My Mother-in-Law's Twenty-Four Dishes

On our wedding night, my mother-in-law handed me a greasy cookbook.

"It's a family rule," she said, pointing at the clock on the wall. There were still bits of meat lodged beneath her fingernails. "Braised pork has to be made after eleven at night. If the kitchen light goes out before the meat is done... your father-in-law will come straight back."

I thought she was senile.

Until the day my husband passed out drunk after a business dinner, and I cooked alone for the first time. The moment the meat hit the pan, the light bulb burst with a pop.

In the darkness, I heard the old rattan chair in the living room creaking back and forth.

It was the chair my father-in-law had loved sitting in when he was alive.

I flipped through the cookbook, and every page had rules written in red ink.

Sweet and sour ribs: Before serving, you must call out "Dinner's ready" three times.

Steamed sea bass: Leave the fish's eyes for your mother-in-law. If she doesn't eat them, you have to watch them rot in the bowl.

It wasn't until I reached the seventh dish that I realized the last recipe in the book was called "Family Reunion Dinner."

And tucked into that page was a black-and-white portrait of me after my death.

In the photo, I was wearing the red nightgown I'd put on for our wedding night.