My baby died during a difficult labor. I was devastated, spending every day at home washing my face with tears. When my coworker, Linda, found out, she wanted to bring some people over to my house to visit me. Not wanting to bring up sad memories, I politely declined. I told her that once I recovered, I would definitely invite her over for dinner. She instantly got upset, firing off text after text. [I'm not trying to lecture you, Maya, but you're in your late twenties. How do you not understand basic social etiquette?] [We're giving up our time and buying things to come see you, and you don't even appreciate it. That's really disheartening!] 1 Linda is five years older than me and a senior employee at our company. A year ago, she introduced me to her cousin, who is now my husband. Because of these two connections, I forced down my displeasure. [Linda, I know you mean well, but I'm really in a bad place right now. I just want to be alone for a bit. I hope you can understand.] The pain of losing a child is like having your heart ripped out. Any words of comfort were pale and meaningless to me. I didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to remember it. I just wanted to hide and slowly stitch up the wounds in my heart by myself. But Linda wouldn't let it go. [Maya, can you stop acting like a spoiled child? If you keep this up, you're going to ruin your reputation with everyone!] [Do you know that Chloe, who sits across from you, insisted on coming to see you even though she's heavily pregnant? Usually, people consider your situation bad luck for a pregnant woman, but she didn't complain once. Do you really have the heart to reject that kind of kindness?] [Besides, not only did we buy gifts, but we were also planning to give you some cash. This is a good thing! Don't be an idiot!] Can money buy back my child's life? Besides, I never asked them to come see me! Holding back my anger, I replied. [Thank you, Linda, and please thank everyone for their concern, but it's really not necessary.] Linda: [Seriously, why are you so stubborn? Haven't you ever heard that refusing good advice will only bring you trouble?] I didn't want to waste any more words on her, so I just closed the app. She still wouldn't give up, trying to call me. I immediately hung up on her. In my eyes, she had crossed a line. I don't need anyone telling me what to do, nor do I need forced sympathy. Her constant pushing only proved she had an ulterior motive. Seeing that I was ignoring her, Linda finally stopped. I thought the matter was settled, but a few days later, she actually showed up at my front door with a group of people. "Open the door, Maya! It's Linda, I brought your coworkers to see you!" She pounded on the door relentlessly, looking like she wouldn't stop until I opened it. "We're all so worried about you, Maya! You lost a baby, but you can always have another one. Please don't do anything drastic!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, as if afraid the neighbors wouldn't hear her. I stood in the living room, so angry I wanted to scream profanities. She was doing this on purpose. How could someone be so obnoxious? I told her not to come, and she came anyway. But I couldn't lash out, because I didn't want to face her, didn't want to deal with her. So, I muted my phone and pretended not to be home. After knocking for a long time with no answer, she naturally had to leave. Sure enough, ten minutes later, the knocking stopped. Linda: "Looks like Maya isn't home today. What bad timing. We'll come back another day." Listening to the footsteps fading down the stairs, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. When my mother-in-law comes over tomorrow, I have to ask her to call Linda and talk to her. She won't listen to me, but surely she'll listen to her own aunt. My emotions are already incredibly unstable. If she bothers me again, I really will break down. Thinking about this, I fell asleep on the couch. I don't know how much time passed before I heard the sound of the keypad lock on the front door. My husband was home from work. I groggily sat up, about to greet him, when Linda suddenly popped out from behind him. She shook her head with a triumphant look on her face. "Hmph, I knew you were home. Even if you don't open the door for me, I have my ways of getting in!" I grabbed my phone and checked the time. It had been two hours since she was knocking on the door. 2 "Ugh, my legs are so sore from standing in the hallway for so long!" Linda complained as she rubbed her legs. "Mark, your wife is really something, treating your cousin like an enemy!" I kept a straight face, staring at her coldly. Wow, how hard that must have been for her, trying so hard just to see me. Standing outside for two hours in four-inch heels. The other coworkers had already left because they had things to do. Linda plopped down right next to me. "What happened, Maya? Everything was fine, why did you suddenly have a difficult labor?" She held my hand, trying to force a sympathetic expression. But the slight upward curve of the corners of her mouth gave her away. "I heard that babies who die from a lack of oxygen during labor have blue and purple faces. Oh, how pitiful!" "By the way, what did you do with the body? Did you leave it with the hospital, or did you take it yourselves?" "Did you take any pictures for memory? What did the baby look like? Let me see!" Her eyes were wide open, a hidden excitement gleaming in them. I felt like someone was choking me; I suddenly couldn't breathe. The scenes from that day flooded back into my mind. The baby without a heartbeat, the doctor pronouncing the time of death, my mother-in-law fainting on the floor, my husband crying his eyes out. I violently wrapped my arms around myself, my body shaking uncontrollably. My husband noticed I wasn't doing well and quickly spoke up to stop her. "Linda, that's in the past now. Let's talk about something else." He picked up a mango from the table. "My friend brought this back from Florida, it's really sweet. Try it!" "Shoo, shoo, shoo!" Linda rolled her eyes at him. "Can't you see I'm comforting Maya? Don't interrupt!" Saying that, she turned back to me. "Don't mind me, Maya. When I had my baby, it went so smoothly, I don't know what a difficult labor is like, so I'm a little curious." "You must be in so much pain. Why do you have to be so unlucky? If it were me, I probably would have jumped off a building by now!" I kept my head down and didn't say a word, but my hands were already clenched into tight fists. So this was her so-called "caring." Ripping off scabs, reveling in my misfortune, maliciously leading the conversation. Terrified that I wasn't suffering enough, terrified that I would move on too quickly. If I were even slightly more fragile, I probably would have fallen right into her trap. She had said and done offensive things in the past, and I never held it against her. But that didn't mean I was an idiot who couldn't see her dark, petty intentions. I took a deep breath, telling myself I couldn't get angry. I was still in my postpartum recovery period; getting sick from anger would affect me for the rest of my life. "I'm tired. I'm going to my room to rest. Make yourself at home." With that, I got up, walked into the bedroom, and locked the door behind me. Linda immediately started squawking. "Excuse me? I came all the way here to see her, waited for over two hours, and she's just going to leave me here?" "Look, Linda, my wife is recovering from childbirth, she needs to rest. Just give her a break, okay?" My husband's tone was extremely frustrated, but he couldn't really blow up at her. "Come on, let's go, I'll walk you down. It's getting late, you should hurry back and cook dinner for your husband!" Linda was silent for a moment, then suddenly sighed. "Mark, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was so hard for Maya to have a baby. If I had known, I definitely wouldn't have..." "Stop!" My husband dropped his voice to a whisper. "I'm begging you, Linda, just stop talking, okay?" Lying on the bed in my room, I couldn't help but let out a cold laugh. Great. Even as she was leaving, she had to try and drive a wedge between my husband and me. 3 No one would believe it if I said it, but I used to be really good friends with Linda. When I first graduated and joined the company, she helped me a lot with work. In return, I gave her a ride to work every single day. After work, we would often grab dinner or go shopping together. Even though there was a five-year age gap, we talked about everything and really hit it off. Later, she introduced me to her cousin, Mark. He came from an ordinary background, but he was a good guy, and it wasn't long before we got married. And that's exactly when my relationship with Linda took a sharp nosedive. The second month after we got our marriage license, my father-in-law died unexpectedly in a car accident. When he was young, he abandoned his wife and son to live it up with his mistress. Later, when he got old and sick, he ran back home and forced his wife and son to take care of him. Because of this, my mother-in-law and husband always despised him. At his funeral, Linda walked up to me with a sinister look. "You're pretty lucky, Maya. You just married into the family and your father-in-law dies. Not only is that one less burden to take care of in his old age, but you also got hundreds of thousands of dollars in a settlement. You must be thrilled, right? God, why don't I have luck like that?" Her lips were pressed tightly together, staring at me dead on, a faint trace of hatred in her eyes. Her hands hanging by her sides were clenched into fists, her whole body shaking from how hard she was squeezing them. I was startled. Since I'd known her, I had never seen her make an expression like that. After that day, Linda seemed like a different person. She stopped catching rides with me. Instead, disregarding her two-thousand-dollar monthly mortgage, she borrowed money to buy a thirty-thousand-dollar car. She started distancing herself from me, isolating me, and subtly trying to compete with me. The way she spoke became passive-aggressive and snide. I knew she was feeling unbalanced. But the truth was, the settlement money was entirely in my mother-in-law's hands. I had no right to control it, nor had I ever coveted it. To smooth things over, I bought Linda an expensive pearl necklace for her birthday. I have always valued my friends, not to mention she was now my relative. In the private karaoke room, Linda picked up the necklace and gave it a glance. "Wow, having money really does make a difference! Look how generous you are!" Saying that, she casually tossed the necklace onto the table. "Maya, today is my birthday. Do you really think it's appropriate to buy me a gift using dead man's money?" "Are you here to wish me a happy birthday, or curse me with bad luck?" She gritted her teeth and glared at me aggressively. I froze, unable to believe her reaction. I bought the necklace with my own hard-earned money. "If you have a problem with me, just say it. There's no need to play these cheap, dirty tricks. It only makes you look incredibly low!" The karaoke room fell dead silent, all eyes on me. I felt like I had been slapped in public; my face was burning hot. I never realized someone's jealousy could be this extreme. Why would I even try to salvage a relationship with someone like this? I grabbed my purse and left without looking back, deciding I would act as if I had never been friends with her! And Linda? She complained endlessly about my gift but never returned the necklace to me. We completely fell out. Although we saw each other every day, we silently agreed to treat each other as invisible. Until I had a difficult labor, and she uncharacteristically reached out to show "concern." At first, I thought she had figured things out and wanted to repair our friendship. I figured if she was willing to lower her head, I wouldn't hold the past against her. But I never imagined her true motive was to use the visit to rub it in my face and viciously poke at my wounds. 4 I had to admit, Linda's plan worked. I thought she would leave it at that, but not long after, she called me again. "The boss told me to notify you to drop off a document to a client on the Southside tomorrow morning." Hearing this, my anger flared up instantly. "I'm on maternity leave! What document?!" Was there something wrong with her brain?! "Maternity leave?" her tone was rigid. "You don't have a baby to take care of, why should you get maternity leave? You should be back at work now that your recovery period is over!" My eyes fell on the calendar on my desk. I realized that from the day of my labor to today, it was exactly one month. Not a day more, not a day less. She had secretly been counting the days for me. She really "cared" more about me than my own mother. "Logically, in your situation, you shouldn't even get the recovery leave." "Whether I get it or not depends on state law, not you!" I had already checked the relevant labor laws. Even if the child dies, the mother has the right to take her full paid family leave. Besides, the boss already approved it. What right did she have to gossip? Linda: "Stop trying to fool people. I looked it up too. There are no clear regulations for this situation. You're just exploiting a loophole!" She raised her voice, sharply accusing me. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. So not only was she counting the days for me, but she also took the time to research maternity leave policies. She was keeping herself awfully busy. "So what? The boss has already approved my leave. If you have a problem with it, go talk to him!" Linda: "It was the boss who assigned you to deliver the document. His meaning is already very clear. Can't you see that?" "And the rest of the office has a big problem with you right now. If you don't come back to work, you're going to get fired very soon!" "Then have the boss himself call me. I don't believe anything you say." Trying to play the "fake orders from the king" trick on me? I wasn't some naive rookie who just joined the company. After five years at this company, I knew the boss's temper very well. He wasn't the type to go back on his word. Seeing that I wasn't falling for her traps, Linda angrily hung up the phone. I realized I was stuck with her. Jealousy had twisted her mind, making her lose herself. Every day, she just kept her eyes on me, trying to deal with me, trying to find ways to make my life miserable. But that was fine. I wasn't a pushover either. From today on, I would not tolerate a single ounce of disrespect from her. If I caught an opportunity to take her down, I would not show any mercy. I blocked all of Linda's contact info. My mother-in-law also specifically talked to her, telling her to stop bothering me. And so, my life finally returned to peace. After peacefully finishing my family leave, I returned to the office. To celebrate my return, I invited the people in my department out to a karaoke bar after work. Naturally, Linda was not on the guest list. Everyone had a great time, and we didn't wrap up until past 11 PM. My coworker, Chloe, had a little too much to drink, so I offered to drive her home. While waiting at a red light, she suddenly spoke up. "Maya, can I ask you a question?" "Sure," I replied casually, keeping my eyes on the road. "I heard your difficult labor was because you were so jealous that Linda's husband passed the civil service exam that you got so angry it triggered early labor. Is that true?" Boom. I felt all the blood in my body rush straight to my head. "Who did you hear that from?" Chloe giggled. "I saw it on Reddit! Someone posted anonymously, complaining about their awful female coworker. After reading it, I just felt like they were talking about you!" "Tsk, tsk. I never would have guessed that you look so chill on the outside, but you're actually that petty on the inside!"
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