by Zoey Gong
“Ma!” Winnie said, stomping her foot. “Can we just argue about this at home?”
“No, we can’t!” her mother said. “We have to meet Chang’s parents for lunch.”
“Now?” Winnie asked.
“Yes, now,,” her mother said. “Chang’s parents couldn’t wait to meet their future daughter-in-law..”
“Can we just get out of here?” Winnie finally asked, daring to step past her mother. “Everyone is watching. We can at least fight in the car.”
Her mother huffed but started walking toward the exit.
“Really, Wenwen,” Lingling whispered to her. “Couldn’t you have at least told Ma you were bringing your boyfriend with you?”
Winnie sighed. In truth, she did feel a little guilty about that. She wished she could have told her mom she was bringing Kai with her. But it happened so fast, she didn’t get the chance.
“I know,” Winnie said. “That’s on me. But she shouldn’t have brought Chang here. She shouldn’t be trying to set us up at all.”
“Oh, come on,” Lingling said. “You knew it was only a matter of time. You’ve put this off long enough.”
Winnie stifled the urge to rail at her sister. In truth, they’d never gotten along or been close. Lingling was always the one to do what their mother wanted and expected. A born people-pleaser. The one ready and willing to step in and pick up the slack when Winnie was a disappointment. Most of the time, it worked out. Winnie would let her parents down, but Lingling would be there to raise their hopes and salve their wounds. A part of Winnie hated how close Lingling was to their parents compared to her, but she couldn’t have it both ways. She couldn’t be a favored daughter and live a life that went completely contrary to the one they had envisioned for her. But as long as her parents had one “good” daughter, Winnie reasoned, she’d have more leeway to do what she wanted. But apparently, that leeway had now gone by the wayside and Winnie was expected to fall in line.
This week was going to be even harder than she expected.
As they pulled up at the hotel restaurant and everyone piled out of the car, there was one person Winnie found the strength to apologize to.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled to Kai as they walked through the hotel lobby, hanging back from the group so they could talk without everyone hearing them.
“Don’t worry about me,” Kai said. “I’m worried about you. Your mom...just...wow.”
“I know,” Winnie said, shaking her head. “Now you see why I was worried about surviving just five days here.”
Kai laughed. “It’s only four and a half now.”
Winnie laughed. “The longest four and a half days of your life.”
As they went into the restaurant and approached the tables her parents had reserved, the people who were already there waiting for them stood up expectantly.
“Zhou Wei, Zhou Fan,” Winnie’s father said to a late middle-aged couple Winnie could only surmise were Chang’s parents. “You remember Wenwen?”
“Of course,” Chang’s mother said, stepping forward and taking Winnie’s hands in her own and kissing Winnie on the cheek. “How could we forget? You are as pretty as I remember.”
Winnie was almost certain she had never met Chang’s parents before, but she was polite all the same. “Thank you,” she said. “Good to see you again too.”
“Please, sit,” Chang’s mother said, motioning to the table. Chang sat next to his mother, and Winnie took the seat next to him. Kai took the seat on the other side of Winnie, and Chang’s mother’s smile faltered. “And who is this?” she asked.
“This is Kai,” Winnie said. “My boyfriend. From Shanghai.”
Chang’s mother shot a look at Winnie’s mother across the table. Her mother was slowly lowering herself into her seat, stiff as a board, glaring at Winnie the whole time.
“What?” Chang’s mother asked. “Juju, you didn’t say that Winnie had a boyfriend.”
“I only just found out,” her mother said sharply as she violently unfolded her napkin and set it in her lap.
“Oh,” Chang’s mother said with the utmost politeness. “How happy for her you must be.”
“Did you order?” Winnie’s mother asked, avoiding Chang’s mother’s question.
“Oh yes,” Chang’s mother said. “Plenty of food is on the way.”
The group then settled into an uneasy silence, with each person afraid to speak first and risk Winnie’s mother’s wrath. Appropriately, it was Winnie’s father who finally spoke, though it did little to ease the tension.
“How was the flight, Wenwen?” he asked.
“It was fine, Ba,” Winnie said. “I stayed at a hotel near the airport last night so there was no chance of me missing the flight this morning.”
“That was smart,” Chang’s father said with a nod. “You parents said you were a smart girl. Very practical.”
“I’m sure they were just being kind,” Winnie said.
“You were the top student in our class,” Chang added, looking her way. “Good to know some things never change.”
“Some change is good,” Winnie shot back. “That is unless you still like to put bugs in girls’ lunches.”
The whole table laughed, and Chang threw up his hands in surrender. “What can I say? I liked you even back then.”
Winnie wanted to point out that being cruel to a person was the worst way to show affection, but as everyone else laughed, she knew that her point would be dismissed.
Everyone laughed except Kai, that is. She could see out of the corner of his eye how uncomfortable he was. She glanced at him apologetically, which seemed to give him the courage to speak up.
He cleared his throat. “When I was in primary school, there was a girl I liked. So I gave her gifts too. I picked clovers and strung them together to make a necklace. She wore it until it dried out and fell apart.”
“That’s so sweet,” Winnie said.
“Do you still like to play with flowers?” Chang asked Kai.
“He never shows up for a date without one,” Winnie interrupted, smiling at Kai, and Kai nodded his approval of this little white lie. Well, Winnie supposed it might not be a lie. Maybe he did bring flowers to his dates, she didn’t know. She wondered if one day she would have a chance to find out.
“So, what do you do, Kai?” Winnie’s father asked as the food started arriving. The servers brought out a big bowl of a fish soup with a flame lit underneath the bowl to keep the soup warm, along with a bowl of peanuts and some pickled vegetables.
Kai filled a bowl with soup and placed it on the lazy susan in the middle of the table, which he then spun around so the soup landed in front of Winnie’s mother.
Winnie’s mother had no choice but to accept the soup or risk looking terribly rude.
“Thank you,” she mumbled as she took the bowl off the lazy susan.
“I’m in IT,” Kai then replied to Winnie’s father. “I work for Rad Phoenix, the gaming company.”
“Oh, they make that one really popular game,” Winnie’s father said. “What’s it called? Swordplay? Something like that?”
“Legend of the Sword!” two of Winnie’s cousins added in at the same time.
“Right,” Winnie’s father said.
More food arrived and the lazy susan began spinning freely as people began dipping their chopsticks into their favorite foods. Winnie felt some of her anxiety lessen a bit and she realized she was starving. She picked up a bit of fried squid as it passed and almost moaned as the spices hit her tongue. Wow, did she miss Chinese food.
“Did you work on that game?” Winnie’s father asked, continuing the conversation.
“No,” Kai said. “That was already out when I got hired. I’m working on their next game. But I play Legend of the Sword. That’s how Winnie and I met, actually.”
Winnie nodded.
“Winnie doesn’t play games,” Lingling said with a snort.
“I do,” Winnie insisted. “When I have time.”
> “Which is never,” Lingling said. “Winnie always works all the time. She never even posts on WeChat.”
“Sorry, I have a real life,” Winnie said, and Lingling rolled her eyes.
“Now, now, girls,” their father said. “There’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun. And nothing wrong with working hard. It’s important to have a balance.”
“Quite right, Mr. Li,” Kai said to Winnie’s father, filling a cup with beer and spinning it to him. “A toast, to a good life and a good New Year.”
Everyone quickly filled their cups and raised them as well.
“To a good New Year!” they all said, follow by, “Gan bei!” as they downed their drinks. Then everyone let out a good-natured chuckle. Winnie nodded to Kai to let him know how well she thought things were going.
“What about your folks?” Winnie’s father asked Kai. “Where are they?”
“My mom is in Shanghai,” Kai said. “My dad’s not around.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Winnie’s father said.
“It’s fine,” Kai said. “I take care of my mom. And she has a big family. Two sisters, both married with kids. And her parents are still around in a village not far from Shanghai.”
“And she didn’t mind you spending the New Year somewhere else?” Winnie’s dad asked.
“Sure, she was sad about it,” Kai said. “But she knows how important Winnie is to me.”
Her father started for a moment. “You call her ‘Winnie?’” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh,” Kai said, quickly looking to Winnie.
Winnie’s heart thumped hard in her chest. When she moved to Australia, it was easier if she adopted a more Westernized name. She had gotten so used to it, she didn’t think twice when Kai used it too. But she suddenly realized that her parents didn’t know she had a Western name and they would wonder why she possibly would need one.
“It’s...umm...very fashionable in Shanghai to use a more Western-sounding name,” Winnie said. “And at the hospital, we get a lot of foreign patients, so it’s encouraged that we use a name they can pronounce.”
“So, you make concessions for foreigners,” Winnie’s mother said, speaking for the first time in so long Winnie had dared to think her mother’s anger might have cooled, but she had clearly been wrong. “But when it comes to Chinese traditions, you just toss them away?”
“It’s just a nickname, Ma,” Winnie said. “I’m still Wenwen. Nothing has changed.”
“It’s just a name,” Winnie mother said. “Just a boyfriend. Just a life. No big deal, I guess.”
Winnie looked down at her bowl and picked at her food, her appetite having fled. She kept her head down and didn’t respond. She was tired of fighting and wouldn't feed her mother’s anger. Not now. Not in public.
Winnie’s mother’s dark mood seemed to settle over the table, and little more was said by anyone.
After lunch, the family finally went back to Winnie’s parents' house, which just led to more tension because as Winnie went to her room to unpack her bag, Kai followed her, her mother’s silent glare following both of them down the hallway until Winnie shut the door behind them.
“That was the worst meal of my life,” Kai finally said with an exhausted sigh as he sat on the bed.
“Only four more days…” Winnie said. “And twelve more meals.”
“We’ll never survive,” Kai said, shaking his head. “Your mom is eventually going to see through everything. Or she’s just going to break you until you give in and marry that guy.”
Winnie paced. “You’re right,” she said. “Mom is never going to let up. I’m going to have to talk to her.”
“You mean tell her the truth?” Kai asked.
Winnie shook her head. “No way,” she said. “But I need to insist that I’m with you and can’t marry Chang.”
“Good luck,” Kai said. “But I think she isn’t going to give up until you elevate me from New Year boyfriend to New Year husband.”
Winnie shot him a look, her eyes wide.
“I was only kidding,” Kai said. “Being a fake boyfriend is hard enough. Not sure I could pull off fake husband.”
“Yeah,” Winnie said. “This is going too far. I’m going out there. I have to talk to her.”
“Good luck,” Kai said as he climbed up on the bed and laid on her pillow. Winnie felt a little bad for him. She knew he was going through a lot too. But they would have to talk about the sleeping arrangements. She was not about to let Kai spend the night in her bed.
Winnie left the room and found her mother speaking harshly to her father, but she couldn’t make out the words, and she stopped as soon as she saw Winnie enter the room.
“Ma,” Winnie said. “We need to talk.”
Winnie’s father nodded his head and left the room to give them some privacy.
“I know you are disappointed,” Winnie said. “But I can’t marry Chang. I’m with Kai.”
“How could you do this to me?” her mother asked, sinking down onto the sofa.
“I didn’t do anything,” Winnie said, sitting across from her. “You made the arrangements with Chang’s family without asking me.”
“It’s not just Chang,” her mother said. “It’s everything! You living so far away. Putting a career before family. Do you know how much all this hurts me?”
“I’m not doing it to hurt you, Ma,” Winnie said. “I just want more than to be a wife and mother.”
“Why?” her mother asked. “It’s good enough for me. It’s good enough for Lingling. What makes you so special?”
“I just want a different life,” Winnie said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“When it comes at the expense of your own family, it is wrong,” her mother said with a nod of her head.
“But it’s not hurting you,” Winnie said, exasperated.
“Isn’t it?” her mother said. “Don’t you know how much it hurts me to be away from you every single day? I haven’t even seen you in two years, Wenwen! Or should I say Winnie? I don’t even know you anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Winnie said, feeling tears welling up at the hurt she had caused her mother. “I...I don’t want to hurt you. I just want a career…”
“What about when you have children?” her mother asked. “Is that the excuse you will give? ‘Sorry, mama can’t see you. She’s working at her important career.’ And when will I see them? Living so far away. Will you really hurt your children by raising them away from their own grandmother?”
“Stop! Ma!” Winnie said, her head falling into her hands as she tried to keep from crying. “I don’t want to hurt anyone! I just want to be left alone for a few years. I want to be me before I have to live for someone else.”
“You are never just you,” her mother said. “You are part of this family. And you should always put the family ahead of yourself.”
“Then why can’t I just find a husband of my own?” Winnie asked. “I don’t like Chang.”
“Chang is a good, stable boy,” her mother said. “How dare you even think of marrying a boy from Shanghai. You should marry someone here so you can come home.”
Winnie wiped her tears away and shook her head. She knew there was nothing she could say that would please her mother. She really didn’t think the trip would be this hard. She thought that as long as she had a boyfriend, her mother would be satisfied. But her mother wanted even more. Her mother would not be happy until she was married and settled here in Harbin. Anything less was an insult to her and the entire family.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” Winnie said as she stood. “I’ll never be able to give you what you want.”
“You could,” her mother said. “It is all in your hands. You could come home and marry Chang, but you are choosing not to. This is all on you.”
Winnie nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I will have to live with that. I only hope you can too.”
Her mother frowned even harder and looked away, and Winnie knew her mother never would.
Kai pulled the door to Winnie’s room shut when he heard her coming. He didn’t want her to know that he had been listening in on her conversation with her mother. He didn’t mean to. He had opened the door to go to the bathroom, but when he heard what they were saying, he couldn’t help but keep listening. It was hard to hear. Her mother was relentless. There were aspects of her mother’s argument he understood. Family was everything. It was a child’s duty to put their parents and family first.
But he could never imagine being set up in what was practically an arranged marriage. His mother would never do that to him. Of course, he was a man. Men could marry fairly late in life and still have children. It wasn’t ideal. Most parents preferred for their sons to marry before age thirty. But if a man wasn’t married by thirty, it was usually not a cause for alarm. But for girls, it was as if there was an expiration date. He had plenty of female friends who were pressured by their parents to marry before they were twenty-five. Usually right out of college, actually. He hadn’t really thought much about it. It wasn’t something that affected him. He figured that if he ever had a daughter, he wouldn’t worry so much about her marrying young and would focus on her getting a good job instead. But he knew that was an attitude of his generation. He wondered if he had been a girl if his mother would be as old-fashioned as Winnie’s mother.
Of course, Kai and his mother had bigger concerns. Even if he had been a girl, earning money for his mother’s cancer treatments would take priority over trying to get married.
Kai was going through Winnie’s closet, looking for some blankets to make a pallet on the floor when Winnie entered, her head downcast, eyes rimmed red.
“How did it go?” he asked, even though he knew.
“As well as could be expected, I suppose,” Winnie said, closing the door.
“That bad, huh?” Kai asked, and Winnie chuckled.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking at the blanket he had pulled down.
“Oh,” he said. “I was just getting some things to make the floor more comfortable.”