Al Dan, 25, and Hannah Sandy, 24, were taking a walk in the park at around 9 pm. They’d been seeing each other for almost a year. Smiling, she had her head on his shoulder. With an ear-to-ear grin, he was enjoying resting the side of his head against the top of hers, feeling the soft cushioning of her long, blonde hair.
He looked up at the night sky. “The stars are really beautiful, aren’t they, Hannah?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said after taking a quick look. “I love coming out here in this park with you.”
“It’s such a nice place for us to take a walk after having dinner,” he said. “The trees, the grass, the smell of the flowers, the soft breeze on our faces, and best of all, you.”
“Aww, you’re so sweet,” she said, then they gave each other a peck on the lips. “You know, Al, we’ve been going out for about a year now, and I’m so happy with you, I don’t see myself being with anyone else.”
“I feel the same way. You’re pretty, you’re nice,…”
“You’re cute, you’re sweet, you’re funny, you’re considerate to me in ways that no other guy I’ve dated ever has been,…”
“You drive me wild in bed,…”
She giggled and hugged him tight. “You’re great in bed,…”
They both hugged each other even tighter and kissed again.
“There’s just one thing, though, Al.” They stopped walking and looked at each other.
“What’s that?” His smile faded.
“I introduced you to my mom, dad, and brother months ago, but I still haven’t met your family. Not even once.”
He was frowning and visibly shaking.
“What is it, Al? I’ve asked to meet your family for the third time now. The first two times, you made excuses to get out of it, and now, you’re still uncomfortable about me meeting them. What’s wrong?”
He was stammering, groping for the right words.
“Your family doesn’t like the idea of you dating a white woman, is that it?” she said with growing anger. “They’d never accept you with anyone other than an Asian, someone of Chinese descent only, is that it?”
“No, no,” he said, holding her hands and looking into her eyes so she’d see his sincerity. “It isn’t like that at all. My family’s not racist at all. They’re completely tolerant. It’s…just…that…”
“What?!”
“Well, it’s hard to put into words. If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. You’d think I’m crazy.”
“Well, what is it?” She was calming down, and sensing genuine anxiety about his family mixed in with that love for her that she’d always known was sincere. She looked in his eyes with empathy. “Come on, Al. What’s bothering you about your family?”
“Well,…my mom and dad…and my brother and sister…are always putting me down, insulting me, bullying me, and blaming me for everything that goes wrong in the family. They’ll make me look stupid, and I’m afraid that after a night of listening to them belittle me, you’ll think I’m a loser and want to dump me.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, then hugged him. “If I see your family treating you badly, I’ll see that as a blot on them, not on you. I know the real you, and if they can’t see your goodness, then that’s their problem, not yours. I’ll always love you, no matter what. But let me meet them so I can at least see for myself what kind of people they are, OK?”
He put on his most convincing fake smile, hiding all of his undying worries. “OK.” They kissed.
*************
After walking her home and kissing her good night, Al walked back to his house as slowly as possible, for he needed as much time as he could give himself to think of a way out of this predicament.
What the hell am I going to do? he wondered. I can’t tell Hannah about my family’s secret curse! She’d never believe me; she’d think I’m crazy, and I probably am. I’ve certainly been driven crazy by this problem my family started ever since we moved here in Toronto from China, and they gave up on the old family traditions.
I’m the only one who still believes in them, and the family laughs at me for doing so. The ghosts of the ancestors, mad at the family for neglecting them, directly trouble only me. Only I ever pray to them, keeping them from doing their worst. The only problems we have are constant cases of bad luck, which the family blames on me, instead of realizing it’s the ghosts that are doing it. If I were to stop praying to them, they’d be far more malevolent, even violent. Not only could a lot of bad luck happen during our big dinner together; the ghosts may do something awful to Hannah, to hurt her. I can’t let that happen!
Oh, what am I going to do? I can’t keep making excuses to stop Hannah from seeing my family. She isn’t going to accept verbal abuse from them as a sufficient reason to avoid meeting them. She wants to take our relationship to the next level, and I do, too. I want to marry this girl! No one’s ever loved me or valued me the way she does, and marrying her will require my family’s involvement, one way or the other. I’ll have to take this risk if I’m to keep her.
Al was now within a block of his house. He thought, Maybe I can pray extra hard to the ancestors. The family’s neglect of praying to them is what has made them so angry with us, so if I pray all the more earnestly to them, maybe I can appease their wrath, at least to an extent. Maybe I can ask them to tell me what they want me to do in exchange for not troubling us anymore. Trying to get the family to pray to them again is useless: they don’t believe in the spirits, and as I’ve always known, the moments of bad luck that the ghosts cause are always made to look like they’re my fault, rather than being supernatural. I’m the pious one who prays to the ghosts, but I suffer the worst: no good deed goes unpunished!
He went in the front door of his house, then into the basement where the altar was. He sighed, then lit a stick of incense and put it between his hands. He bowed before the altar. Oh, well, he thought. It’s worth a try.
Infinite Ocean 