“I don’t want to go back,” Lan said, her voice calm and firm. “I’m not paying for a family reunion.”
“You don’t usually go home anyway, and you hardly call your parents,” Yong said uneasily. “If you don’t even go back for the Spring Festival, they—”
“They have more than just me,” Lan cut him off with a glance. “You think they’ll miss me? Their son’s right there, with two grandkids around. What more could they possibly want?”
“It’s not the same. They still miss you—”
“Let’s not argue,” Lan sighed. “On the second day of the Spring Festival, all my cousins are going to visit my parents. Do you know how many cousins I have there?”
Seeing Yong’s blank face, she held up her fingers. “Eight.”
“The more the merrier, right?”
“Do you know how many kids they each have?” Lan fought the urge to smack him. “At least two per cousin.”
“So?”
“So how many hongbaos stuffed with lucky money do you think we’ll need? You do the math.”
A week later, hongbaos bulged in Yong’s pockets, making his jacket puff out awkwardly. One by one, he dug out a hongbao, grinned, and handed it over, moving from child to child like a man emptying a treasure chest.
Lan stood by, watching him with a tight smile. With each hongbao he pulled out, she felt their year-end bonus shrink a little more. The lambskin quilted handbag she had hesitated over for months, the limited-edition matte 999 lipstick, the SK-II essence, the silk summer dress, the Kyoto trip they had dreamed about, all vanished, one hongbao at a time.
The kids clutched their hongbaos and passed them straight to their parents, whose faces lit up with satisfaction.
Lan clenched her fists in secret, thinking: Should’ve had kids earlier. Two at least. Might’ve gotten the Arashiyama train ride and kaiseki dinners paid for.
Huina Zheng is a college essay coach and an editor. Her stories appear in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, and more. Nominated thrice for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, she lives in Guangzhou, China with her family.
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