The Birthday They Kneeled

Three years after college, Ethan Place is indifferent when his ex Lena taunts him with an invitation to her father-in-law's gala, married as she is into Crestview's wealthiest family. His wife Raina, of the Sterling family, hands him a gold-trimmed heirloom the Fairfaxes sent, too trivial for them to return themselves. He decides to deliver it in person.

At the Fairfax estate, Lena and their old classmates mock him as a broke chauffeur, while he says only that he is content. When he returns the box to old Mr. Fairfax, the patriarch insists it is not what his family sent to the Sterlings. Brock, Lena's husband, kicks him down and demands he kneel and kowtow to the old man.

Pinned and jeered, Ethan warns that he is Raina Sterling's husband and that the Fairfaxes will not bear the consequences of this mistake.