The Sisters-in-Law Back Home

In the dog days of summer, Yiyang’s sun presses straight down on your skull, so harsh you can only squint into the light. The air becomes a giant steamer; open the door and a wave of heat pushes you back, searing your skin. My hometown’s summers have always lived in my memory as a haze of dizziness—streets nearly empty, silence so deep it rings in your ears.

Along the embankment of the Zi River, weeds and grasses stretch across the slope. Their leaves are no longer green, but coated evenly in silt, bent low after days of blistering sun. Last month’s flood had swallowed the entire embankment, burying all that grass underwater. When the water receded, the mud clung to every blade, dulling the once-vivid slope into a murky yellow. A few shrubs near the riverbank still sat half-submerged, their leaf tips struggling to break the surface.

At the ferry crossing, a boat lay anchored, rocking in the rippling water. The riverbank was so quiet it hummed. Although the calendar read the twenty-first century, the world around me felt suspended in a long-ago afternoon.

It had been years since I last returned. My father had passed; my mother now lived with me in Beijing. The family ties in my hometown had thinned, the circle of acquaintances shrinking. This homecoming felt like a farewell before leaving the country again.

Being an only child, I had no siblings to visit. Only a few cousins remained as blood connections. Whenever I returned, they would arrange a meal and drinks, keeping the thread of kinship from fraying entirely. The three of us had once been raised by the same grandmother; we each carried fragments of childhood memories with her. That shared past was our last common ground. So on each visit, it was these cousins who gathered us around a table.

We met at my younger cousin’s home for dinner. He spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen, back slightly bent, preparing dish after dish. When he finally brought them out—steaming plates glowing with reds and greens slicked with oil—they filled the table with warmth and generosity. His wife, my other cousin’s wife, and the children soon gathered around. The men began drinking, recalling childhood mischief and our grandmother’s stories; after several rounds, their faces flushed, voices rising, the bragging inevitable.

The two sisters-in-law sat quietly among us—not urging drinks, not joining the rowdy banter. They simply smiled, passing out bowls and napkins, tending to the children, offering soft reminders. From time to time they exchanged a few light words about daily trifles, shared a knowing smile, then continued feeding a child or gently echoing their husbands’ conversations.

My cousins are much younger than I am; they married in the early years of the new century. Their wives, born in the ’80s and ’90s, should by stereotype be lively or fashionable. Yet these two never wore their age on their sleeves. They interacted with their husbands and with me in a serene, almost old-world way. Their sisterly bond was not built on blood, yet even after long intervals it never faded; whenever we met, they were warm but measured.

Perhaps I have lived in northern China too long. Gatherings there are often dominated by men orchestrating everything, or by women bustling about, hosting with loud enthusiasm. But Hunan women are different. Outsiders think they are fiery, like Hunan cuisine—yet that fierceness is only a fraction of who they are. More often they fall in love quietly, marry quietly, and live steady, uncompetitive lives. Their soft voices conceal a resilient core. They devote their years to their husbands and children, wrapping strength in gentleness.

These two sisters-in-law, in their calm and capable presence, revealed another kind of tenderness—a strength that does not announce itself. For a moment, I glimpsed the lingering trace of an earlier era’s grace, still alive in the women of today.