Page 81 of Something Like Fate

“I have no idea. Maybe it was their size? But once, we were on a family trip in Cape Cod, and we saw some breaching in a cove and she cried. Ellen and I made fun of her for days,” she says, eyes brimming with nostalgia. “She would have loved knowing you’re traveling, seeing the world.”

“You think?”

“When we were little, she had this atlas where she color-coded all the countries based on how much she wanted to go. She always had a system for everything.”

“Sometimes I don’t know who I take after. I grew up in a family of total nerds,” I say teasingly.

Mei smirks. “You’re like Ellen, I think. A free spirit.”

I give a half-hearted chuckle. “Speaking of family, Dad’s been acting weird.”

“You’ll have to be more specific. Your dad is always weird.”

“When we were in Pompeii, I brought up Mom and asked about when they first met. He totally shut down.”

She’s quiet for a moment, shifting in her seat to cross her legs. “I’m sorry, Lo. What did you want to know about her? Maybe I can help fill in the gaps.”

“I asked about her vision. If she knew he was The One when they met.”

She tilts her head in thought. “From what I remember her saying, she did. She thought he was cute but a bit of a dweeb, which wasn’t her normal type. We actually didn’t get to meet your dad for almost six months after they met.”

That surprises me. “Six months? That seems like a long time.”

“They had to sneak around for a little while because they worked together. That, and I think they were just in a love bubble. Didn’t want anything to disturb it. And when she finally introduced us, she was so ... scared, for some reason. Maybe because he was The One? Maybe because he was so different from the rest of us? I don’t know. I think she just wanted us to love him as much as she did, especially Nai Nai,” she says.

“Understandable. The women in our family are pretty scary. Did he fit in?”

“He was like a scared deer at first. But eventually, he got used to us. She liked to joke that Nai Nai loved him more than her.”

I smile. Nai Nai always treated Dad like her biological son. After Mom passed, there wasn’t a week where she didn’t stop by to bring us food, way more than we could eat. She didn’t approve of me living off Dad’s specials, a.k.a. frozen McCain’s curly fries and chicken fingers. I still remember the heaps of saucy food crammed into clear containers with rainbow-colored lids. The steam always singed my fingers when I eagerly lifted the lids to smell it. Dad always washed the Tupperware, and she’d refill it with another feast. When Nai Nai passed, Ellen tookit upon herself to continue the tradition, despite being a notoriously terrible cook. It took Dad months to work up the courage to tell her we didn’t need her to cook for us. The transition back to bland, frozen food was a tough one.

“Anyway, your dad isn’t the most open guy,” Mei says. “It still hurts him, even though he doesn’t show it. He loved her more than anything. When she passed so suddenly, it broke him, and he hasn’t been the same since. I wish you could have seen them together when you were old enough to really remember.”

Same, Mei. Same.

This right here is exactly why I don’t love talking to Mei or Ellen about Mom. On one hand, it’s comforting to hear about her. It feels good to talk about her like she was a real person. But it’s a double-edged sword. They have so many memories with her that I simply don’t have. And as ridiculous as it seems, I’m bitter, almost angry, about the time I was robbed of. About not getting to know for myself that she hated peanut butter, or that she made up a whole dance routine to the song “Push It!” by Salt-N-Pepa.

We’re quiet for a few moments, with only the Italian radio from inside the café and chatter of patrons to quell the silence. Quiet is rare around Mei. It strikes me that she seems a little sad. Maybe being back to Italy without Mom is difficult. I guess I’m not the only one struggling with memories of her.

I plunk my elbows on the table, biting the inside of my mouth. “What if I’m like Cousin Lin? Destined for a lifetime of loneliness and shit luck?”

Mei frowns suspiciously. “Ellen told you?”

“Don’t get mad. I made her. She had no choice,” I explain.

She sighs. “Well, you’re not going to end up alone. Things will work out with Caleb.” I should probably feel some sort of relief. Mei is rarely wrong when it comes to these things. But at the memory of the horror on Caleb’s face, it’s hard to imagine how things will work out.

“But what if they don’t?”

“They will. Again, this only happened to two people. In every other case, things have worked out, even if there were some hiccups.”

“Hiccups?” I confirm, feeling even worse about myself.

She tilts her head in thought. “Well, there was Second Great-Aunt Chun. She fell in love with another man after she was already married to Fourth Great-Uncle.”

I nearly choke on my half of the macaron we decided to split. “Wait, Uncle Wen? Excuse me? Why didn’t I know about this?” Apparently, there’s a lot I don’t know about my family.

“It’s not really a secret. You’ve never asked.”

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