Chapter Three From Bad to Worse
Adelina
Friday
Cantonese. It’s the first thing I hear when I step through the front door of our childhood home deep within the Burnaby suburbs, roughly twenty-five minutes by SkyTrain from downtown Vancouver.
My aunts, uncles and cousins are a boisterous choir of enthusiastic conversation, chords of rapid-fire syllables accented with staccato intonations floating into my ears like music.
I understand exactly none of it. Well, that’s not true. I know the basics:
Ngo tou ngo. I’m hungry.
Ci so hai bin aa? Where’s the bathroom?
Ngo hou gui. I’m tired.
And that’s about it.
When Lily and I were born, my parents made the executive decision to raise us with English as our first language.
My cousins are all a few years older than us.
When they went to school and struggled to communicate with their teachers and failed to understand their homework, it made an impression.
Mom and Dad were adamant that this would not happen to their daughters.
So they spoke English to us everywhere. When we were at home, while we were grocery shopping at Costco.
Even when we went out for dim sum, they’d speak to the waiter in Canto and switch back when talking to us.
Lily and I thought it was perfectly normal until we were old enough to understand what it was to be left out.
“There she is!” Uncle Tommy calls out as Lily and I slip out of our street shoes and change into indoor slippers Mom bought from T&T a million years ago.
“Hi, everyone!” Lily greets cheerfully. “I’m so glad you’re all here.”
In the blink of an eye, our family surrounds her.
I shrink back, no longer used to the noise and the lack of personal space.
Even though it’s been years since I saw them all at the funeral, very little has changed.
Uncle Tommy still smells of mothballs, Auntie Ying of white flower oil.
Cousin Jen has adult braces, so that’s new.
Cousins Alfie, Richard and George are still the nerdiest manchildren to ever walk the earth.
And then there’s Auntie June, who isn’t actually related to us by blood.
She’s an old friend of Mom’s who has been around long enough that we’ve basically absorbed her into the Choi family.
While my family pats Lily on the back and offer their congratulations, I am mostly ignored. Not that I mind. Maybe my years alone have exacerbated my natural introversion. I’m not the star of the show tonight, besides, and I’d honestly rather not steal Lily’s thunder.
The only person whose attention I have is Mom.
She stands just off to the side, watching me from the corner of the entryway. She’s shorter than me (and, by extension, Lily) by roughly two inches, but the overt unpleasantness she radiates makes her feel so much bigger.
“What did you do to your hair?” she asks.
Not hello. Not how are you doing? I haven’t even been home for five minutes, and she’s already taking shots at my appearance.
“I needed a change,” I reply, my words clipped and restrained. I can sense Lily’s eyes on the both of us, gauging our reactions like we’re two snarling dogs sizing each other up.
“You look like a boy.”
“So? I like it.”
Mom curls her nose. She’s never been the type to beat around the bush and fake pleasantries, but I’m sure this is just a warm-up. She’ll tear me to shreds if given the chance, especially considering how we left things.
“Dinner’s ready,” she says, not so much to me as to the room at large. “Come sit.”
The house is exactly the way I remember it from when I left for college.
Save for a new potted money plant here and there, everything’s the same.
The mahogany furniture with the red silk cushions.
The picture frames carrying precious family photos.
The large mirrors hung strategically on walls opposite large windows to give the illusion of a larger space.
It’s supposed to be good feng shui or whatever.
I never really understood, but Mom adheres to the concept with an almost religious zeal.
The upright Yamaha piano sits in the den, its lid pulled down.
My palms get clammy just looking at it. Mom would make us practice for an hour every single day after we were finished with our homework.
We even had a little stopwatch to keep track of the time.
Not a moment more, and certainly not a moment less.
I used to love playing the piano, I think, but she sucked the fun out of it, and it started to feel more like work than a pastime. No one’s played it in ages.
We arrive in the living room, which opens into the dining area and kitchen.
The circular table has already been set, with little dishes of vegetables and larger platters of raw beef and pork arranged around the large metal hot pot set over a single-burner stove.
It uses gas canisters. I’ve told Mom that there are electric versions, that she doesn’t have to risk burning the house down, but she never listens. I’ve stopped trying to convince her.
There are ten chairs. The nine of us take our seats.
Everyone digs in, helping themselves to bites of rice while they toss green onions, cubed tofu, clumps of enoki mushrooms and various cuts of meat into the soup. It’s been sectioned off by a divider: chicken broth on the right, spicy and sour on the left.
My cousins are deep in conversation, but since it’s in Cantonese, I can pick up only bits here and there.
It’s like putting together a puzzle in the dark, but most of the pieces are missing and I’ve only got the edges to provide context.
And there’s no guarantee I’ve even got those in the right order.
They mention something about a new movie coming out.
Or are they talking about a new video game?
On the other side of the table, my aunts and uncle are having their own enthusiastic conversation about the ever-rising price of fresh fruit. Or…maybe it’s about the price of gas?
Whatever. Having them switch to English for my sake would make me feel too much like an inconvenience.
Lily tries to chime in, throwing a practiced sentence in every now and again, but the table only ends up laughing. If her intonations are off, I can’t tell, though it seems highly likely.
“You sound like a gweilou,” Richard says with his mouth full.
My ears perk up. Even I know what that means.
A foreigner.
He’s only teasing, but it’s a backhanded comment all the same.
It’s almost a little cruel. How are we supposed to improve if all we face is admonishment for simply trying?
It’s one of the reasons why I stopped trying to learn altogether.
When we were kids, Jen once joked that I should have my Asian card revoked.
I punched her in the mouth for the comment and wound up grounded for two weeks. (Worth it.)
“So, why’d you choose Dal?” Jen asks. “Not good enough to get into UBC?”
Auntie June titters haughtily. “Lily scored 178 on the lsat. That’s top 99 percent! She could get into any law school she wanted. Even Harvard!”
My sister’s cheeks turn pink. “Oh, it’s not that big of a deal. I had to take it twice. I didn’t perform as well as I wanted to the first time.”
“If you could get into Harvard, why didn’t you?” asks George. He has a bit of broccolini stuck between his front teeth.
“Because Dalhousie’s giving me several scholarships. It’s basically a full ride.”
Mom huffs. “But it’s not.”
Just like that, the atmosphere twists into something uncomfortable and sticky. Nobody says anything, nobody moves. Lily’s face is as bright as a ruby, and my cousins are all giving each other uneasy glances.
Meanwhile, I fish out two beef balls and dig in, unbothered. This tastes so good. If there’s one thing I do miss about Mom, it’s her cooking—not that I’ll admit that aloud. There’s no need to give her ammunition to use against me.
Lily clears her throat. “I mean, I can always apply for a small loan. I only need a couple thousand and I’ll be covered for the whole year. If I keep my grades up, the scholarships renew. I’m sure it’ll all work out.”
“Didn’t Addy get a full-ride scholarship to MIT?” Alfie asks.
All eyes turn toward me. Now I’m bothered. I knew there was a reason he was my least favorite cousin. All he had to do was pretend I’m not here. Lord knows I’m trying to.
“Uh,” I mutter stupidly. “Yeah, I did.”
“Oh, yes,” says Jen. “Computer stuff, right?”
“Computer science,” I correct, though I don’t know why.
The more I engage, the longer the spotlight is going to be on me.
I’m already sweating buckets as it is, though I’m sure the sour and spicy soup is partially to blame.
I keep filling my bowl (a bit of marinated beef skirt this time), silently praying that the table will move on to a new topic.
“Oh, that’s…cute,” Jen says, saccharine as can be. “It must suck, though. Isn’t the job market super oversaturated? My old college buddy has been struggling to find work for ages.”
That’s rich, coming from her. I’m tempted to ask her if she’s finally put her artsy-fartsy MFA from the University of Toronto to good use and written anything significant, but I won’t stoop that low because I know for a fact she hasn’t.
“I’m managing, thank you,” I mumble, holding my rice bowl to my lips to scarf down a few bites.
I’d forgotten how small my social battery is.
My brain is already foggy, the tiny voice in the back of my head politely suggesting we take a four-hour nap.
At what point is it considered socially acceptable for me to leave without it coming across as rude?
“Not that any of it matters,” Mom butts in, bitterness dripping off every word.
I look up at her from across the table and hold her pointed scrutiny.
Here we go.