Chet’s Chatter

She went on to the kitchen where she began rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the dish washer. After a while, she heard a tap-tap sound and turned to find Ming walking slowly to the breakfast nook.

“Do you want something to eat?” She asked her daughter. “You ate very little during dinner. Was the siew yoke not crispy enough?”

“I lost my taste for char siew siew yoke after you and jeh left,” Ming told her. “It was our last dinner together that spoilt it.”

Mrs Tsui remembered that dinner. Kok Loong’s younger brother, Kok Sai, had turned up at the shop and invited himself to dinner. They had wanted it to be just the four of them, but were too polite to turn him away.

During the dinner, Ching had blurted out that the two of them were going to the States the next day. That prompted a lot of questions and comments from Kok Sai.

“Uncle Sai said a lot of things he shouldn’t have said,” Mrs Tsui commented.

“That was nothing compared to what he told Ah Ba after we’d gone upstairs,” Ming said. “He said Ah Ba made a good choice keeping me with him as I was a better worker altho I was slow in other things and not very bright in school.”

“How did you hear that if you were upstairs?”

“I’d left something below the counter and had come down to get it.”

“Oh Ming, I’m so sorry,” Mrs Tsui said.

“You know what’s the greatest joke?” Ming asked her mother. “When we put the shop up for sale, Uncle Kok Sai offered to buy it, and he got Auntie Foong May to ask Ah Ba to let him have it at half price! Of course, I stopped Ah Ba from agreeing, and I refused to lower the price. We had proper valuations done and had the papers to prove it.”

It seemed Ming was just like her, precise and organised. She remembered doing something similar many years ago when she’d arranged to get Kok Loong’s brothers to give up their share of the shop.

“Why didn’t you come back for us?” Ming’s question startled her. “Was I really such a bad child that you were glad to be rid of me?”

“Oh Ming,” Mrs Tsui was trully shocked to hear this was what Ming thought of her all these years. “That’s not true at all.”

“Then why didn’t you come back like you said you would?”

“I was … ” she paused, looking for the right words. “I was too ashamed.”

“Ashamed?”

“You see how Ching has ended up with two children, both from different men.” It was a statement, not a question. “She became so wild soon after we got here, and with my own work, I couldn’t care for her the way I should. It’s all my fault …”

“No … ” The word escaped her mouth even before she’d thought it through. “Please don’t blame yourself.”

With some hesitation, Mrs Tsui extended her hand towards Ming. After a while, Ming took it.