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“But—”
To my horror, right there in the beautiful dining room, Second Aunt begins to do Tai Chi.
“This starting position. You follow me.” She raises both arms.
Eyes wide with a mixture of what looks like fear and uncertainty, Chris imitates her.
“Second position, Parting the Wild Horse’s Mane. The horse very wild, you must very gentle, okay?” Second Aunt steps one foot forward, crouching, and combs an imaginary horse’s mane. Chris follows suit.
“The food’s getting cold,” Annie chirps nervously.
“Okay, we go fast,” Second Aunt says. “Quick, White Crane Spreads Its Legs. Cepat, ayo, faster. Brush knee, yes, now push! Good. Now, Repulse Monkey!”
Poor Chris tries his best to keep up with Second Aunt’s increasingly rapid flow of commands, but as he lifts his left leg, a sudden look of pain crosses his face and he cries out, “My back!”
Nathan jumps out of his seat and catches hold of his dad. Annie gets up and hurries into the kitchen, saying, “I’ll get the ice pack!”
“Let’s go into the living room,” Nathan says to his dad. “You can lie down on the sofa.”
Oh dear god. This is even worse than I had expected, and I had been expecting bad stuff. Really bad stuff. But none of it had come close to my family actually injuring Nathan’s father to the point where he has to be carted out of the room. We all stand up to follow, but Nathan shakes his head at me and I tell my family to stay in the dining room.
“Aduh, you and your Tai Chi,” Big Aunt scolds. “Nah lho, you look what you done.”
“Tch, is because I being hurry, if not hurry, won’t happen like that,” Second Aunt snaps. “Tai Chi very good for your back. I trying to help.”
“I know, Er Jie, you trying to help,” Ma soothes. “Ah, maybe I make my TCM drink for him to ease with the—”
“NO!” All of us shout this as one.
Ma looks hurt. “I want help. I got bring my TCM herbs, very good for pain.”
“I don’t think Meddy’s future father-in-law would appreciate you drugging him,” Fourth Aunt says.
Ma glares at her, Second Aunt glares at Big Aunt, andsomehow we have come full circle. “Meddy,” Ma says after a while, “you go check on them, gih. You ask him, does he want TCM drink or not. If he want I make.”
I nod and creep down the hallway. For some reason, I want to make as little noise as possible. I guess because I feel like we’ve intruded into their lives like a whirlwind, as usual, and now the least I can do is move like a mouse. As I near the living room, I hear hushed voices speaking and freeze.
“—not quite what I expected,” Annie says. “They’re uh, very different from your side of the family, aren’t they, Chris?”
My stomach twists. A dozen different emotions war inside me. Embarrassment, anger, just everything. Of course my family is different from Chris’s family! Just because both of us come from immigrant families doesn’t mean we’re all carbon copies of each other.
A sigh. “Yes, Mum, it might surprise you to know that not all Asians behave the same way.”
“That’s not what I meant. You know that wasn’t what I meant.”
I feel like I need to puke. I was right. She hates them. She hates us.
“Dad, how’re you feeling?”
There’s a grunt, and then Chris says, in a muffled voice, “A tad better. You two go back and finish your tea. I’ll be fine.”
“Meddy, how is going? Everything okay?”
I practically jump right out of my skin. How did Ma manage to sneak up on me like that?
“Yeah, I was just about to—”
“Aiya, you take so long. I go and ask myself, does he want TCM drink or not.”