I had been warned.
By her. By my own instincts. Even by the universe itself, when it rained only on my side of the street that morning.
“You’ll love them,” she said cheerfully as she adjusted her earrings in the mirror. “They’re chaotic, loud, and possibly drunk. Just like me!”
“That is not comforting.”
She patted my cheek. “Just smile and lie. That’s what I do.”
I practiced my fake smile in the mirror until it resembled the face of someone about to be sacrificed.
—
We arrived at her parents’ house—a bright, overdecorated villa that screamed “we bought everything on sale and displayed it at once.”
Her mother greeted me with a dramatic gasp and an awkwardly long hug.
“Oh! So you’re the one who finally married my little troublemaker! Tell me, do you regret it yet?”
“Hourly,” I muttered.
She laughed like I’d told a joke. Her dad, meanwhile, gave me the patented father-in-law stare: one part judgment, two parts suspicion, and a sprinkle of “you better not screw up.”
Then the cousins arrived.
And the aunts.
And one uncle who kept asking if I invested in crypto.
—
Dinner was a battlefield.
Her grandmother interrogated me with the precision of a retired spy.
“So, Shen Xing, what’s your blood type? Do you believe in ghosts? How many kids do you want?”
“I… uh…”
Her wife swooped in. “He’s shy. Isn’t that cute?”
“No,” her grandmother said. “It’s suspicious.”
At one point, a seven-year-old cousin asked if we had kissed yet. Before I could formulate a response that wouldn’t land me in jail, she proudly shouted, “He kissed me first!”
I choked on my soup.
The room erupted in chaos and clapping.
—
After dinner, I escaped to the balcony. She found me there, holding a glass of juice like it was alcohol.
“You okay?” she asked, leaning on the railing.
“Your family is… a lot.”
“They are,” she agreed. “But they’re mine. And now they’re yours too. Congrats.”
I stared at her.
“Do I get a survival guide?”
“Nope. Just me.”
I glanced back inside—at the noise, the laughter, the dancing cousins and bickering elders.
And then at her.
She may have been annoying. Her family may have been a three-ring circus.
But somehow, I didn’t hate it.
“Tell your grandma I believe in ghosts,” I said. “Because I just saw my soul leave my body.”
She grinned. “You’re doing great, hubby.”
“Help.”
—
To be continued…
