and calm. "Mom, will you ever come to like someone who repeatedly tries to destroy your marriage?"

A deep frown creased Queena's brow. She would loathe such a person; her own marriage was broken by someone like that.

But all this time, Emily kept saying that it was Melinda who got between her and Jonas, and that she enlisted Nelson to keep them apart.

"You weren't there when it all started," Melinda said, breaking through Queena's thoughts. She could see that some heavy emotion clouded the younger woman's eyes. "There's so much you don't know." Then Melinda looked straight at her, and above everything else, Queena recognized a deep sadness in her expression. She felt her own chest ache at the weight of her daughter-in-law's heartbreak. She went over to Melinda and put her arm over her daughter-in-law's shoulders. "It's all in the past, as you said."

Melinda turned back to the stove and put out the fire. She prepared her own glass of milk, set it on the counter, and pulled out a chair. When she sat down, Queena pulled another chair beside her. "Then let me tell you about the past."