2: 2
Three days later, the clan's big memorial ceremony.
The relatives crowded around the banquet table, passing bottles and clinking glasses.
My father sat dead center at the head table, wine cup in hand, taking a toast from every man in the family.
"Uncles, cousins, all of you. Today, with the blessing of our ancestors, I have some good news to announce. I've already found Paul a place downtown for his wedding home. Seventeen hundred square feet, a full-floor apartment."
One of my uncles leaned in, cup in hand, curious.
"Carter, a full-floor place downtown, the down payment alone has to be several hundred thousand. Where'd you get that kind of money?"
My father waved it off like it was nothing.
"Mortgaged that little condo in Caroline's name for six hundred thousand, put it together with the family savings, and made up the down payment."
I was standing there with the teapot, pouring for the elders.
That little condo was mine, bought with every dollar I'd earned writing web novels after work, ever since my school days.
The one place in the world that was completely mine.
"What gives you the right to touch my apartment?"
My voice shook as I stared at the man they called my father.
The noisy ancestral hall went silent in an instant.
His face darkened at once.
"Where are your manners! Since when does a child cut in when her elders are talking?"
"That's my apartment! My name is on the deed! How could you mortgage it behind my back?"
Seeing this, my mother grabbed my arm at once and dragged me toward a corner.
The moment we reached an empty spot behind a pillar, she dropped to her knees in front of me with a thud.
"Caroline, save your brother! Without that place, the girl's family is calling off the wedding tomorrow! You're the only one in this family who's made something of herself. You can't just watch the Head line die out!"
"Mom, you're trading my whole life for his apartment. Where am I supposed to live after that?"
She wailed and slapped at her own thighs.
"Once your brother's married, he'll take care of you! You think a Head man would ever let you starve?"
At some point Paul had come over too.
He stood off to the side and couldn't bring himself to meet my eyes.
"Sis, just count it as a loan from you. Once I strike it rich, I'll pay you back with interest, every cent."
My eyes went red and I laughed, cold.
"A loan? Pay me back with what? You don't even have a real job!"
I shoved my mother's clutching hands off me, hard.
"Hand over the deed and the mortgage contract. I'm going to the bank right now to cancel it!"
My father came strolling over, cup still in hand.
He pulled a sheet of paper out of his briefcase and slapped it hard across my face.
It was a single page from my household record.
"Cancel it? Cancel it with what? Your mother took the original deed and a copy of your ID and went to your uncle in private lending. Your mother signed your name for you. The six hundred thousand was wired to Paul's account long ago."
My head went blank with a roar, every drop of blood in me rushing up.
"This is fraud. This is a crime!"
My father let out a contemptuous snort.
"Go ahead and sue. We gave birth to you, so what's yours is ours!"
He jabbed a finger hard into my shoulder.
"You dare call the cops on your own mother, and you're nothing but a heartless animal who'll answer to heaven for it."
3: 3
How I walked out of that memorial hall that day, how I made it back to the rented place, I don't remember anymore.
For days afterward I was too furious to sleep.
Then a vicious cramp tore through my stomach.
The pain rolled me right off the narrow bed and onto the floor.
I gritted my teeth and called an ambulance.
The doctor stood over me with the surgical consent form.
"Acute appendicitis with perforation. You need surgery immediately. Your condition is dangerous. You have to have a family member here to sign and pay."
I lay slumped against the bed, weak, the room going dark in waves.
"Doctor, can I sign it myself?"
The phone rang for a long time before someone finally picked up.
Through the receiver came the knock of a wooden fish drum and the faint crackle of incense burning in the censer.
"Why are you calling in the middle of the night?"
My mother had dropped her voice, every word thick with irritation.
"Don't you know you can't go disturbing the deities at this hour?"
The pain was so bad I couldn't get a full sentence out, gasping between the words.
"Mom... I'm at the hospital... acute appendicitis, it's perforated... I need surgery..."
"Oh, be quiet! Today's the day your brother's civil-service exam results come out. We're honoring the deities and praying for his future!"
"Anything with blood in it, you don't report it. It offends the deities."
"Mom, I could die..."
"You won't die. Take some anti-inflammatory pills yourself! I'm hanging up!"
The line went dead.
And right then, Paul posted on social media.
The photo was a whole table of a lavish seafood late-night feast.
Steamed crab, raw marinated shrimp, a roast meat platter, packed edge to edge.
The caption read:
"Thank you Mom and Dad for staying up late with me to wait for the results. Tonight the whole family drinks till we drop. Here's to passing!"
In the corner of the photo, the three of them raised their glasses, beaming.
The doctor stood beside me, looked at my white face, and sighed.
"Did you reach them?"
I snatched the pen out of his hand and signed my own name right there in the family signature line of the consent form.
"I'll sign it myself."
I lifted my head and looked at him.
"If anything happens to me on that table, it has nothing to do with anyone."
In that moment, the Caroline Head who had still held on to one last shred of hope for the Head family died in the corridor of that emergency room.
4: 4
Half a month later, one hand pressed to a wound that still hadn't fully healed, I went back to the old house to pack my things.
I'd barely reached the door when I heard the laughter spilling out from inside.
The place was decked out, two big banquet tables set up in the living room, relatives raising glasses and toasting.
They were celebrating the pregnancy of Paul's girlfriend.
She sat in the seat of honor, a bowl of premium health tonic in her hands.
"Mom, this tonic's gone a little cold. Go heat it up again. My son can't be having cold things."
Mom took the bowl back with a face full of smiles.
"Oh, my sweet girl, I'll go right now, and mind you don't strain the baby."
Dad saw me come in, and the smile on his face vanished in an instant.
"Good timing. Tomorrow you quit your job, come back home, and devote yourself to looking after Paul's fiancée while she's carrying."
I stood in the entryway and watched him quietly.
"And hand over the passwords to all your cards. From now on your mom manages the money."
He blew out a ring of smoke.
"Cash out that retirement fund of yours too, so Paul can trade up to a bigger van, something roomy for hauling the kid around later."
Mom came out with the reheated tonic, spooning it to the mother-to-be while she wept at me.
"Caroline, so what if the aunt has to swallow a little? It's all for the Head line, for carrying on the family. You're a Head, after all."
I didn't answer any of them. I walked straight to the front of the living room.
That was where the Head family's household deities and ancestral tablets were enshrined.
I grabbed the most valuable teapot off the altar with one hand.
I slammed it down hard into the middle of the table.
Every single one of them stared, wide-eyed.
Dad raised his hand and came at me.
"You've lost your mind! You dare smash a Head family thing! I'll beat you to death today, you ungrateful girl!"
Just as his hand was about to land,
I yanked up my shirt.
The knife scar across my belly, stitches only just out, still weeping blood, laid bare for all of them to see.
Dad's hand froze in midair.
I looked at my whole family, every word drawing blood.
"You traded my life for a house and left me to die in an ER. Is this what a family does?"
I turned and strode toward the door.
Behind me came Dad's hysterical roar.
"Get out! Walk through that door and the Heads have no daughter like you! Die out there for all I care, don't ever come crawling back to me!"
My hand on the door handle, I didn't turn around.
"Good. I'm taking the household record with me. Tomorrow I'm changing my surname."
