Description: Zhao Qiao Yi visits her parents's home for the first time after getting married.

Forever Home

The first time Zhao Qiao Yi visited her parents in Nanchuan after she married was to celebrate her stepfather’s birthday.  In order to make the most of the long weekend, she and her brother, and their spouses, took the first flight out of Beijing one early Friday morning.  Which was how it came to be that she, her best friend and sister-in-law, Hao Wu Yi, were later seated around the kitchen table of her childhood home with her mother making dumplings while then men were centered around the television. 

“How is this fair?” Qiao Yi griped, not for the first time.

“Mei Mei,” Zhao Guan Chao called out from the couch, “Just accept your fate.” 

“I really think our mother must have picked me up from the trash can when we were babies, or something.  I don’t know how Guan Chao always gets out of everything while I have to act like the servant at home.”

“Are you just figuring that out?” her brother laughed.

“Should I help?” her husband, Yan Mo, asked.

“With what?” Guan Chao asked.  “Making sandwiches?”

Qiao Yi twisted around in her seat to glare at her brother.  “Don’t tease your brother-in-law like that.  His cooking has improved a lot recently and he now makes more than sandwiches.  I bet he could even out cook you in the kitchen now.”

“How does this look?” Wu Yi interrupted.

Qiao Yi inspected the dumpling she held up and sighed.  “Hao Wu Yi, how is it possible that with each dumpling you wrap your skills are actually getting worse?”

“I doubt it,” Guan Chao said in answer to his sister’s earlier comment.  “Do you see how my wife’s cooking skills are?  If I didn’t take to the kitchen every now and then, we’d starve.  I have to be better than your husband.”

Wu Yi stuck her tongue out at her husband.

“Stop fighting.”  Their mother sat back down at the kitchen table and started cleaning up some of the dumpling mess, ready to move on to the next dish.  “We have a lot more to do in preparation for tonight’s dinner.  Zhao Guan Chao, I just put a bunch of pots in the sink to soak.  Instead of messing with your sister, go in and wash them.”

It was Qiao Yi’s turn to laugh and stick her tongue out at her brother, as he marched sulking into the kitchen. 

“Is there really nothing I can do to help?” Yan Mo asked again.

“You just keep your father company,” his mother-in-law instructed.  “Keeping him out of trouble is help enough.”

“Listen to how my wife talks to me,” his father-in-law complained.  “Even on my birthday she nags and can’t say anything nice.”

“Now I know where Qiao Yi gets it.”

Qiao Yi dropped her spoon and turned to stare at her husband in disbelief while a waiting dumpling wrapper still sat in her paused hand.  When Yan Mo noticed her gaze, he simply winked and grinned back at her. 

~*~

Several hours later, the family finished eating dinner.  Congratulatory toasts had been made, and cake with candles had even been served too.  Over the festive meal, the family reminisced over past memories including the time Qiao Yi had invited her friends home to help celebrate another one of her stepfather’s birthday, both surprising and embarrassing her parents at the same time. 

When the hour grew late and the sky was dark, Guan Chao pushed back from the table and announced that it was time for him and Wu Yi to depart.  As Wu Yi was pregnant with twins, his mother quickly agreed saying that he should take her home to get some rest.  After all, it’d been a long day what with traveling, cooking, and entertaining.

As her mother hurried around the kitchen, packing up food to make sure Guan Chao and Wu Yi would have something to eat in the morning, Qiao Yi gave Yan Mo a subtle glance.  He caught the hint and they started to stand as well.

Their joint movement prompted both her mother and stepfather to pause and ask, “Qiao Yi, where are you going?”

Like Wu Yi, Yan Mo also had a family home nearby.  Naturally, they had assumed they would stay there since th