Page 60 of Four Aunties and a Wedding

It’s Ma. I sigh.

“Ma, what is it?”

Her voice comes out in a rapid, panicked staccato, much like a machine gun.

I frown. “Ma, slow down, I can’t understand you.”

“Meddy! Terrible! Disaster! You come here now!”

Terrible disaster. Of course. Because what else can I expect from today?

PART THREE

♦

HOW TO DEAL WITH WEDDING DAY HICCUPS

(Murder: Always a goodoption!)

24

“Ma, what—” I glance over my shoulder. Shit, Nathan’s followed me. How much did he hear? Have I said anything incriminating? I give him a quick, reassuring smile and turn my back to him once more. When I finally speak, I try to control my voice. “Is everything okay? What’s going on?”

“Aduh, you come now, deh. Now! Cepat! Emergency! You come alone, you not bring anyone.”

The thing with Ma is, she often does things like this to me. Once, she begged me to come home because of an “emergency,” and when I got there all breathless, having broken half a dozen traffic laws, it turned out the emergency had been her running out of chili sauce. But now, she sounds genuinely panicked. And not just that: there’s a clear undercurrent of fear in her voice. How much of that is because she’s drunk and in a foreign country, and how much of that is an actual, real emergency? “Is Seb still with you? Selena?”

“No, they leave already. You come now. Please!”

The word stabs through my chest like an icicle. Ma never, ever says the word “please,” especially not to me. It’s not generally something that elders say to the younger generation. So for her to say it now means something terrible has happened. I really do need to be there.

“Okay, Ma, I’ll be right over.”

“Alone! Now!” The call disconnects.

“Everything okay? Did I hear you right?” Nathan says. “You’ll be right over... where?”

I look up guiltily at him. “The Randolph. My mom’s, uh—” My mind short-circuits. If I tell him that my mom is having some sort of emergency, he’ll definitely insist on coming with me. And I won’t be able to stop him because, of course, he should come with me, unless there is something to hide. Which there is. “My mom’s just going through a really tough time over us getting married,” I blurt out.

Nathan’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “She is? But—I—huh. I have to say, I’m pretty taken aback by that because she’s been nothing but excited about us getting married. I mean, remember how she accepted my proposal before you could?”

Oh god. That wonderful, amazing, beautiful day. How I long for it. How I wish we could turn back time. I would do so many things differently. But now, I have to—yet again—lie to the love of my life. “Yeah, I think it’s just sort of hit her all at once? She was just too carried away by the excitement of the wedding and wanting grandbabies and whatever to really think about what us getting married means. I really need to go to her.”

“I’ll come with you,” Nathan says.

“No!” The word comes out a lot more forcefully than I had planned. “Sorry, I just—I think this is something I need to do on my own.”

Nathan frowns.

“It’s kind of a mother-daughter thing.”

“Okay...” he says, his frown deepening. “I gotta say, I didn’t think you’d be MIA for so much of our wedding day.” Fuck. This is so freaking shitty. I just want to give him the biggest, tightest hug and tell him everything. And I will, just not right now.

“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just—my family, you know how they are.”

He sighs, shoulders sagging. Now he looks more sad than annoyed, which is even worse. “I understand.”

“Um, I hate to do this, but could you um—stay close to Lilian while I’m away?”

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