“Joan, are you sure you understood them correctly?” Auntie Betty asked.

“Of course! I’m no dummy! We’re speaking English right now, aren’t we?”

“What else, what else?” Auntie Choo Neo demanded.

“They said they were thinking about closing Crowcreek Mine,” Auntie Joan said.

The women breathed a collective sigh of relief. “You should have said that earlier!” Auntie Carrie complained. “The important one is Elkhills!”

“Elizabeth, has Sam said anything?” Mother asked.

“Like I said, Swee Hua, Sam doesn’t talk shop with me. And I wouldn’t pay attention anyway. Trust me, if something big was happening, though, Sam would be worried, too. If Elkhills closed, he would be out of a job, too. We’re in the same boat as the rest of you.”

Auntie Betty started to raise her hand to attract Uncle Paul’s attention, until Mother grabbed her arm tightly, like a snake strangling its prey. “Wait ah,” Mother said. “It will spoil the night.” Auntie Betty nodded.

Just then, Mother noticed me hiding at the foot of her chair. “Lily! This table is not for kids. Go play with your friends.”

I ran towards Hilary, who was watching her brother play a new boardgame he’d received from their uncle in Calgary. Phillip confidently held court with the clutch of boys gathered around him as he explained how Risk was played. Earlier in the evening, he’d showed off his calculator watch, proudly demonstrating all the tricks it could perform. No girls were allowed to play.

Sadly, I wondered if my own brother would have pushed the boys out of the way to make room for me. I shook the thought out of my head.

I tapped Hilary on the shoulder. “Let’s do something else. This is boring.”

“It’s boring because you don’t understand the game,” she said.

“No, it’s boring because we aren’t playing the game,” I retorted.

I looked over at Joy Woo, who was the oldest Chinese girl in Sparwood at fifteen. As a teenager, she had no interest in playing with us kids. I jealously watched her sitting in the corner, pushing her glasses up her nose as she turned the pages of a book she’d been reading since she’d arrived.

I was the second oldest, which might have made me a natural leader, but I was shy. Most of the girls had no interest in being my friend. We would silently acknowledge each other in the schoolyard but usually go our own way.

Nonetheless, I went to join the girls sitting in a circle playing with some toys. Luckily for us, Carmen and Micaela Ng had a lot of toys at the restaurant. It was their second home, since their parents worked evenings serving the diners of Sparwood. We dressed some Barbies, and when we got bored of that, we pulled out the Cabbage Patch Kids, and then discovered a stash of Lego. Still, we envied the boys and their new game.

Finally, Carmen announced, “This is my restaurant! They have to let us play with them.” Although she was just nine years old, Carmen was the sassiest of the bunch of us. Auntie Joan had named her daughters after characters in her favourite opera. Carmen was not just loud, boastful, and energetic, but she was also blunt and sometimes mean about it. She bossed around her sister, Micaela, like her personal servant. But Micaela didn’t mind because she admired her big sister. Micaela would act like an attack dog or a sweet playmate depending on Carmen’s instructions.