Tick, Tock—Marriage out of Time

Claude was dressed in black. He held a box of ashes in his hands and had a sad look on his face.

Ariel stood next to him, instructing two of her bodyguards to dig up the empty plot on the left of my mother's grave.

Both of their backs were facing me, so nobody saw me entering quietly from the back.

Soon, a large, deep hole appeared in the ground.

Claude then bent down and put the box of ashes into the hole. He sniffed quietly as he said, "My dear Scooby, I'm finally laying you to rest."

Scooby?

A box of ashes?

Laying it to rest?

My brain nearly exploded at the moment. I rushed up to Claude in a few strides and punched him on the cheek.

"Claude Henner! Who gave you permission to dig up this empty grave?"

"I…"

Claude spat out a mouthful of blood and looked at me, both in shock and dissatisfaction. It was as if he'd never expected me to turn up.

I gritted my teeth and yelled, "Take that box of ashes out of there at once! Now! Do it!"

I rarely ever lost my temper outside of my home.

After burying Mom years ago, I had spent a fortune buying up the two empty plots next to her grave, planning to use it for my dad and myself after we'd both passed. After all, Mom's dying wish was that the three of us be buried side by side after we were gone.

I never thought that Claude would use it to bury his dog instead!

Claude's face swelled into the size of a baseball. He went over to Ariel and stuck close to her like glue. Then, he wailed and said, "Ari, look! That old man… He hit me!"

Ariel looked shocked to see me here. She never expected me to show up either. She took a few steps away from Claude, putting some distance between him and herself.

"Honey, calm down. I can explain."

She then reached out, wanting to hug me, but Claude immediately stepped between us.

Ariel's face darkened at once.

Claude then lifted his face, showing her his swollen cheek after getting hit by me. Her eyes immediately softened as she decided not to yell at him.

"Honey, you have to listen to me. I can explain."

I glared at Ariel coldly. I felt as though she were a stranger to me now.

"I don't want to listen to you. Tell him to remove his dog's ashes now!"

Ariel sighed and said, "He didn't purposely want to bury his dog next to your mom. He just sought out a fortune teller who told him that this was the best place for him to bury his dog so that it would have a better afterlife.

"Claude is a kind person. He just wants his dog to ascend into the happy hunting grounds as quickly as possible. He also promised that he wouldn't put any markers on the dog's grave.

"In fact, the fortune teller mentioned that the dog's ashes wouldn't affect the human ashes that got buried in the same spot afterward anyway. Don't you think that's acceptable?"

I was so mad that I was shaking.

"No fucking way! The box of ashes must be taken out now!

"Ariel Sweeney, you know very well that my mom had always been afraid of dogs when she was alive! If you insist on leaving his dog's ashes in the ground, then you and I are through! I swear I'm going to divorce you if you do that!

"My mom would never accept a daughter-in-law like you! Don't forget that she used to treat you very kindly when she was still around!"

This was the first time I'd ever brought up the subject of divorce. Ariel's face turned grim at that.

"Honey…"

Suddenly, Claude's eyes turned red as he began sobbing loudly like an abandoned little puppy.

"Dustin, Ari used to talk about you, but I never thought that someone as old as you would still be so petty over such a small issue! I know that you're not in a good mood today, but this is just a small matter!

"All you had to do was just compromise, but you had to go and make such a huge deal out of this. If you'd just wanted to yell at someone, then you could have just taken it all out on me. I feel sorry for Ari…"

I glared at him icily and said, "Oh, you wanted me to take it out on you? Sure. I'll fulfill your wish right now."

I then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over to the hole that the bodyguards had just dug up. Then, I kicked him hard in the guts.

Claude was forced to his knees in a humiliating manner. He gritted his teeth and glared at me like he wanted to kill me.

I didn't even bat an eye. "Grab your fucking box of ashes and get on your knees to apologize to my mom right now! Otherwise, I'm going to beat you up so badly you won't even be able to talk!"

Claude took the box from the hole and then cast Ariel a beseeching look.

Ariel's face darkened again.

"That's enough. He didn't end up burying his dog after all, so making him apologize to your mom on his knees is just preposterous."

I felt my heart boiling with rage as it thrashed angrily in my chest.

"Me? Preposterous? Who was the one who forced me into doing this? There are plenty of other burial plots in the area, so why did he have to pretend to consult a hocus-pocus hillbilly actor saying that this was the best burial place for his dog and disturb my mom's peace? Can't you see his motive?"

Claude just sighed and pretended to compromise.

"Don't yell at Ari anymore, Dustin. I'll kneel."

Ariel moved to stop him. She then helped him with the box of ashes.

"No need to kneel. I'll bring you elsewhere to bury Scooby instead."

They then left together, shoulder-to-shoulder, leaving me behind.

It suddenly felt as though I was the one at fault from the beginning to the end.

I laughed self-deprecatingly and turned around to instruct the bodyguards to fill up the hole.

Suddenly, I caught sight of the burial plot on the right side of Mom's grave.

The supposedly empty burial plot I'd spent a fortune on now had a brand-new tombstone on it.