Friday.
Mid-Autumn, properly — not just the mooncakes bought early.
Daughter wanted malatang before we'd even talked about dinner. Been a few times already with her classmates, she said, like it was old news to her and news to me.
Food court at Macquarie, the little place near the escalator. She walked me through it like I was the one who needed minding at the counter — fish balls, tofu, the greens, mushrooms, then pointed at the freezer section, lamb slices, scallops, oysters, all sitting there waiting to be picked.
Confused about the noodles the whole way through the queue. Thought there'd be no proper bowl without them, the way you can't really call it a meal back home without something to hold the soup together. Grabbed a pack of the quick-cook kind before I'd thought it through properly.
She didn't say anything at the time. Just let me put them in.
Weighed it all at the counter after, one bowl each. Mine came to nineteen dollars, bone broth. Hers fifteen, the shop's own mala base, the one she says everyone actually orders.
Didn't wait long. Two big bowls out, steam still coming off them by the time we sat down.
Bigger than either of us expected, mine especially, noodles and all. She was sweating into her own bowl within a few mouthfuls, laughing about it, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist between spoonfuls.
Pushed half my noodles into her bowl before I'd even made it through my own vegetables. Too much for one person, however hungry.
She laughed properly at that. Said you didn't actually need to get noodles, Mum. Everyone just orders the bowl.
Felt properly out of it, hearing that. Like I'd shown up to something everyone else already knew the rules to.
Straight to Mum and Dad's after, both of us still a little too full.
Hadn't seen them in a few weeks, the two of us — daughter's fault more than mine, buried in trial papers most weekends since the block started. Their whole faces changed at the door, seeing her standing there.
Cut the mooncake into six, the way Mum always insists on doing it herself even now. Dad took the smallest piece, still careful since Wednesday's number, said no more than that with a firmness I don't often hear from him. Mum went back for a second piece before I'd finished my own, then eyed a third before Dad caught her wrist, gently, over the plate. Let it go without much of a fight, looking pleased with herself anyway.
Didn't do much else. Sat around the small table a while, plates empty, the four of us just talking over nothing in particular.
That's the whole festival, really, once you strip the mooncakes and the calendar off it. Everyone in one room, not much being said.
Would've felt like a small thing, most other nights.
Didn't, tonight.