My Father-in-Law
Tiffany Hsieh
My father-in-law was an ear, nose, and throat doctor who liked his steak and potatoes. He died of natural causes in his sleep the year before I met my husband, so I was one year too late in meeting my father-in-law who drove a Jeep and liked his steak and potatoes. And beers, my husband says. What about Chinese food? I ask. Did I tell you, we used to have Chinese takeout once a week and he’d cook his own steak and potatoes? my husband says. I didn’t know you had Chinese takeout once a week, I say. He’d eat steak and potatoes for breakfast, too, my husband says. His father was late for breakfast one day. That was how my mother-in-law found him in his room one morning. She got Alzheimer’s after that. By the time I met her it was too late to call her Mum, a word that bypasses her when my husband visits and she lights up at the sight of the spitting image of her husband. Your dad looked just like you? I ask. I guess I look just like him, my husband says. What was he like? I ask. Did I tell you, when we were kids, he ran over the cat? my husband says. I didn’t know you had a cat, I say. My husband looks up from his laptop and says, We did, and I saw my father pick it up and put it in the trash can.
