Not even a moment after getting her mood dampened by the impression that Gertrude's intention for her visit isn't genuine at all, everything seemed to be going downhill for real.
Cassidy just finished serving her mother-in-law a hot cup of tea. But then, as soon as she took a sip of it, she abruptly threw the cup away, losing her cool and composure out of nowhere.
It ended up hitting the marbled floor and breaking into pieces, causing a loud, shattering noise to echo all around the room.
"Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous...!" Gertrude exclaimed exasperatedly, her brows scrunched tightly together in vex.
"What were you intending to do?! Poison me?!"
"Huh?" was all Cassidy could blurt out in nonplus, her eyes as wide as saucers.
"It tastes very disgusting! The worst I ever have!"
"Oh, ummm... That's..."
"As I thought, you're one incompetent woman! You don't possess any good qualities at all! Not even when it comes to something as small as making tea!"
"Wait, chill out, Ma'am. You do know that I have amnesia, right-"
"The hell I care about that! You're still my son's wife, aren't you?! These past weeks were more than enough for you to start educating yourself, especially since people kept saying that you recovered quickly! Just what the heck were you doing this entire time?! Did you completely turn to leeching off of our wealth without doing anything useful anymore...?!"
At this very minute, her mother-in-law seems to have lost it for some reason.
Cassidy finds it hard to believe that only a mere slip-up like this - one that should have been excusable since she can't remember many things, can push her buttons so much. She's like a once dormant volcano erupting - her collected facade shattered almost instantly.
"But then, somehow..." she found herself pondering as flashes of blurry memories passed through her mind all of the sudden.
"This kind of scene seems to be a recurring one. I can sense that she used to make an outburst like this a number of times before."
For the nth time that day, Cassidy ends up simply falling silent as she just settles with watching her rant furiously. Now, her initial impression of her mother-in-law is beginning to have some modifications. She turned out to be not that completely impenetrable and impassive after all.
It almost felt like Gertrude was only bottling up this overflowing animosity and hatred this entire time - waiting for Cassidy to make a mistake and pull the trigger.
"Goodness, you're such a disgrace!" she then hollered for the last time before taking deep breaths and pulling herself together again.
After a few minutes of lashing, she finally finished and turned to eyeing her daughter-in-law contemptuously this time. With that, they exchange looks once again while a moment of heavy silence stretches in their midst.
"Well, what are you still stalling around there for...?" Gertrude trailed off condescendingly, shooting her a pointed look.
"Go clean it up."
Cassidy feels like giving her a round of applause at that very second. She can't believe that she'll be this much of a 'Karen'.
Instead of stooping to her level and getting angry, though, she just chooses to keep staring back at her in silence. Her mother-in-law archs an eyebrow at this, crossing her arms domineeringly.
"I said clean it up."
At her demanding expression, Cassidy finally snaps.
But rather than doing it the way she usually does, she decided to confront her using her own signature insouciance. She just simply imitates her impassive facade, not complying to her orders anymore.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Gertrude bolted out infuriatedly, getting riled up once more.
"You're the one who threw it away, Ma'am..." Cassidy intrepidly retaliated with her arms crossed, lifting her chin up and puffing out her chest.
"You go clean it up, then."
"How utterly ridiculous, indeed... Impudent woman!"
Her daughter-in-law's unexpected apathetic reaction catches her off guard. She never saw her act like this before. After all, she used to always cower in fear in the past.
Right now, though, Gertrude feels provoked to an unimaginable degree. Amnesia or not - nobody ever dares to talk back to her like this. Not even her own children could do such a thing.
"Fine then. I'll let you have your way..." she eventually continued after a brief pause, narrowing her eyes and smirking mockingly all the while.
"This only proves that you're only pretending and deceiving everyone this whole time. You acted all proper, but you're actually this rude and disrespectful... What a hypocrite."
Right after dropping her last remark of venom for this day, Gertrude finally stood up from her seat and stormed out of the room, leaving Cassidy and her clutter of thoughts behind.