Free The Catherine Lim Collection by Catherine Lim

‘How to Deal with a Difficult Child’ and the
feature in The Sunday Times on ‘Sibling Jealousy: What Parents Must Know’, but
now she cast resolution aside, so angry was she with this child who made no
effort to respond to all his mother’s efforts.
    “You disappoint me, Michael. In fact, you
shame me, do you know that? Mark is such an obedient and studious boy and
always comes out first in class. He never plays the fool. He always listens to
Mummy. He’ll go to the University and be an engineer. Michelle is not as clever
as Mark, but she’s obedient, and she’s a good swimmer. She obeys her coach and
practises hard in her swimming. She will be a national champion one day, her
coach says. And you, Michael? You don’t try at all. You don’t try one
teeny-weeny bit. What are you going to be, for God’s sake? You prefer to be
stubborn and disobedient and sullen. Your teachers call Mummy to school and
they say, ‘Mark is such a good student. How come Michael is like that?’ How do
you think Mummy feels to hear something like that? That’s why I say you shame
me, Michael. You shame your Mummy.”
    The big, long-lashed eyes were still fixed
on her, disconcertingly unblinking, the tears overflowing.
    “Oh, God, I give up,” cried Angela, turning
away. “Go to sleep. Maybe you’ll be better tomorrow.”
    The boy remained fixed to his chair. Mooi
Lan now came in, noiselessly, and gently eased him out of his chair. She took
him to his bathroom, laid out his pyjamas for him. She made him a glass of hot
Ovaltine and led him to his bed.
    Angela went into her own bathroom for a fit
of crying. If only Boon had time to help her in her work, she thought. But her
anger was not directed against him. He was busy enough with his community work
and the work he was doing for Minister.
    Boon’s political ambitions must never suffer
because of his son, thought Angela with determination. I shall have to manage.
I shall have to put things right.
    She was glad to drive over to Dorothy’s
apartment the next day, for one of the endless antique auctions, to get her
mind off the problem of Michael. Mee Kin was there, and she drew Angela’s
attention to a large carved four-poster bed. “Look,” she said, “how beautiful
it is. Yet when I first saw it, after Dot had brought it in from an old junk
shop, it was an ugly thing, with some parts actually rotting. But look at it
now. Dot knows the right place to send these things to be restored. Listen,
Angela, the bed in your mother-in-law’s house is going to look better than this
one. If you don’t rescue it soon, I shall! It’s a sin to let a treasure like
that lie unwanted!”
    Dorothy’s antique bed was taken up at
$5,000. “Five thousand dollars!” gasped Angela. “To think that old wormy creepy
thing in the cockroach-infested room is worth this much.”
    “Possibly more,” said Mee Kin. “Why are you
such a fool, Angela? Why do you let that thing go to waste? And there may be
other items worth saving. I told you that long ago.”
    “Chinaman and his wife are sure to talk,”
said Angela. ‘They’re sure to say I’m taking advantage of a poor old woman,
making money out of her. They forget that they make use of her name shamelessly
to buy shares and properties and whatnot. This is the trouble with in-laws like
these. Do you know, I give all the time! I’ve never taken a cent or anything
off the old people. She gave Mark an ang-pow of $20 for his birthday and I
bought her foodstuffs, a piece of black silk for her trousers and odds and
ends, which came to much more than $20.”
    The antique bed was forgotten in a shopping
trip with Mee Kin. Angela specially looked for, and found a book on dinosaurs,
Michael’s favourite, full of colourful pictures. She had it gift-wrapped.
    The boy was in his room when she returned,
the door as usual locked. She knocked softly. After a while, he opened the
door, and stood at the doorway, sullenly, awkwardly, his eyes on the