“Did you have a successful month?” he asked my parents. “I’m sure it’s busy with patients wanting to use up their insurance, flexible spending, et cetera, before the year end.”

My parents grunted, and I think my dad said, “Uh-huh, busy,” between shoveling salt-and-pepper scallops into his mouth.

Which said a lot, because I knew he loved discussing dental insurance and telling everyone it was a scam—information that, yes, I had relayed to Andrew on my application. Probably why he was bringing it up now.

It wasn’t going great, but I still gave Andrew points for effort because he didn’t let up for the rest of the meal. And when I was still chewing the last of the roasted duck, he left the table to retrieve a bag from the living room.

“These are from my parents,” he prefaced before setting down a giant sack of pears. Seriously, giant as in I wasn’t sure how he fit that and all his clothes in his suitcase.

“You couldn’t have grabbed them sooner?” I quietly joked to him, feeling a surge of hope.

Except my parents were staring at the fruit, my dad’s lips pursed and my mom’s eyes tight.

Instead of saying thank you, my mother asked, “Do your parents grow them or something? I wouldn’t think pears thrive in Chicago.”

“We special-order these,” Andrew said. “I know one of the hardest things for my parents when they immigrated here was adjusting to the food, and Asian pears were one of the many items they missed.” He gestured to the sack. “These are from Korea.”

“So… they bought them especially for us?” my mother said slowly, a crease forming on her head—a bad and rare sign from don’t-give-yourself-wrinkles Mǎmá Wang.

“They’re probably expensive and so hard to find,” I added before giving my mother a pleading look. “What a thoughtful gift.”

“No thank you,” my father said, finally speaking up.

Jesus. “What? Why? Because of earlier?”

My parents shook their heads but didn’t elaborate.

“What is it?” I asked, shocking even myself. I was sick of being in the dark.

My mother sighed, then explained, “Giving pears is an insult. ‘Lí’ ”—pear—“sounds like ‘lí’ as in ‘fēnlí,’ to separate. We can only assume they’re wishing separation of us from a loved one.” Her voice began to rise. “Maybe they mean Jing-Jing… maybe they want to cause our separation. They’re staking their claim on the two of you in the future, wanting you to stay in Chicago instead of coming back to California!” She slapped the table. “Is this true? Is that what’s happening? Because then it’s war! I was afraid of this when I found out they live in Chicago!”

Holy cannoli.