Chapter 6

6

By the time we get back to the house, I feel about ready to collapse, but at the same time, my mind is too wired for me to get any sleep. It’s as though my body and mind are at an impasse; one wants to dive back into bed, the other one is a caged animal throwing itself onto the bars of the cage, roaring with frustration and anxiety. It still can’t comprehend just how the hell we ended up in this situation. For the umpteenth time, I walk myself back through the events of the night.

First of all, none of this was even supposed to be my problem. Hell, it’s not even my family’s problem. It was Abi’s issue, Abi’s ass on the line, and Nathan and I had only agreed to come along to show support for Second Aunt. And now, Nathan, my husband (ah!), is a freaking hostage. A literal hostage in a mansion full of “armed” guards. And are we even sure that the rifles are fake, like Abi said? Was Abi telling the truth when he said they’re all law-abiding citizens here? But even if they weren’t law-abiding citizens, if they really were mafia, he wouldn’t exactly own up to it, would he? I don’t know, do gangsters readily admit to being gangsters?

I rack my mind, coming up with all the mafia/gangster/cartel TV shows I’ve watched. There’s Narcos. Pablo Escobar. I believe he did call himself a cartel leader. Up until he ran for government. Okay. What about The Sopranos? Oh yeah, they totally referred to themselves as mafia. Okay, so across the board, mafia members tend to be pretty open about identifying themselves as mafia, so the fact that Abi said that they’re just normal businesspeople means—

Who am I kidding? Of course it means nothing. What kind of normal businessperson has armed guards in her estate? And takes people’s husbands hostage? AAAH!

I don’t realize that I’m just standing there in the living room of our family home staring into space and breathing hard until something touches my arm. My muscles explode into movement and I jump, yelping.

“Aduh, Meddy!” Ma cries, patting her chest. “You trying to give me heart attack, ya? Hanh?” She shakes her head and releases her breath.

“Oh my god, sorry, Ma.” I blink several times, trying to clear my head and slow down my speeding heart. “I was—I didn’t hear you coming in.”

Ma sighs. “Come, come to the kitchen, we make tea. Everyone talking. Ayo. Don’t just stand here like patung.”

I’m only half-aware of her taking me by the arm and leading me through the massive dining room and into the kitchen. Unlike the rest of the house, the kitchen is somewhat normal-sized and therefore far cozier. The aunties and Abi are gathered around the island. Someone has taken out platters of leftover cakes and cookies, and someone else has brewed a fresh pot of tea. Despite the fact that my world has just fallen apart, the scene is comforting. This is what my family does best. We sip hot tea, eat sweets, and devise a plan together. We’ve weathered so much together. Surely, we can overcome this as well. By morning, everything will be okay. We’ll get Nathan back and we’ll laugh about the ridiculousness of everything together.

“Come, Meddy,” Big Aunt says as she piles almond cookies and kue lapis onto a small plate, “you sit, okay.” She pats the stool next to her and plonks the plate in front of it. “You eat. You look so pale, later you faint how?”

Second Aunt waves a hand and shakes her head in obvious disagreement. “I think maybe better you do exercise, ayo.” She slips off her stool and raises her arms over her head. “Ayo, follow me, Meddy. Get blood flowing to your head, so you not so pale like ghost.”

“Uh . . .” I’m so dazed that I follow her barked instructions without really thinking about it, and I find myself with my legs parted in a lunge and my arms above my head. And now my mind catches up with the situation and goes: Um, WTF?

Big Aunt must have caught the bewildered expression on my face, because she snaps her fingers at me and says, “Sudah. Ayo, sit. Eat. You need blood sugar, not exercise.”

Second Aunt’s chest puffs up like she’s about to go into a tirade, but Abi rushes to her and pats her on the shoulder, deflating her. I quickly escape to the stool and sit down with a deep sigh.

“Come, eat,” Big Aunt says again, pushing the plate closer to me even though it was already right in front of me to begin with. If I don’t take a bite now, I swear she’ll pick up a cookie and shove it into my mouth. I have no appetite whatsoever, but I force myself to take a bite of almond cookie to appease Big Aunt.

“Mm, this Lapis Surabaya is so good,” Fourth Aunt moans in between bites of cake. “I wish you’d make them more often, Dajie.”

Big Aunt gives one of her trademark I-don’t-want-to-smile-because-it-looks-immodest-but-I’m-very-pleased smiles. Ma tuts. “Tch, is so unhealthy. Thirty egg yolks in just one cake. So wasteful. So expensive. You want Dajie to waste so much money just to make you cake? So ungrateful.”

Fourth Aunt glares at Ma. “Unlike some people who spend their lives determined to be miserable, I know how to enjoy life while I’m still young.”

Ma snorts. “Young? You? You middle-aged already ah!”

Fourth Aunt’s fork clatters to her plate. She looks about ready to lunge at Ma.

“Enough!”

It’s only when they all stare at me that I realize I’ve just shouted at them. Oh my god. I just shouted at my mom and aunties. My survival instincts kick in. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice . . .” I falter. Well, actually, I did mean to raise my voice, because my poor husband is stuck at a mafia lady’s house and my mom and aunts are squabbling over, of all things, cake. I straighten in my seat, lifting my chin. “I think we all need to focus on how we’re going to fix this and get Nathan back. Okay? Please, no more arguing. Poor Nathan is—” My voice wobbles.

Ma rushes forward, patting me on the hand and grabbing the teapot to pour me more tea. Big Aunt spears a piece of coconut cake and shoves it in my face, saying, “Eat, eat!” Second Aunt and Fourth Aunt squeeze their mouths into thin lines, looking abashed. Abi stares at the floor, the tips of his ears turning red.

“Okay,” Big Aunt announces. She’s got that voice again, the one that says she’s ready to get to work and everybody had better listen the hell up. “Our Nathan is stuck in that Julia Child house.”

My chest swells with the way she said “our Nathan.” I love how readily they’ve accepted him as one of their own. There’s no doubt in my mind that they would go to the ends of the earth to save him.

Her steely gaze burns through Abi. “Abi, he is safe, right? That Julia Child person, will she do anything to him?”

Abi starts, his eyes widening. “Yes, of course he’s safe. No, she won’t lay a finger on him.” He hesitates. “Well, looks like she might have taken a liking to him, so maybe she will lay a finger on him? But not to harm him.”

Great. But I trust Nathan, even though Julia Child is beautiful.

“As long as we get her the title deed,” Abi adds.

My gut sours again. “What do you mean, as long as we get her the title deed? So she will harm him if we don’t get it?”

“No, of course not,” Abi laughs. “Because we will get her the title deed.”

Frustration pounds on top of the growing panic. “And if we don’t?”

“But we will,” Abi says with a terrified smile. “So it’s not an issue.”

I gape at him. Why can’t anyone here give me a straight answer? Are they mafia, or are they normal businesspeople? Is Nathan’s life in actual danger or not? I feel like I’m about to scream, but luckily, Big Aunt’s authoritative voice slices through the mess of thoughts flying around in my frazzled mind.

“Okay. We get the title deed. We make list, ya? All the children, all the single people.”

“Right, yes.” I hurriedly take out my phone and open my notes app, then I look expectantly at Ma and the aunties.

“Acai’s grandkids,” Ma says.

“Nelson’s daughters, I think they are twins, ya? So pretty, ya?” Second Aunt says.

“Oh yes, they have such star power,” Fourth Aunt pipes up. “I was chatting with them, and—”

“Hang on.” I hold up a hand to stop them from getting derailed for the millionth time. “Let’s do this methodically. We go from the eldest to the youngest. Otherwise we can’t keep track of all of them.”

“Yes, very smart idea, Meddy.” Ma’s eyes shine with pride, and she smirks at the aunties. “So smart, ya?”

They all nod loyally except for Fourth Aunt, who rolls her eyes as per usual.

“Should we wake up the others in the house?” I say. “Ask them for help? They know these relatives better than we do.”

“No,” Big Aunt says with finality. “They will ask so many questions, then we lose face.”

Right, of course. Can’t forget about saving face, not even now, when we’re trying to save my husband.

“Okay, so.” I take a deep breath, my thumbs hovering over my phone. “Let’s start with your oldest cousin. That would be Uncle Ping?” They all nod. “Right. So his children are . . .”

For the next half an hour, my thumbs fly across the phone screen as my mom and aunts go through each relative and their children. Progress is painfully slow, as several times they disagree on which family member a particular child actually belongs to. There are so many of them, so many children we only see on Chinese New Year, and newborn babies popping into the family tree once every few months.

“Ashley is Aling’s granddaughter!”

“No, that one is Zhenzhen’s grandson!”

“Ashley is girl’s name, how can be grandson?”

“In Ireland, Ashley is boy’s name!”

Each time they get derailed by some petty argument, I have to swallow my growing frustration and gently but firmly lead them back to the pertinent question. By the time we’re done, I feel thoroughly spent, like a hollowed-out shell, but in my hands lies a priceless list of names that everyone agrees is the most comprehensive family tree of our clan. I scroll down the endless list, marveling at just how humongous our family is. Everyone else is slumped back in their seats, obviously exhausted. My stomach roils with guilt. I’ve put them through this. No, wait. I haven’t. Abi has. I glare in his direction, but the poor guy looks so rumpled and sorry that I can’t even stay mad at him.

“Great work, everyone,” I say.

Heads nod slowly. “Okay,” Big Aunt says, stifling a yawn. “We go bed now. Then first thing in the morning, we call up everyone.”

“Aduh, my son taken hos—host—hostake,” Ma cries, “and you all go bed? How can? We call them now.”

I nod in agreement.

Fourth Aunt frowns. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“Why?” Ma and I say in unison.

Fourth Aunt stares at us like we’re complete idiots. “It’s the middle of the night? Everyone will wonder what the heck is going on, and we’d have to explain, and my guess is that our friend Abi and Julia Child would rather this whole trade involving the title deed be kept quiet.” She side-eyes Abi, who jumps to attention.

“Ah, yes.” He grimaces. “Sorry, but yes, it’s imperative that the trade involving this plot of land is kept under wraps, otherwise we might uh . . .”

My eyes are so wide they can’t possibly open any wider. “Otherwise? What, you might get assassinated by another mafia family?”

Abi laughs weakly. “Of course not! But ah, well, it’s sensitive. Very sensitive.”

“See?” Fourth Aunt says with a smug smile. “And,” she adds when Ma opens her mouth, probably to protest, “if we call everyone, waking them up in the middle of the night, it’s so rude. We will lose face.”

There is a horrified silence. Because worse even than the threat of death by mafia is the threat of losing face. Ma immediately sits back, nodding. “Aduh,” she mutters, “this is true. Will lose face.”

If not for the fact that Abi is being so cryptic about the actual consequences of not being discreet, I would’ve imploded right then and there. Because really, who cares a whit about losing face when Nathan is a hostage? But even as I think that, the exhaustion catches up with me. What little remaining adrenaline was left leaks out, and I feel like I could fall asleep on the kitchen floor. I’m only half-conscious of climbing up the stairs to the bedroom and murmuring good night to Ma and the aunties. I can’t even bring myself to change into my pajamas before slumping into bed. A single tear drips from my eyes as I think of Nathan, my sweet, loving husband, alone in that big house, surrounded by danger. I close my eyes. We’ll get you out. We will . . .

A knock on the door jerks me awake. I blink, confused by the sunlight streaming in through the window. What? I don’t get it. It was nighttime only moments ago. I grope about for my phone and unlock the screen. Good gods, it’s already seven in the morning. Somehow, I’ve slept for five hours. The knock comes again, and I call out, “Yeah?”

Ma’s voice floats through the gap in the door. “Meddy, bangun,” she says, even though I’m clearly awake already. “Come down and eat, ayo cepat.” She knocks again, for good measure, before I hear her slippers slapping down the hall.

I bound out of bed and quickly wash up, slipping into a shirt and jeans and tying my hair back into a ponytail. I shake my head, trying to clear it, trying to get myself fully present in the moment. Last night couldn’t have been real, could it? It felt like a nightmare, a horrible figment of my asshole imagination. But a glance back at the empty bed confirms it. No Nathan. The thought slams into me like a steel anchor. Or whatever metal anchors are made of these days. My stomach immediately bunches up into a tight fist. We’ve been in Jakarta only twenty-four hours and already I’ve lost my husband. I grip the edge of the sink and glare into the mirror.

Get. A. Grip.

Today will be the day we get him back. And how hard can it be, honestly? We’ll call each and every single person who was here yesterday and find the title deed in no time. Actually, come to think of it, chances are, whoever it was whose kid got the title deed would probably call us this morning and go, “Yo, you gave our two-year-old a title deed to a plot of land. What the heck?” Then we can be like, “Ha-ha, that was such a silly mistake, LOL. Give it back now. Now. Give now.” And we’ll speed all the way to Julia Child’s house, fling the title deed at her, grab Nathan, and speed away. Easy peasy.

Taking deep breaths, I stride out of my bedroom and down the stairs. To my dismay, the rest of the house is already awake, and the dining room is full of my cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews, all of them engaged in merry, raucous conversation as they have their breakfast. Argh!

“Good morning!” Jems is way too perky for seven o’clock in the morning. I hate him. But then he pours me a cup of freshly brewed coffee and I find that I hate him a little bit less.

“Meddy, ayo makan!” one of the uncles shouts. Why do Chinese-Indos always have to be so loud? I manage a weak smile as Auntie Wati grabs me a bowl.

Today’s breakfast is a typical Indonesian fare: Bubur ayam. It’s rich, thick congee topped with shredded chicken, roasted peanuts, fried onions, fried youtiao, and scallions. Auntie Wati ladles the porridge into my bowl and then tops it with so much chicken there’s more chicken than porridge. She adds the other ingredients with a heavy hand, and by the time it’s done, my bowl is basically a precarious mountain of food. She squeezes fish sauce, sesame oil, and a squirt of fresh lime on top of it and plops it down on the table in front of me. “Makan!” she orders.

The last thing I want to do is to eat, but Big Aunt catches my eye and gives me a small, sure nod, and the tightness around my chest eases a little. She gets it. She understands my anxiety to get out of the dining room and launch into action.

“Eat, Meddy,” she says. Then she lowers her voice and adds, “We have interrogate the kids here. They are clean.” I get a flash of Big Aunt interrogating my little nieces and nephews CIA-style, but the children seem perfectly happy, so I’m guessing she hasn’t waterboarded them or anything. Next to her, Ma nods. Second Aunt and Fourth Aunt glance up from their various conversations to also nod (well, Fourth Aunt winks), and I almost burst into tears then, because as always, these women have my back. They’re all having their breakfast and chatting with the others, but at the back of their minds, they’re fully aware that they’re about to get down to business right after this to help get Nathan out of Julia Child’s house.

I sit down and prod at the tower of chicken and fried dough gingerly. I have no idea how to even start eating without accidentally pushing the entire mountain all over the table.

“Did you sleep okay?” Elsa says.

“You guys came up really late,” Jems adds. “I heard voices down in the kitchen after midnight.”

My breath catches in my throat. Excuses crowd inside my mind, but nothing comes out of my mouth.

“You guys must be so jet-lagged, huh?” Sarah says.

I nod quickly. “Yes, we are!” Jet lag, of course. “We all came down for a midnight snack.”

Elsa gives me a sympathetic smile. “Ugh, jet lag’s the worst. We got it really bad when we went to Vancouver last year, didn’t we?”

Jems nods. “Yeah, that was rough. The kids’ bedtime routine was completely destroyed. I almost started crying when the little one woke up at two in the morning.”

“How long are you going to let Nathan sleep in?” Elsa asks, sipping her coffee. “If he sleeps in too long, he’s never going to get to sleep tonight.”

Oh god. I can practically feel my pores opening up and sweat seeping out. Nathan. How the hell have I forgotten that nobody else knows that Nathan’s not here? “Uh—” Quick, come up with a good answer! A believable answer! Anything!

“Tch, let the poor man sleep,” Fourth Aunt laughs. “They’re newlyweds, you don’t want to know what those two get up to at night.” She gives us an exaggerated wink.

“Ew.” Jems makes a face. “Please, Auntie Mimi, don’t put such images in my head.”

“I’m just saying.” Fourth Aunt shrugs. “If a newlywed husband isn’t left completely wrecked in the morning, then something ain’t right.” With that, she cackles while Jems and Elsa make gagging noises.

I catch Fourth Aunt’s eye and silently mouth “thank you,” and she waves a manicured hand at me flippantly. Thank god for Fourth Aunt. As I spoon some porridge into my mouth, I mentally berate myself for not being prepared. I should’ve been able to answer such an easy question quickly, but I’d just frozen in the moment. This is the thing about my fight-or-flight response. It’s completely broken. When most people either fight or run the hell away, I freeze like a hamster and hope that no one notices me because I’m so still. It never works, so I don’t understand what sort of evolutionary glitch has led to this survival instinct.

The rest of breakfast is just as excruciating. Everyone seems to want to linger over the breakfast table, chatting about how wonderful it was to see the extended family yesterday. When Uncle Ping says, “And today, shall we all go to Grand Indonesia?” I blurt out, “No!”

Every conversation falls silent, scythed by my extremely rude outburst. Eyes turn to stare at me.

“Ah, sorry.” I falter. My mind is a mess. What should I say to them? I need to come up with an excuse that’s polite and respectful, one that won’t make Ma lose face.

Big Aunt clears her throat. “We’re very excited to take Meddy around Jakarta. And Nathan. But this morning, I want to take Meddy to my old kitchen at the Ritz.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Auntie Wati says. “Can we come too?”

“No,” Big Aunt barks. Then she hesitates and adds, “Ah, um, they limit the number of visitors who can go inside the kitchen. You know, for sanitary reasons. Anyway, it’ll be hot and awfully noisy and we’ll be back by lunchtime. Then we can go to Grand Indonesia.”

The other aunties and uncles smile, though a couple of them look uncertain. Big Aunt doesn’t leave any room for questions as she stands up abruptly and says, “Ayo, Meddy, we go now.”

Second Aunt, Ma, and Fourth Aunt jump up as well, and we leave the dining room after saying bye to everyone. The back of my neck burns as we walk out. I’m sure that everyone thinks we’re being really rude and weird, and my skin crawls with guilt because they’ve all been nothing but lovely toward us. Once this is all over, I’m going to be so, so nice to my poor cousins and aunts and uncles.

We go back up to our rooms to grab our purses, and when we exit out the front door, we find Abi waiting outside, with a huge minivan. Second Aunt primps her hair with obvious delight, and we all climb in.

“I’ve booked us a private dining room at the Formosan,” he says as the minivan travels onto the road. “We’ll be able to make all our calls without anyone overhearing.”

I gaze out the window as we drive, my thoughts consumed by Nathan. I wonder if he’s okay. I hate that his first visit here with my family has ended up this way. At the same time, I’m distracted by the sights of the city. Jakarta changes so rapidly, new skyscrapers popping up each time I visit, all of them behemoths made of steel and glass, looking very futuristic. And all the tropical plants growing in lush abundance everywhere, along the streets, turning it into a garden city. It’s so beautiful it makes my stomach twist because Nathan isn’t here to take in the gorgeousness with me.

By the time we arrive at Formosan, my insides are a writhing mess of snakes. We are greeted by a hostess, who leads us to a private dining room, as promised. The room is beautiful, decorated in a traditional Chinese style, with paintings of cranes and water lilies on the walls. The round dining table is already filled with cold dishes. The hostess bows and tells us to press a small bell if we require anything, then she leaves and shuts the door behind her. We’re finally alone and ready to dive straight into business.

Phones are whipped out and brandished like weapons. Second Aunt takes out the master list of names we came up with last night and puts it in the center. Big Aunt regards us with the solemnity of an army general. “Ermei, you take these names,” she announces, pointing to a bunch of names on the list. For once, Second Aunt doesn’t argue. “Sanmei, you take these. Simei, you call these ones, and Meddy, you call these ones down here. Okay?”

We all nod.

“And remember,” Abi pipes up, “you can’t let them know that anything is amiss.”

Big Aunt frowns at him, probably annoyed that he’s interrupted her command. “I was going to tell them that.”

Abi blanches. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry, Dajie.”

“Hmph.” Big Aunt sniffs and turns to us. “Let’s begin.”

Heart thudding, I look at the list of names I’ve been assigned and start dialing. Of course, as soon as we are connected, we find out another problem: the aunties are freaking loud, and they’re all trying to talk over the phone in a confined space. This means that the volume in the room quickly climbs from normal conversation to shouted “Eh! Can you hear me? HELLO? HELLO AH HUAT! YOU HEAR ME OR NOT AH?” and the aunties all flap at one another, hissing at the others to quiet down, can’t you see I’m trying to have a phone call?

I walk to the farthest corner of the room and dial the first number. I put my finger into my other ear to try to drown out the noise of Ma and the aunties. No idea how the person I’m calling, my cousin Frensin, is going to hear me, but I’ll figure that out as I go.

Frensin picks up on the first ring. “Meddy? It’s so nice to hear from you!”

“Ah, hi!” I wasn’t expecting her to pick up so quickly, and now that she has, my mind is a blank.

“It was so nice seeing you guys yesterday. It’s been way too long. We should do a cousins lunch to catch up with you!”

Guilt worms its way through my stomach. I swear, by now, I’m fueled by a mixture of anxiety and guilt. Those seem to be the main two emotions I have. “Yeah, totally,” I make myself reply. “Ah, anyway, so I was wondering . . .” Oh god, this is so much more awkward than I had anticipated. “Um, have Ryan and Joen opened their red packets yet?”

“Ugh, are you kidding? First thing they did as soon as we got into the car was rip everything open and count their money.” She laughs. “My kids are terrible. But you know what? I remember doing the exact same thing when we were kids, so I can’t be too harsh on them.”

I give her a weak laugh before gritting my teeth. How do I smoothly segue into asking if they found a title deed among the cash inside the red packets? “Was there anything weird in the red packets? I remember I once got an IOU in one of mine.”

“Oh my god. I think that was from Uncle Lie. Yeah, oh gosh, I remember that too.” She laughs again, her voice warm with fondness. “No, I don’t think they got anything weird like that . . . they were screaming in the back seat about all the candy they were gonna buy with the money.”

“Aww.” Could they have been screaming about buying so much candy because one of the packets contained a freaking title deed? Nah, they’re what, five and six years of age? They wouldn’t understand the worth of something like a title deed. They would’ve been like, “Mama, WTF is this?” and Frensin would definitely tell me about it, especially since I’d just asked if there was anything weird in the red packets. Right. So this one’s a no. Frensin is still chattering away, and now I need to end the call quickly so I can progress to the next cousin. Argh. I hate this. Another stab of guilt jolts through me as I say, “Oh, shoot, my mom’s trying to talk to me about something. I have to go.”

“No worries. I can hear her in the background. Say hi to her for me, and let’s schedule our cousins lunch soon!”

“Yes, definitely,” I reply feeling like a total shit. “Byeee.” I hang up and sag against the wall, feeling all hollowed out. Just from a single phone call. Argh. And I have at least eight more to go. Somebody save me.

As I cross out Frensin’s name on my list, I glance at my mom and aunts and listen in on one of their calls. Of course, they’re all speaking either in Mandarin or Indonesian, so I struggle to follow their conversations.

Big Aunt: “You know how much that cheapskate Enjelin gave in her red packets? Just ten dollars. How embarrassing.”

I wince. That’s . . . very direct. But next to Big Aunt, Second Aunt is saying, “Hanh! I hear that Dajie gave twenty dollars per red packet. She is so wasteful, she’s always been like that. Who gives a two-year-old twenty dollars? I mean, really now.” They both pause to shoot daggers at each other with their eyes.

Then Big Aunt says, “But I just got off the phone with a friend, and someone had given her grandchild a lotto ticket in his red packet. Can you even imagine? Did your grandkids get anything like that? Anything that’s not actual cash?” Her face switches from fake smile to intense narrowed-eyes glare, as though she could glare right through the voice call. A moment later, she grunts. “Hrmmh, okay, so nothing strange like a lotto ticket or a Starbucks gift card or a—ha-ha, title deed to a plot of land. Okay, sounds good. We’ll talk more next time.” She hangs up the phone and crosses the name off her list.

Second Aunt shakes her head at Big Aunt, sees me looking, and says in English, “Meddy, you got hear that? Big Aunt just say, ‘title deed to plot of land,’ you hear or not?”

“Ah . . .” I freeze like a rabbit that’s heard the sudden rustling of leaves nearby and knows it’s probably not another rabbit. “A little?” I don’t know how one could hear something “a little,” but I’m trying to be as noncommittal as possible here.

“Aha!”Second Aunt snaps, glaring at Big Aunt. “You see? Even Meddy say, she notice you saying ‘title deed to plot of land.’ That is so obvious. You want them to know is it? You want them to figure out what happen? Hanh?”

Dread overcomes my frozen instincts and I raise up my hands in a gesture of don’t-shoot-me. “Hang on, I didn’t mean that it was obvious or anything. I actually thought you did it really smoothly, Big Aunt.”

Big Aunt’s chest balloons, and her face glows with a smug smile. “Yes, Meddy is right. Very smooth. You hear? She say is very smooth, I agree. Is because I am businesswoman, always must know how to handle customer, how to make customer happy, make them feel special, not to worry, nothing is wrong.”

Second Aunt snorts. “But in reality every time they go with you, always got something wrong with cake.” She looks over at Abi and says, “Right? You remember when we were all young, Dajie kept baking this and baking that, nobody want to eat but she still baking here and there.”

Abi looks like he’s seriously considering digging a hole in the floor with his bare hands and hiding in it. “I—um—”

This time, Big Aunt balloons so much that I fear she might actually explode. “What?” she says, her voice dangerously soft, like a sword being slid out of its sheath. “Got what wrong with my cakes?”

“Nothing’s wrong with your cakes!” I practically scream, lunging in between the two of them. “Your cakes are amazing. My friends are always raving about them. You’ve got a rating of 4.5 stars on Yelp. Your cakes have gone viral on Instagram at least four separate times!”

“Aha!”Second Aunt cries again. “You see? Your cake got virus. Everyone agree!”

“That’s not what going viral means,” I groan.

Fortunately, Ma and Fourth Aunt end their respective calls then and join in the quickly spiraling conversation.

“No luck with mine so far,” Fourth Aunt says. “How are the rest of you doing? Any hits?”

Ma shakes her head. “Everyone talking about so happy, kids getting red packets. Nobody bring up anything strange.”

Abi looks crestfallen. “Well,” I point out, “we’ve still got a lot of people to call, so let’s get back to work, okay? You’re all doing an amazing job.” I quickly go back to the far corner of the room before any of them has a chance to respond. This time, I feel far more ready, and I call my next cousin with more confidence than I had before. The calls go a lot smoother, with me getting into an efficient pattern of wishing them well, asking them how their family enjoyed the Chinese New Year celebrations, and then saying, One of my friends’ kids received a lotto ticket in his red packet, can you even imagine? The audacity! Did your kids receive anything strange like that? No? Oh, thank goodness. Yes, let’s have a cousins lunch soon. I’ll coordinate with the rest of the cousins. Byeee!

In between each name, I pause a second or two to take a deep breath, then I hit Call. Rinse and repeat seven more times, and before I know it, I’m out of cousins to call. Not a single one of them says their children have found anything that isn’t actual cash in their red packets. A few of them expressed wonderment at receiving a lot of money in the red packets, to which I could only laugh weakly and agree how generous Abi was. Okay, well, chances are that Ma or the aunties found something. I trudge back to the table and slump down into a chair and wait as one by one, the others finish going through their lists and cross out the last name. Ma is the last one to finish, and she shakes her head as she hangs up the phone. My stomach sinks. All of our mouths drop open. For a moment, no one says anything as we stare bleakly at one another.

“No luck?” Abi says.

We all shake our heads, our expressions still disbelieving. Big Aunt studies her list as though it could tell her something, then she frowns at us, a displeased North Korean dictator. I shrink away from her knitted brows. “How can?” she rumbles after a pregnant second. “No, this not possible. Must be one of you make mistake. Who is it?” Her glare sweeps across the table, scouring our skins as it passes each one of us. I feel my skin shriveling up under it, as though getting burned.

“How you know is not you who make mistake?” Second Aunt hisses.

Abi places a hand on Second Aunt’s arm gently, and weirdly enough, even though things are looking really dire, I find myself liking Abi for a moment, just for that gesture alone. He’s good for her, I think. Then I mentally kick myself for thinking that, because hello, we wouldn’t be in this position in the first place if not for Abi and his shady dealings. Still, I appreciate that he’s at least trying to keep the peace between Big Aunt and Second Aunt.

“Yes,” Ma pipes up, “could be someone else, someone who spend her time on phone talking about her silly singing show that nobody watch.” She side-eyes Fourth Aunt, as though none of us knows whom she’s referring to.

Fourth Aunt glances up from admiring her nails. “Uh, I have forty thousand followers on TikTok, so obviously there are tons of people watching me sing. And they asked me about it, so of course I had to respond, otherwise they’d get suspicious. You can’t blame me for being a TikTok star.”

Ma snorts. “Hah! Just because you buy follower on the TokTok you think you a real star now?”

“Well, all I heard was you telling everyone how Meddy and Nathan still haven’t given you a grandchild yet,” Fourth Aunt shoots back, “so I’m not the only one getting derailed, okay?”

I push the tips of my index fingers into my temples and close my eyes. I wonder if I could press hard enough to actually squish into my brain and put myself out of this misery. But no, I need to focus, I need to somehow lead them back to the topic and save Nathan. God, give me patience. But what use is patience? I have no idea what went wrong. Why haven’t we found out where the title deed went?

“No choice,” Big Aunt grunts, “we call everyone again.”

My eyes and mouth open with dismay. Nooo! Oh god, my insides are curling up at the horrifying thought of having to struggle through another round of awkward conversations with my cousins. “They’re definitely going to suspect something of being wrong,” I moan. “I don’t think we can just call them up again and ask them the same questions. That’s just really suspicious.”

“Meddy is right,” Ma says loyally.

Big Aunt’s mouth purses up and she takes a deep breath, looking thoughtful. “Then how?”

I must think of something. Maybe someone is hiding it? The thought hits like a punch to my stomach. I love my cousins. I love my aunts and uncles. I hate the possibility that one of them might have been dishonest. It fights me all the way up, but I finally manage to bring myself to say it. “Could whoever got it be hiding it from us? Because they realized how valuable the title deed is and they wanted to keep it?” God, just saying those words makes me feel filthy, like I need to rinse my mouth out with Listerine. Urgh.

Ma and the aunties look as horrified as I feel. They gape openly, their eyes as wide as some animal caught in a trap.

“Aiya, no lah!” Ma cries after a beat. “These people our family, you know. How can you say such thing? How I raise you, Meddy?”

I wince. “Sorry, Ma. I just thought—”

Ma isn’t done with her tirade. “I always say to you, family first. Do I not always say to you that? Hanh?”

“You do, but—”

“And now you saying someone in our family—our family!—decide to put land first? Choi! Knock on wood. Why you say such bad luck thing, especially during Chinese New Year? Is supposed to be auspicious time, but you cursing our family. Aduh, what have I done to deserve this kind of daughter?” Her face crumples up into a sob.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that.” Of course, I did much worse than just imply, I literally suggested it. And now, my aunts are crowded around Ma, comforting her, and argh, how the hell did we get here? I need to think of a way to redirect this whole conversation, but how? I scramble through my mind, coming up with a myriad of ideas and rejecting them as quickly as I think of them. Then it hits me, the way a lightning bolt strikes and brightens the entire sky so abruptly. “The photos!”

They glance up at me.

I gesture at them excitedly. “The photos. We took so many of them. And you—” I say to Ma, who’s frowning at me, “you took a ton of photos of Nathan giving out red packets—”

Her frown melts into a smile. “Oh yes, he looks so good giving out the angpao, ya? You can tell, you know, that he will be good father, ya kan?”

“Right. And I saw that most of the red packets have different patterns.”

“Oh yes, most people use the ones that they’re given by their banks,” Abi pipes up. “But I had mine specially printed on high-quality paper, illustrated by an award-winning artist. And! The one that has the title deed is special. It’s larger than the others and it’s gold in color, with a pattern of water lilies.”

“Aiya!” Big Aunt says. “Why you don’t tell us that sooner, hanh?”

Abi shrinks back.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. We asked about the title deed, and if anyone’s kid had received one, I’m sure they would’ve said so,” I say, feeling bad for Abi, the poor little mafia lord being bullied by Big Aunt. “Right, so it’s easily recognizable. We’ll go through all the photos from yesterday morning and see if we can’t find it.” My pulse is racing so hard that I’m getting a headache. Why didn’t I think of doing this sooner?

Ma and the aunties are all staring at me. “Wah, Meddy, that is so smart idea,” Second Aunt says.

Ma flushes with pride, as though Second Aunt had praised her instead of me. Seems like she’s forgotten about how she was just scolding me moments ago, so I’m not complaining.

“Thanks, Second Aunt. Alright, everybody’s got photos on their phones? Let’s go through them.” Hope flutters in my chest. This has to work. If it doesn’t, then I honestly have no idea what the hell we can do.