A Bone in the Throat

By Huina Zheng

My sister’s ex-husband showed up on Chinese New Year’s Eve. We thought he had come to borrow money or cause trouble. Before the divorce he had lived off my sister and gambled away her earnings. But he brought a big jar of White Rabbit candies. He even handed each of his three daughters a hongbao, the same daughters he had once declared “no longer mine.”

“We didn’t prepare dinner for you,” my sister said. “This supper is for family.”

But he sat down anyway, grabbed a braised chicken leg, and shoved it into his mouth. The bone stuck in his throat, his neck bulging with a rod-like shape. His mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water.

Serves him right.

In that dish of braised chicken, my sister had stewed all her old fury: every moment he pinned her down and slapped her. His daughters threw the hongbaos back at him. We already knew he had nothing to give. Not lucky money, not love. Of course, he didn’t expect that we’d deny him even the chance to boast about his new son.

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