Page 24 of The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties

“Yes,” Ma pipes up, “could be someone else, someone who spend her time on phone talking about her silly singing show that nobody watch.” She side-eyes Fourth Aunt, as though none of us knows whom she’s referring to.

Fourth Aunt glances up from admiring her nails. “Uh, I have forty thousand followers on TikTok, so obviously there are tons of people watching me sing. Andtheyasked me about it, so of course I had to respond, otherwise they’d get suspicious. You can’t blame me for being a TikTok star.”

Ma snorts. “Hah! Just because you buy follower on the TokTok you think you a real star now?”

“Well, all I heard was you telling everyone how Meddy andNathan still haven’t given you a grandchild yet,” Fourth Aunt shoots back, “so I’m not the only one getting derailed, okay?”

I push the tips of my index fingers into my temples and close my eyes. I wonder if I could press hard enough to actually squish into my brain and put myself out of this misery. But no, I need to focus, I need to somehow lead them back to the topic and save Nathan. God, give me patience. But what use is patience? I have no idea what went wrong. Why haven’t we found out where the title deed went?

“No choice,” Big Aunt grunts, “we call everyone again.”

My eyes and mouth open with dismay.Nooo!Oh god, my insides are curling up at the horrifying thought of having to struggle through another round of awkward conversations with my cousins. “They’re definitely going to suspect something of being wrong,” I moan. “I don’t think we can just call them up again and ask them the same questions. That’s just really suspicious.”

“Meddy is right,” Ma says loyally.

Big Aunt’s mouth purses up and she takes a deep breath, looking thoughtful. “Then how?”

I must think of something. Maybe someone is hiding it? The thought hits like a punch to my stomach. I love my cousins. I love my aunts and uncles. I hate the possibility that one of them might have been dishonest. It fights me all the way up, but I finally manage to bring myself to say it. “Could whoever got it be hiding it from us? Because they realized how valuable the title deed is and they wanted to keep it?” God, just saying those words makes me feel filthy, like I need to rinse my mouth out with Listerine. Urgh.

Ma and the aunties look as horrified as I feel. They gape openly, their eyes as wide as some animal caught in a trap.

“Aiya, no lah!” Ma cries after a beat. “These people our family, you know. How can you say such thing? How I raise you, Meddy?”

I wince. “Sorry, Ma. I just thought—”

Ma isn’t done with her tirade. “I always say to you, family first. Do I not always say to you that? Hanh?”

“You do, but—”

“And now you saying someone in our family—ourfamily!—decide to put land first? Choi! Knock on wood. Why you say such bad luck thing, especially during Chinese New Year? Is supposed to be auspicious time, but you cursing our family. Aduh, what have I done to deserve this kind of daughter?” Her face crumples up into a sob.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that.” Of course, I did much worse than just imply, I literally suggested it. And now, my aunts are crowded around Ma, comforting her, and argh, how the hell did we get here? I need to think of a way to redirect this whole conversation, but how? I scramble through my mind, coming up with a myriad of ideas and rejecting them as quickly as I think of them. Then it hits me, the way a lightning bolt strikes and brightens the entire sky so abruptly. “The photos!”

They glance up at me.

I gesture at them excitedly. “The photos. We took so many of them. And you—” I say to Ma, who’s frowning at me, “you took a ton of photos of Nathan giving out red packets—”

Her frown melts into a smile. “Oh yes, he looks so good giving out the angpao, ya? You can tell, you know, that he will be good father, ya kan?”

“Right. And I saw that most of the red packets have different patterns.”

“Oh yes, most people use the ones that they’re given by their banks,” Abi pipes up. “But I had mine specially printed on high-quality paper, illustrated by an award-winning artist. And! The one that has the title deed is special. It’s larger than the others and it’s gold in color, with a pattern of water lilies.”

“Aiya!” Big Aunt says. “Why you don’t tell us that sooner, hanh?”

Abi shrinks back.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. We asked about the title deed, and if anyone’s kid had received one, I’m sure they would’ve said so,” I say, feeling bad for Abi, the poor little mafia lord being bullied by Big Aunt. “Right, so it’s easily recognizable. We’ll go through all the photos from yesterday morning and see if we can’t find it.” My pulse is racing so hard that I’m getting a headache. Why didn’t I think of doing this sooner?

Ma and the aunties are all staring at me. “Wah, Meddy, that is so smart idea,” Second Aunt says.

Ma flushes with pride, as though Second Aunt had praised her instead of me. Seems like she’s forgotten about how she was just scolding me moments ago, so I’m not complaining.

“Thanks, Second Aunt. Alright, everybody’s got photos on their phones? Let’s go through them.” Hope flutters in my chest. This has to work. If it doesn’t, then I honestly have no idea what the hell we cando.

7

It’s not long before Ma shrieks, “Nih!I find the angpao! This one, right? Ya kan?” She waves her phone around crazily, brandishing it so close to our faces that we all have to lean away to have any hope of seeing the screen.

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