My Father’s New Wife Was My High School Rival – I Agreed to Call Her ‘Mom,’ but My Wedding Gift Made Her Scream, ‘How Dare You?!’

Dad looked genuinely surprised.

“Chloe?”

“Yes, Chloe.”

He was quiet.

“I’ll talk to her.”

I almost told him not to.

Instead I said, “Okay.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

***

Two days later, he called.

“She remembers things differently.”

Of course she did.

“She said there was silly teenage drama and everybody could be mean back then.”

“Everybody wasn’t, Dad.”

“She remembers things differently.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Sandy.”

There was the tone.

The one parents use when they want everybody to calm down because calm feels suspiciously similar to solved.

“She says she’s sorry if things got ugly,” he added.

“If?”

“She says she’s sorry if things got ugly.”

Dad sighed.

“I’m not asking you to forget anything. I’m asking if you can give who she is now a chance.”

I looked out my kitchen window.

“Sure.”

That was my mistake.

“I’m asking if you can give who she is now a chance.”

Not because people can’t change.

They can.

But giving someone a chance isn’t the same as volunteering to ignore what they do with it.

***

Chloe was never openly cruel around Dad.

She was smarter than that.

Chloe was never openly cruel around Dad.

She simply had a way of measuring things.

Who got invited.

Who sat where.

Whose plans changed.

Whose didn’t.

When Dad and I had our usual Sunday lunch, Chloe began joining us.

She simply had a way of measuring things.

Then she began scheduling things on Sundays.

If Dad hesitated, she’d laugh.

“Sandy’s an adult. She’ll understand.”

I usually did.

At Christmas, she rearranged dinner around a party she wanted to attend.

If Dad hesitated, she’d laugh.

Dad called me.

“You don’t mind coming at three instead, right?”

“I guess.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

At a fundraiser, Chloe introduced him to someone by saying, “Robert sits on the board.”

Not “This is Robert.”

Not even “This is my fiancé.”

His title first.

Then him.

“Robert sits on the board.”

Maybe none of those things meant anything alone.

Together, they felt familiar.

I just couldn’t explain why without sounding like I was still keeping score from high school.

So I stopped trying.

Together, they felt familiar.

***

Eight months later, Dad married her.

The wedding was held at a hotel where somebody’s full-time job appeared to be making sure no champagne glass ever became more than half empty.

There were white flowers everywhere.

A string quartet during cocktails.

Dad married her.

Chloe wore a custom gown Dad had paid for and looked exactly as happy as a bride should.

For most of the evening, I stayed out of her way.

Then came the gifts.

I stayed out of her way.

Chloe had insisted on opening a handful from close family while the smaller group of relatives and friends still gathered near the reception tables.

Dad opened a watch from his brother.

Chloe opened crystal glasses from an aunt.

Dad opened a watch from his brother.

Then her eyes found me.

“Sandy.”

I was holding my champagne.

“What?”

She smiled.

That smile again.

“Now that we’re officially family, I think you should start calling me Mom.”

“I think you should start calling me Mom.”

Several people laughed.

Dad did too.

He put his arm around Chloe.

“That’s going to take some getting used to.”

Chloe wasn’t looking at him.

She was watching me.

Several people laughed.

We had gone to school together.

We were practically the same age.

Nobody in that room believed she sincerely expected me to think of her as my mother.

But she wanted me to say it.

The old sensation returned.

Not fear exactly.

More like remembering a song you hated after hearing the first two notes.

She wanted me to say it.

Chloe waited.

She expected me to object.

Maybe snap.

Maybe remind everybody that she was my former classmate.

Then she’d get to look wounded.

I could practically see the story arranging itself.

Bitter daughter humiliates father’s new bride.

She expected me to object.

I set down my glass.

Then I picked up my wedding gift to them, the silver box I’d placed on the table earlier.

“Of course, Mom.”

Chloe blinked.

I smiled.

“Open your gift.”

Dad laughed.

“Well, that was easier than expected.”

“Open your gift.”

Chloe gave the room a smug little smile and accepted the box.

“Thank you, Sandy.”

She pulled off the ribbon.

Lifted the lid.

And turned white.

Inside was a cheap plastic crown.

The fake silver coating had rubbed away around the edges.

Inside was a cheap plastic crown.

Three cloudy rhinestones were missing.

Across the front, faded gold letters still read:

QUEEN OF EVERYTHING

Chloe stared at it.

Then at me.

“How dare you?!”

Chloe stared at it.

The room went silent.

Dad’s smile disappeared.

“What is that?”

Chloe snapped the lid shut.

“Nothing.”

I didn’t move.

“You know what it is.”

“What is that?”

Her eyes went straight to mine.

“That was high school.”

Dad looked at her.

Then at me.

“What happened in high school?”

Chloe picked up her champagne.

“This is ridiculous.”

“That was high school.”

“Dad,” I said, “not here.”

That was the last thing Chloe expected.

I could tell because she glanced around at the guests.

She’d expected a fight.

A public one.

She’d expected a fight.

Instead, Dad asked us to follow him into a small sitting room off the ballroom.

He closed the door.

Then looked at me.

“Tell me.”

I looked at Chloe.

She folded her arms.

“We were seventeen, Sandy.”

“I know,” I said.

“Tell me.”

Dad waited.

So I told him about the crown.

It came from a school spirit event senior year.

Cheap carnival junk.

Chloe wore it because people thought it was funny.

At least, it was funny when you were standing beside her.

People thought it was funny.

That night, she’d invited me to a party.

The invitation surprised me because she’d spent months making sure I wasn’t invited anywhere.

She told me there was a ridiculous dress theme.

I believed her.

I arrived dressed for it.

Nobody else was.

I believed her.

Chloe was waiting near the door wearing that crown. The moment I walked in, she took it off, set it on my head, and announced, “The queen of attention has arrived.”

Someone took pictures. I tore the crown off in the bathroom and shoved it into my bag.

“The queen of attention has arrived.”

By Monday, copies were everywhere.

So was the story Chloe attached to them.

That I’d dressed that way because I was desperate for attention.

That I’d begged to be invited.

That I couldn’t understand when people were laughing at me.

By Monday, copies were everywhere.

***

“I didn’t make you wear anything,” Chloe said.

“No.”

“I didn’t force you to come.”

“No.”

“So now we’re rewriting history?”

I looked at Dad.

“That’s how it always worked. She’d set something up, then explain why technically none of it was her fault.”

“I didn’t force you to come.”

Chloe laughed.

“This is insane. You’re dragging teenage nonsense into my wedding because you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“You brought me that.”

She pointed toward the ballroom.

“I brought you a piece of our history,” I said.

“I’m not jealous.”

“As a threat?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

That was a fair question.

I’d found the crown months earlier while clearing boxes from my storage closet.

For years, I’d forgotten I still had it.

“As a threat?”

The moment I saw it, I remembered exactly how powerful it had once seemed.

Then I held it in my hand.

It weighed almost nothing.

“I brought it because you kept pretending none of this happened.”

Chloe turned to Dad.

“Do you see what she’s doing?”

I remembered exactly how powerful it had once seemed.

He didn’t answer.

She reached for the door.

I spoke before she opened it.

“Can I ask you something?”

Chloe looked back.

“You keep saying we were seventeen.”

“We were,” she snapped.

He didn’t answer.

“So why did you need me to call you Mom today?”

Her hand stopped on the doorknob.

Dad looked at her.

Chloe said nothing.

“Because that wasn’t a joke,” I continued. “You were watching me. You wanted me to say it.”

“It’s what people call their stepmothers.”

“You wanted me to say it.”

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