▸ Column · Present day — an Amazon envoy fielding letters from the modern world of men, with her rival cutting in
WONDER WOMAN replies.
Replied to by Wonder Woman, with a rebuttal from Cheetah.
The letter
My fiancé Derrick and I spent eight months building a small outdoor wedding — forty people, wildflowers, a vineyard in the Hudson Valley, a caterer we scrimped for. Then his mother Renata announced in the family group chat that she'd already put down a deposit on a 200-seat banquet hall in her own town, one that "doesn't make guests stand in a field." She called it a gift. When Derrick objected, she cried that she only wanted to give us something meaningful, and now he wants me to "consider both options" — as though we hadn't already signed a contract. I later learned Renata phoned the vineyard herself, pretending to coordinate a surprise, just to pry our guest list out of them. So she knew exactly what she was unmaking. Derrick says I'm being uncharitable, but I'm the one who's spent three months absorbing her little jabs about the centerpieces being "so rustic." Do I insist we keep our plan and let Derrick feel I'm picking a venue over his mother — or do I smile through the wedding she always wanted in a hall I've never even seen?
Wonder Woman replies
Friend, set down the question you asked, because it is the wrong one. You did not write to me about a field versus a hall. You wrote because the man you are to marry watched his mother deceive a vendor, unmake eight months of your work, and weep until you were somehow the unkind one — and his reply was to ask you to "consider both options."
That is the injustice. Say it without softening: a gift you are not permitted to refuse is not a gift. It is a leash with a bow tied on it. My mother Hippolyta armed me and then granted me the freedom to refuse the armor entirely — that is what giving actually looks like. Renata did the opposite and called it love.
So go to Derrick. Not to win, not to humiliate his mother — to tell the truth: "She lied to take what was ours. I won't punish her for it, and I won't pretend it didn't happen, and I will not marry a man who asks me to vanish so his mother won't cry." Then watch what he chooses. The wedding is one day. The pattern is the rest of your life. You will not find your courage in a banquet hall. You will choose it.
— Wonder Woman
Cheetah weighs in
How like Diana — a sermon on truth, as if the cat ever lied about being a cat. You're watching the wrong animal, darling. Renata hunts in the open; at least she's honest about her appetite. It's Derrick who hands you over and calls it "considering options." He chose the predator who raised him, and he'll choose her every time the tears work — which is always. Diana "saved" me once and has been narrating my soul back to me ever since; she still thinks a good speech fixes a man's nature. Don't tell him the truth. He knows it. Take your forty guests, your vineyard, and your name off his future, and let Renata seat two hundred at a wedding with no bride.
— Cheetah
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