My Beloved Uncle

For seven years they had loved in secret, and on the day my youngest uncle Yale confronted my father, the plane tree leaves outside the window were falling thick upon the ground. I hid in the shadows of the second-floor corridor, absorbing every word spoken below deep in my heart. "I want to marry Wendy." Yale's voice was steady—not begging for marriage, but attending a meeting long set in stone. My father, Ben Scott, slammed the enamel cup down onto the table, tea splashing out and scorching the tablecloth into wrinkles. "I trusted you as a brother, yet you go behind my back, deceiving my daughter?" He was so furious that his hands trembled, yet his gaze never left Yale's face. Yale didn't flinch, meeting my father's eyes head-on. "As long as I can marry Wendy, I'll do whatever you ask." My father was silent for half a minute, then pulled a brown paper bag from the drawer and tossed it in front of Yale. "The marriage arrangement we promised isn't impossible, but that depends on you coming back alive from the Lincoln Family's undercover mission." The Lincoln Family. Those words hit my chest like a block of ice, making my heart ache. Years ago, the Lincoln Family nearly destroyed the Scott Family, and several uncles still carry old wounds that haven't fully healed. Yale picked up the paper bag, his fingertips white from gripping it tightly, yet without a hint of hesitation. The day he left, he held me on my bedroom balcony, his chin resting gently on my head, his warm breath carrying promises that fell softly over me. "Wendy, wait for me to come back alive, and then we'll have our wedding—never to be apart again." I buried my face in his chest and nodded, my tears wetting his shirt and glistening on the bronze ring he had painstakingly saved to buy for my ring finger. I believed him. Over the next four years, I turned down every suitor who came to our door—not even meeting the military officer Second Uncle had introduced. In the family photo album, I secretly slipped in a picture of him, and every night before I sleep, I flip through it. But four years later, on the day he came back, the sky opened up in a heavy downpour. I stood by the living room's floor-to-ceiling window and watched him, his head wrapped in bandages, steadying a girl in a white dress as he knelt slowly beneath the eaves. That girl—I recognized her—Viola Lincoln, the youngest daughter of the Lincoln Family. Back then, Yale went undercover specifically to keep an eye on her father. "Wendy, Viola saved my life." Yale's voice came through the curtain of rain, hoarse, as if scraped raw by sandpaper. He lifted his head, and only then did I notice the scar on his left cheek, running from his brow bone down to his jaw—gruesome and fierce. "I want to marry her." He hesitated, then added, "Could you... make that happen for me?" I stared at Viola Lincoln beside him; her hand quietly gripped the hem of Yale's shirt, her eyes concealing fear but shimmering with a faint, barely noticeable triumph. Footsteps came from behind—my father and three uncles approached, their smiles long gone. Third Uncle Harry came over and helped me settle onto the wicker chair behind me. He knelt down, using the edge of his coat to wipe the mud off my feet before gently slipping my slippers back on. These were always the tasks Yale took care of before. Whenever I ran barefoot around the yard, he would chase after me, kneel down to clean my feet, murmuring, "What if you catch a cold?" But now, he knelt in the rain not far off, his head bowed, not even daring to look my way. "Ben, Yale has survived against all odds this time, finally living up to our trust. The Lincoln Family has already fallen." Second Uncle Gavin sighed, his voice heavy with reluctant pity. My father said nothing, merely lifting his chin toward Viola Lincoln standing beside Yale. "Who is this?" Viola visibly trembled and shrank back behind Yale. Yale instinctively clasped her hand, his fingers locking tightly as if protecting a precious treasure.