5a

Just as they had reached the four year mark in Macau, things finally came to a head between Simon and Isaiah. Isaiah would love to have throttled his son, just to knock some sense and humily into him, if only he could move fast enough to catch him. Simon, for his part, would have loved to have teach his old man a lesson, if being crippled didn't forever taint that allowance. As it was, tempers simmered along for lack of a release.

Isaiah had indeed become a changed man after his stroke. His bitterness tinged everything which made being around him hardly bearable. One of the reasons people had such sympathy for Sarah was knowing Isaiah's temper. Yet, it seemed a miracle to most in the church that Isaiah seemed to know and understand where each person's breaking point was, and he seemed to stay clear of that. Nonetheless, his temper was still something to behold.

No slouch in the temper department himself, Simon had the fiery Ching temper. Once it flared, it had to burn itself out or the simmering result would last in a fireball no one in the family wanted to experience. Therefore, Simon almost always got what he wanted, from food at dinner to getting a partition to his part of the studio apartment. Barbara and Carol would console themselves telling each other about how hard it'd be for Simon to find a wife who was willing to put up with both his idiosyncracies as well as temper. The more repugnant his temper, the more they voiced this opinion as if to curse him.

This particular row was over Simon's grades. At first, Simon got top honors no matter the class but after three years, his grades were bordering on being average. Why! Isaiah wanted to know from his son, how could he, a principal's son, let his grades fall to such an... average (the word was spat out) degree?

Barbara, having just gotten home from school, pulled up a chair to eat her afternoon snack of red bean biscuit. For a moment, she wondered if she should get up and seek out some amusement but Simon shot her a pleading look. Resignedly, she tried to make herself as small as she could in the corner.

[380 words]