“Mr. Feng.” Victor extended his hand. “It’s an honor.”
Her father’s handshake lasted exactly three seconds. Ava counted. Long enough to be respectful. Short enough to withhold judgment.
“You treat my daughter well?”
“I try to.”
“Trying is not doing.”
“Dad…” Ava started, but Victor touched her arm.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should say instead that your daughter makes me want to be better than I’ve ever been. Whether I succeed is her choice to make.”
Her parents exchanged one of those married-couple looks that contained entire conversations.
Her mother nodded once. “Sit, sit! I made all of Ava’s favorites.”
The table wasin the back corner, the one reserved for family celebrations, for Lunar New Year feasts and graduation dinners and the quiet meals after her grandmother’s funeral. Red tablecloth, slightly faded. The ceramic lazy Susan her grandmother had brought from Beijing.
It was already laden with enough food for twelve people.
Beijing duck with paper-thin pancakes, the skin lacquered and glistening. Mapo tofu swimming in scarlet oil, Sichuan peppercorns visible like tiny landmines. Jade-green bok choy with garlic, still sizzling from the wok. And soup dumplings, herfather’s specialty, releasing fragrant steam from their delicate pleats.
“This is too much, Mom.”
“Nothing is too much for my only daughter who might finally give me grandchildren before I die.”
“You’re fifty-two and run half-marathons.”
“I could die any day. My friend Linda’s cousin had a heart attack at forty-eight. While doing yoga!” She poured tea with the efficiency of ten thousand repetitions. “Victor, do you want children?”
Ava choked on her tea.
Victor barely blinked. “I hadn’t considered it until recently. My work hasn’t left much room for family.”
“What changed?” her father asked, serving duck with surgical precision: exactly three slices per pancake, not one more.
Victor looked at Ava. His eyes caught the warm restaurant light wrong, amber bleeding into his pupils for just a moment.
“Everything.”
Her mother made a sound that could have been approval or the opening salvo of an interrogation.
“Where did you go to school?”
“Harvard Law.”
“Good, good. Harvard is respectable. Where do you live?”
“Manhattan. I own a penthouse.”
Her mother’s eyes gleamed. “Manhattan real estate. Very good.” A pause, recalculating. “Can you cook?”
“I’m learning.”
“I’ll teach you. Ava needs someone who can cook. She burns water.”
“That was one time!”
