Serena regretted setting the appointment at Saturday, on Saturday morning. Yawning and rubbing her eyes, she dragged the half-asleep Alicia out of bed and drove an hour to his clinic. Please, for the love of god, re-locate.
Alicia loathed her music. The girl found it cheesy and alienating. When she was in the car, Serena could not play it. The silence made the journey last longer.
When they arrived, Alicia ran head first to the examination bed and continued napping, as if she owned the place. She cleared her throat as a warning.
Alicia ignored it.
“Are you forgetting something?” She pointed to Wei Xiang.
“My phone is in my pocket!” Alicia quipped back.
Clever. She went to pinch her ear, but Wei Xiang stopped her.
“She’s tired. Just let her sleep. I’ll talk to her later.”
“It’s a bad habit.”
Alicia wiggled about in the bed, trying to find the spot. Serena never quite understood what the appeal of that rock-solid mattress was.
“How are things with you?”
“Tsk! There’s no time for that. Go wake her up and talk to her.”
“I want to talk to you, too.”
“What? Why?”
He leaned in. Placed both hands on the table. “Have you been thinking about it?”
“When am I not thinking about it?” She forced laughter.
He gave that look again.
“I’m fine.”
He surrendered with both hands up. “I’ll call you when we’re done talking.”
“But—”
“She deserves privacy. Plus, she won’t feel safe enough to open up with you here.”
She walked out with folded shoulders. Decided to buy the girl a drink in the meantime. But where? Everything was shut down. She climbed up the broken escalators and worked her way through the second floor. Toy shop, salon shop, masseur, another toy shop, another barber shop, tech shop… What were they talking about? The curiosity was unbearable.
She hated how much he treasured privacy. Legally, she had a right to knowbecause Alicia was a minor. But Wei Xiang stance was clear: Alicia’s words were confidential unless not doing so brought danger to herself or others. She couldn’t protest this, because she trusted him to have Alicia’s best interests at heart.
She only prayed that he kept the real story a secret. Only the parts she told could be discussed. Everything else was a pandora’s box that should never see the light of day.
Especially not by young, naïve Alicia.
He said hi first. One innocent day at Kaplan, he came to thank her for the pineapple tarts she made and brought over Chinese New Year. Turns out he studied the same course as Wei Xiang, the course of her dreams she was still grieving over. Pa said the one-in-a-million chances of success made it a foolish gamble; expensive too. Ma was worse, doubting the integrity of medicine altogether, and wished to protect her from its brainwashing.
He offered to share what he learnt with her, which became a monthly thing. A weekly thing. A daily thing. Might as well have lunch before studying, breakfast before studying, dinner after studying. Might as well study at his place for convenience’s sake. Might as well stay over, get drunk to celebrate their stellar grades, and wake up on his chest.
Ma and Pa objected, as they did with everything. But this time, Serena grew a spine. This time, she dug her heels in and held her chin up high. And, just to rub it in, she made their romance public enough for them to watch. The sweetness of revenge paired excellently with the thrill of true love.
Star-crossed love.
Ma and Pa retaliated. They threatened to drag her out of school and send her back to the village. Curse her with the life of a bland housewife. Match her with one of the neighbour kids; the tried-and-true way.
Serena retaliated. She brought him back home and performed a theatrical show of their ‘break-up’, culminating in him storming off and hiding by the backdoor. At the stroke of midnight, she sprung the trap. When they least expected it, she snuck into their room and ransacked the safety vault empty. She did the same with her siblings’ piggy banks, then took the quietest escape route through the window.
He caught her luggage bag to minimise the ruckus the best he could. Used all his willpower to resist yelping in pain. But with her, he was effortless and graceful. This was the moment to end the episode, with sappy music and slow-motion as the credits rolled. His gaze took all the air out of her.
They will never look back again.
Which made this the moment to start the next episode. Metal rattled when they stepped into the street, leaving her frozen solid. She took a deep breath and calmed her nerves, because she was ready for this. Ma would scream. Pa would tell her to listen. Jie would repeat Ma’s words. Di would cry. She was ready for this.
No one said anything. Footsteps followed, growing softer, not louder. They were walking… away? No sounds of slippers. He hurried her to leave before they restrained her. A part of her wished they did.
A full minute passed like this.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Pa broke the silence. “If you want to be a doctor, you can. If you want to marry him, you can. We were wrong to stop you.” Each word was wet and shaky. Toothpicks on the verge of snapping.
“Yi Shan, di yi ming (Yi Shan, number one)!” She didn’t see, but she knew Pa was crying.
Pa locked the door, and they never looked back.
If Wei Xiang disclosed anything past this point, she would murder him.
Wei Xiang called. It was her turn. Alicia left with similar reluctance. She gave the girl some money to buy herself a drink if she found one.
“What did you tell her?”
“I can’t do it, Serena. This is your family business, not mine.”
She threw her hands up.
“It’s not my place.”
“Yeah! Yeah! Whatever! Thank you for respecting my boundaries!”
“She’s just curious about her father, Serena. She’s not a kid anymore, she has questions. And it’s your job to answer them, not mine.”
“Never.” She dragged the word out. “Never!”
She collapsed and let the chair take her. Her eyes were moist.
“You okay?”
“I hate you. You know that?” She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“It’s not your fault. You’re just trying your best.”
He was always so good at making her cry.
“I have to drive Alicia home later.” Her heart began to shatter.
“Not until the day it sinks in.” He placed a hand on her’s. A hand that was two decades heavy.
The tears flowed without permission. Cracks formed over her heart. She stifled her whine, worried that Alicia might hear. No matter what she did, it just wouldn’t stop.
“You don’t—you don’t know what actually happened.”
“I don’t think you do either. Because any sane human being would agree that it’s Not Your Fault.”
Random things flooded her mind. Cheryl. That polaroid of Alicia in her wallet. The horrid ‘laksa’ at the hawker centre. Customers who made her lose faith in humanity. The stupid vacuum that had no business being so loud. That one weird spot on the couch that hurt to sit on. The row of dead pixels on the bottom of the TV screen…
“Then why am I the only one being punished?”
He nodded. Rubbed her hand with his thumb. Leaned forward to show that he was teary-eyed, too. Said everything without a word.
“I’m so fucking tired…” Her heart shattered.
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
“Who the hell is gonna help me?” She exclaimed, “Or some doctor in a chair forcing me to remember all this shit every week? As if that’ll do anything!”
“It’s better than letting it all bottle up inside you. I hate seeing you like this.”
“Ha! Then maybe you should see me less.”
He leaned in further. She rested her head on his chest. “You don’t need to live like this. You can escape this.. If you can escape him, you can escape anything.”
“I didn’t escape him.” She clarified, “He abandoned me. And Alicia!”
“I know.”
“Please don’t tell Alicia about this. Please…”
“I won’t. You deserve privacy.”
She hated how much he treasured privacy.
Alicia came back, clueless as ever, no drink in hand. But the idea didn’t escape her, and she begged to have drinks together. Serena was too exhausted to drink, so she drove home.
“Do—” Her throat was drowning in sand. She tried to clear it, to no avail. “Do you want to eat some cookies after dinner?”
Cookies were comfort food. For bad days and bad cramps.
“Yes!” Alicia sounded normal. Did Wei Xiang even bring it up at all?
“When are your assessments starting?”
“It starts on Monday.”
“And when do you get your results?”
“A week after I finish all my papers.”
“Okay. If you score well on those assessment tests, I’ll give you your phone back.”
“Ok!” Alicia flapped hands.
“Do you want to buy the ingredients with me, or go home?”
“I want to go home.”
Sigh. “Okay.”
She took a detour to drop Alicia home and headed to the grocery store. Ma forced the entire family to bake pastries for Chinese New Year every year. Jie was her right-hand man, while she was the trainee who shadowed them. Pa and Di were delivery-men.
It would’ve irked her more if she loved pineapple tarts. But that was a mediocre pastry. The superior one by far was cookies. A bite-sized taste of heaven. Easy to keep, easy to share.
The comfort that cookies provided was two-fold. One the flavour, obviously. Two, the batter. When she mixed it, two lines spiralled out from the centre, one clockwise and one anti-clockwise. They orbited each other until the edge in a never-ending loop. Ying and Yang.
This comfort was impossible to put into words. But if she must, she’d compare it to meditation. It sent her into a trance, into a place of tranquillity. That peace that came from flowing water, falling leaves, and gentle breezes. In this moment, there was only her and the batter. Spiralling, spiralling, spiralling…
The fear of over-mixing the batter overpowered her reluctance to leave the trance. So, the peace ended, and the batter went in the oven.
Alicia took after her in this way. Right as the oven lid shut, the girl raced to her side and sat before the oven, eyes laser-focused on the tray inside. She said the humming was melodic, and the batter rising was magical.
"Alicia. It would take forty-five minutes."
"I know."
Silly girl. She chuckled. It was unfortunate that most would find this weird.
Forty-five minutes later, Alicia dragged her out of bed to collect the cookies. She was too scared to do it herself. Serena washed her face and packed them all in a spare tupperware container before putting it in the fridge.
Cookies are best eaten cold.
"We’ll eat it after dinner. You can have three at most, otherwise you’ll get fat!" She poked the girl’s stomach, or rather the lack of one.
“I want it now!”
“Mm, fine!” Serena gave her one.
Alicia took a bite. Flapped her hands, which was weird.
"I love it!" She cheered. "If cookies were healthier, I would’ve chosen it for my coursework!"
"Huh?"
"My FCE coursework required me to choose a food and propose to sell it in the canteen. But it had to be nutritious."
"Pfft! You think these would sell in your canteen?"
"Definitely!"
"Okay. Good girl." She ruffled Alicia’s hair. kissed her noggin, and helped her re-tie it before she complained. Somehow, that evolved into a tickling fight over the couch that left them laughing until their bellies hurt.
Then a light bulb went off in her head.
Alicia searched the channels for something to watch, and settled with a medical drama. Serena couldn’t help but nitpick the show to death from what she vaguely remebered studying on her own.
She also couldn’t help but do a bad habit only mothers have, which was to turn everything into a lesson. Today’s lesson was patient confidentiality, and the reason why the nurse should’ve been arrested for giving the main lead his ex-girlfriend’s medical files.