  Her mother had this knack of opening the door , without knocking first of course, whilst she was in some state of undress. "You don't know how to come out and help serve dinner is it? Am I your maid? " Wanxin sighed. "Ma...I just came home. Let me change first please?
" Her mother slammed the door shut and went about herding her flock of 4 other children, her mother-in-law (who was terribly hard of hearing) and husband to the dinner table. Wanxin remembered how her mother wasn't like that. Wasn't so angry with everyone and wasn't so angry about everything. She was well dressed, soft spoken and cultured. Wanxin was in awe of her and always wanted to be like her mother who would smile graciously at her guests and proudly display her eldest daughter to them. Wanxin would smile shyly as they fussed about her and she'd hide behind her mother's skirt.
Her mother would bend down and kiss her on the forehead. Those days felt so distant in their 5-room flat. Too small for their family with too little privacy. She shared the room with her Ah Ma (who snored loudly) and her brothers squeezed into another room. Her parents had their own bedroom but her father often slept outside in the living room because he wanted to watch football at night. Besides, his baby boy would wake up shrieking at night for milk and the noise grated on him.
Her father wasn't really her father. He was her step father. Mother had remarried shortly after her Dad had passed on. Those were dark days. Her mother was pregnant with her third brother, Junxiong, and her second brother, Junfeng, was always hit by asthma attacks. Like a wilting calla lily, Wanxin's mother's smile had faded away and those frown lines that sat between her once well-groomed eyebrows ate into her skin so that they hardened her appearance further.
Then, Wanxin's teacher introduced her cousin to Mother. A widower with a son. That would be Wanxin's fourth brother... her step-brother... Zhongmin. He was plump and prosperous unlike them. The 2 years of poverty had made her and her brothers pallid and scrawny. "Lalangs" - Ah Ma had called us - after the feathery-white topped weeds that swayed in the breeze downstairs.
Bending in the wind, lost and unwanted. Ah Ma hadn't like them at first. But as she grew ancient, she found solace in them where she found only frost from her own son and his son. There was a fuss-free wedding between Wanxin's mother, Wanling, and Old Mah as his friends called him. Just 2 witnesses, an old wedding dress and an old wedding suit and cheap yellow gold rings from the jeweller downstairs. 2 lonely people and one lonely ceremony.
"Wanxin! Must I invite you again? " Wanxin tied her hair up hurriedly. "Ya. Ya. Coming!
" =================================================================== Copyright reserved by Geraldine Tan Xiu-Yin (2004) 
