Daniel makes a beeline past his parents toward a tidy-looking man in a faded gray shirt and slacks, who is very clearly the focus of his circle of conversation. They occupy an otherwise neglected corner of the room. Daniel approaches him with the reverence one reserves for a god, or in Daniel’s case, an especially talented Broadway or opera soprano. Their conversation is a good deal friendlier and more personal than that, though. Daniel twirls around showing off his suit and, in turn, the man appears to be giving him both praise and tailoring advice.
Ellie decides not to intrude. Daniel didn’t sit with her at the funeral. Maybe he has his own reasons or maybe he, too, can’t be seen in public with her. Either way, she doesn’t want to know right now.
In the middle of the room, an aunt from Taiwan chats in a circle with some cousins from the US. She is telling them stories in Mandarin about Mom as a kid when Ellie walks up to them. Ellie is not unconvinced that at least a few of her cousins are merely nodding along, catching maybe one word in ten.
She lurks outside their circle, learning about Mom’s childhood in Taiwan. Mom rarely talked about it, unless there was some point she wanted to make. One story Mom told was about how some kid who kept stealing her soup eventually left her alone when she started giving the soup to him. Her point was that she expected Ellie to appease Chris, to figure out how to be her sister. As a kid, Ellie truly believed that if she was nice enough, Chris would leave her alone. As an adult, Ellie can’t escape Mom’s expectations.
Her aunt, however, has very different stories of Mom. She was someone who hiked across the mountains and slaughtered the pigs herself, not someone who would surrender her soup to anyone. Listening to her aunt, Ellie is pretty sure Mom flat-out lied to keep peace in the house.
They don’t let her into their circle. It’s not because they don’t notice her.
“My little sister must have been so disappointed in Ellie,” the aunt says, not looking at Ellie. “She didn’t do one thing to take care of her. Didn’t visit her even once—”
“You know I can understand you, right?” Ellie cuts her off in perfectly respectable Mandarin.
The surprise on her aunt’s face is worth the disrespect of interrupting her. Ellie will pay for this eventually, but she was already screwed to begin with.
“Chris said you couldn’t understand Chinese.” Her aunt’s arms fold across her chest, squeezing herself tight.
“Maybe you shouldn’t believe everything she says.”
With that, Ellie flounces away. There’s no point waiting for an apology her aunt will never make.
Her next conversations go about as well. The maintainers accuse her of killing her mother. The relatives accuse her of neglect. This is when anyone acknowledges her presence at all. To her surprise, she’s philosophical about this. Not having to deal with any of them is a relief. She will be everybody’s scapegoat, if it makeseverybody’s lives simpler, including hers. No one seems to care which of Mom’s dear friends bent the rules for her. If Ellie never thinks about that contraption again, it will still be too soon.
The respite won’t last, of course. Chris’s reckoning still looms. There’s no running, no hiding, no escape from the wrath of Chris. That said, it’s not like Ellie hasn’t thought about taking the next train home. Unfortunately, she bought the cheap train tickets. No changes allowed, and she can’t afford another ticket.
Ellie stands in a deserted corner watching Chris harvest the love everyone lavishes on her. Her sister’s grief is undoubtedly real, but the way her eyes glisten but aren’t teary, how her voice threatens to break but never does, make their sympathy practically Pavlovian. Chris moves from one clump to the next. She’d love to talk more, but there is still so much work left to do before the funeral ends.
She’s so bound up into Chris’s not-a-performance performance that she doesn’t notice Daniel until he taps her shoulder. The walking mountain has been standing right next to her for who knows how long. The sight of him knocks Ellie out of her mental spiral.
Involuntarily, she takes a half step back and her eyebrows rise. There’s how the clothing industry believes men are built and then there’s Daniel. There are weddings of mutual cousins where he’s a giant, formless shadow looming at the side of photos. He’s a guy who desperately needs the intervention of a good tailor. Or, rather, needed.
Nothing will ever fit him as well as the suit he’s currently wearing. It has room for his chest and back without exaggerating his already broad shoulders. There’s a taper to the waist, but it’s tasteful rather than excessive. The understated belt, she suspects, is functional as well as decorative. A tailor can only do so much. Right now, he’s either the leading man in some spy movie or a waiter at some extremely fancy restaurant. He’s holding a paper plate, which spoils the illusion. Still, if Ellie forgets that this is her goofycousin, his intentions would look perfectly balanced between “kill you” and “feed you.” Neither is out of the question for Daniel, she suspects.
“Yeah.” He shrugs, then gestures at his suit. “I figured I should try to look good for Aunt Vera. That’s why I’m late. I got stuck in traffic on the way from the tailor.”
Ellie instantly feels guilty for ever doubting Daniel. At least she didn’t accuse him of anything.
“You didn’t miss much. The eulogies were…” Ellie heaves a deep sigh. “… syntactically correct sentences in both English and Mandarin.”
“Oh, I wasn’t that late. Just stuck in the crowd at the back. Otherwise, I would have sat with you.” He offers her the plate. “Roast duck?”
His plate was empty a moment ago. Now, it’s filled with bite-size roll-ups, each one a perfect little pancake smeared with hoisin sauce and wrapped around a piece of duck and a sliver of green onion. Their savory, peppery, sweet scent perfumes the air. Any moment now, someone is going to notice something delicious in the ignored corner of the room. Assuming Daniel making food appear out of nowhere hasn’t already freaked someone out.
“You’re checking the state of the skunkworks?” She stares up at him incredulously. “Now?”
“Oh, this isn’t an equivalence report. This tastes like whatever I make it taste like.”
He inhales a roll-up. No one should be able to eat anything that quickly.
“I mean the whole food-from-thin-air thing.”
“Oh please.” Daniel rolls his eyes. “No one’s paying any attention to us. Definitely not anyone who might be freaked out by this. Being the family black sheep has literally only one upside. Besides, so what if they are?”
What the extended family makes of Daniel faithfully changesbetween family gatherings. This is the first time the extended family has turned on Ellie. All they know about Mom’s death is what Chris told them. She said nothing about Ellie removing the monstrosity that both trapped Mom between life and death and threatened to destabilize physics. To the extended family, all that matters is that Mom is dead. Somehow, that’s Ellie’s fault. Also, Mom died on a Wednesday. Ellie was at school, not by Mom’s side, since she only visited every weekend. Chris will never forgive her for that.
Ellie takes a roll-up. The duck skin crackles when she bites into it. The duck is rich but not overwhelming. The hint of sweetness from the smear of hoisin and something acidic keeps it all under control.
