"Ah, Trevor, it's been so long!"
My mom gave me a hug when she saw me approaching at the airport. My dad then joined in, ruffling my hair as if I was a kid.
For all intents and purposes, to my parents, I was probably still a child. Not that I had any problem regarding that. Being an adult was difficult. Sometimes I wished for the good old days when I was still a kid and I didn't have to worry about adult problems such as taxes, maintaining a stable income and securing a home.
"It has been a while indeed," I agreed, though I had only just spoken to them through a video call the last weekend.
"And this is…Lily, right?" Mom beamed when she turned to the young lady by my side. She bowed politely.
"Uncle, auntie."
"Now, now. Shouldn't you be calling us mom and dad instead?" Mom laughed, taking her hand. She then turned to glare at me. "Why didn't you tell us you got married?"
"When are you holding the wedding?" Dad asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, a lot of things happened, and we only got married about a month ago. But I told you I had to leave on a military mission, right? We were hunting down the mercenaries that launched a cruise missile exactly on the day when we registered our marriage, so I didn't have time to properly introduce you to her. So many things have happened since then."
"Oh, yeah." Dad chuckled. We were already beginning to move from the arrival hall toward the carpark. "We saw the news. You're a hero now. We are so proud of you. Your relatives too, they were all asking about you."
"But don't do so dangerous things, can or not?" Mom complained. "You know how worried we were?"
"Sorry. But they attacked us first. I couldn't just let that slide."
"Why are you working for the military in the first place? I thought you own your own company?" Mom was puzzled.
"I told you before, mom." I sighed impatiently. "My company manufactures stuff for the military. So I join them to test them out in field combat to make sure everything is running properly."
I couldn't elaborate. The contract I signed with the military demanded that I keep everything under heavy wraps. I didn't disagree against such wisdom. Loose lips sank ships and all that. There was a reason why the military tried to keep most of their weapons and capabilities a secret. Well, they showed off a lot too, but that was to instill morale. There was no way they showed off every single little thing.
While mom conversed with Lily, trying to get to know them better, I led everyone to my trusty Toyota. Helping my parents put the luggage inside the boot of my hatchback car, I then jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine after ensuring everyone was strapped in comfortably.
My parents didn't care that I drove a Toyota. They weren't that obsessed over luxury items or brands. They knew of Audis, BMWs, Rolls Royce and those brands, but they didn't expect me to buy such cars. I learned my frugality from my parents, to be honest.
We had lived quite a turbulent life throughout my childhood, having sunk to poverty at one point when my dad's business failed for a couple of years. So we knew the value of savings and not spending recklessly. Honestly, all those romantic CEO novels that loved to promote luxury living and jet set lifestyles, castle-like mansions with armies of servants, appeared to have characters who spent money like water. Such lifestyles were unsustainable. Sooner or later, you would run out of money after spending so lavishly like that. Imagine if there was an economic recession, or if the corporations went bankrupt (which happened far more often than you would like). All of that reckless spending would come back to haunt you.
But I guess the readers enjoyed the fantasy of being a princess, being served upon and buying whatever luxury goods and branded clothing they wanted without ever considering the consequences or practicalities. Then again, they probably bought the glamorous lifestyles of celebrities that they saw plastered all over paparazzi and media and bought into the romance and fantasy.
Whatever, it wasn't as if I knew how the world of the rich worked…wait. Never mind.
"So how you doing? Is your business doing fine?" Dad asked. I nodded, but given that most of the stuff I did was restricted information, I couldn't elaborate.
"Just doing the same old things, making stuff for the military. For obvious reasons, I can't tell you about them."
"Ha ha, I understand."
Behind, mom was asking Lily more…wifely stuff, I supposed.
"When do you plan to have kids?"
"Um, I don't know. We haven't really thought about it. I suppose after our careers have stabilized? I've only started acting this year and I haven't gotten many roles. I still need to work harder. Maybe we will consider it after I'm more established."
"Career is important, but keep in mind that you're no longer young. Besides, why do you have to work so hard? Trevor is making so much money. You can just retire and be a housewife, enjoy staying at home and taking care of kids."
"I would rather not do that. I don't want to depend entirely on Trevor. Also, I have my own pride and I want to have a measure of independence."
"That's right, mom," I called out from the front. "I will never ask Lily to give up her dream for me. Besides, that's so old-fashioned thinking. Who says women must be housewives, stay at home to take care of kids and let their husbands provide for them? This is already the twenty-second century. Such thinking is so outdated."
In modern society, there were many women who earned more than men, who were more successful in their careers than their husbands. Why should we adhere to such obsolete gender norms that had been proven wrong over and over again? Because society said so?
But society wasn't some real entity lording over us and forcing us to obey its rules. Society was created by humans, its rules were written by men. They would change over time.
Mom knew better than to press the argument. She simply smiled and nodded.
"That's also good, I guess. I just wanted to see my grandchildren."
After all, she had to work and contributed the majority of the family's income when my dad's business failed. If anyone knew the importance of having a double income family, it was probably my mom. If it wasn't for her and her job, the family would have been in much deeper trouble. Sometimes, you simply couldn't survive financially on the husband being the sole breadwinner.
I took them home and helped them unload the luggage from my hatchback Toyota. At the back, I had lain the third row of seats down to accommodate the luggage so that there was more space. There were only three or so baggage, so dad and I were able to drag them out and bring them into the house. I brought them to the room that I had prepared for them during their stay.
"I hope you don't mind taking this room," I said somewhat nervously. Dad laughed at that.
"How can we mind? Of course we will be happy to stay with you."
After they settled down and unpacked, I got ready to bring them out for dinner. Though I usually cooked or ordered in, since my parents had come today, I decided to take them out to a nearby restaurant for dinner. I chose a nice-looking dim sum restaurant because…well, that was something both my parents and I love to eat.
Lily also rarely had a chance to eat dim sum. She seemed more used to Western restaurants like, I don't know, some fancy French restaurant with waiters in tuxedoes and the like. But my parents weren't that big of a fan of western cuisine. Furthermore, I thought it would be great to introduce Lily to local delicacies.
"This is good," Dad said as he ate some siew mai. He also checked the har gao and dipped it in some sauce before chewing on it. "Hmm, not bad."
"It had better be," I joked. "They are charging me a fortune for this."
"Aiyah, actually don't have to bring us to an expensive restaurant. Go hawker center also can." Dad chuckled. "It's the thought that counts."
"Hawker center where got serve dim sum like this?" I retorted.
"True, true. I guess you get what you pay for."
"Yeah, once in a while eat like this is no problem."
In case anyone was wondering why our language was so weird…well, I was born and raised in Country S. My parents are citizens of Country S. So…we were speaking in sort of a dialect that some people might be familiar with.
"Uh, I'm not sure if there's any place in G City to go to," I said, scratching my head. Since my parents were here, it was only proper that I took them out and explore the city, but I couldn't think of any tourist attractions at the top of my head.
"Don't worry, I'll bring your parents out for shopping," Lily assured me. I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had work to do, and though I could technically take a day or two off – because I didn't have much to do regarding the antimatter project and I had just released a few new products for the military – I still needed to design something new for the army.
"Will that be all right? What about filming?"
"I don't have any filming at the moment," Lily said with a sigh. She shrugged. "Arnold hasn't gotten me any new gigs yet. He's working on it, but after the whole cruise missile incident and the marriage, he suggests that I lay low for the next couple of weeks. So I have more than enough time to accompany mom and dad."
"Uh, okay. I'll leave them to you during the day then." I then turned to my parents. "Oh, Arnold is Lily's agent. He's responsible for helping her secure contracts."
"Oh, yes, that's right." Mom nodded as she watched Lily. "You were in the car too when the missile hit, right? I hope you're all right, dear. You must have been scared to death."
"A little," Lily admitted. "But Trevor was there to protect me."
"You should take care of your wife more," mom told me sternly. "Don't let her get into such dangerous situations, can or not?"
I could only shrug helplessly.
"Yeah, sorry. I will do my best."