SI

it’s that time of the year again; mama unfurls the mah-jong table, rouses it from its gangly two-legged lean against walls that have long since moulded itself carefully ‘round the four corners; chipped, curling paper edges. she brings it centre stage with a screech of enthusiastic table legs; it calls out for lonesome feet. papa comes next, lugging chairs; he sets them down with special care, one on each side, and they lean into the spaces beneath the mah-jong table, an almost-slouch that ought to have sat up straight at mama’s eagle stare (a feat jie jie and i never did quite manage) later, jie jie brings the slim little box filled to the brim with mah-jong pieces

whose edges are blunted so they lean into one another like one of those watercolour paintings i drew that i know mama still keeps. and now, it is my turn; fingers nip, fumble, tip the pieces do a triumphant backflip (a set of two, first and foremost, then) sets of fours tucked neatly into the other’s curves and dips as they do, too, in the quiet between four corners of that little box brought away just as it is time to fold up the mah-jong table again. *si: Chinese (the number four), or part of the phrase '思念' which denotes longing