Snow

A Lobster, Albrecht Durer. WikiArt.

Sihai parked his newly washed Corolla at the curb rather than in the Royal Garden Hotel’s underground parking lot, a decision he regretted once he realized the lot was free. At least his wife didn’t notice. After all, it had started drizzling. Southern summers were always veiled in hot steam, but his wife hated the slightest risk of their daughter catching a hypothetical cold.

Sihai was the dictionary definition of a man, the kind who thought umbrellas robbed him of his manhood. Age had etched away his brows, leaving two transparent snail trails marking the brow bones. He was moderately tall for a Northerner, but here in the South, he towered. Next to him, his wife stood small and lanky, holding the baby. She was shrewd and impatient, the result of a second marriage and a one-year-old. She had left her first husband, a farmer, for the city, because all he thought of was children, and all she thought of was apartments. Sihai owned his own apartment — not big, not bad. His lips were dark purple; he had been born with pigmented lips, as though the coldness of his home — an unremarkable, undeveloped village in the frozen North — had permanently stained them. As for his wife, her own lips were also purple, but the sparkling gloss was a cosmetic effect, which had transferred to her teeth. She was occupied by something else.

“Oh, don’t cry. People are looking. Shushu is coming, okay? Just minutes away. The uncle from the North, remember? We can’t go there. Too cold. It will freeze your toes off. Tonight, the snow is coming to you! Uncle will tell you all about his snow. Why are you crying?” She fished in her tote bag but couldn’t find any toys or tissue paper. Sihai took the baby and gently rocked and walked, dodging glares of accusation from the guests with Chanel bags. Without a toy at hand, his wife took out her phone to play cartoon videos. The baby calmed. His wife wiped her teeth clean with her fingers.

“This hotel, the marble pillars, the orchids, the fountains…I should pay for breathing this air,” Sihai’s wife said. “Why can’t your brother eat at our home tonight? Is he trying to impress you?”

“Maybe he’s trying to impress you,” Sihai said. Sihai’s first wife had never seemed to like Weijia; to her the North meant spending money, and Weijia meant the North. His brother had never met his new wife. Sihai hoped this would go well.

Tonight’s reunion was a surprise. Weijia had squeezed out one night from his business trip to fly over to see Sihai. Sihai appreciated the detour, especially since Weijia was a company manager, which gilded his