My Stingy Husband
Andy Clark's laptop bag lay awkwardly beside the dressing table, its worn zipper scraping against the celadon vase I had brought as a dowry. The golden floral pattern of 'A Hundred Years of Harmony' on the vase's surface was scratched, leaving a faint scar. As he bent down to retrieve his laptop, his navy tie drooped and swept across the tabletop, scattering the rose petals strewn there into a disordered arc. I was staring blankly at that fleeting arc when the sudden blue glow of the screen stabbed into my eyes like an ice pick.
The seven characters of "Wedding Income and Expenditure Details" were set in bold Song font, neat and orderly, like soldiers standing at attention. I counted, and the table alone divided the "groom's relatives" into three columns: immediate family, collateral relatives, and distant acquaintances. After each cash gift, there was a parenthetical note, such as "Third Uncle 5000 (Last year, for his granddaughter's birthday, we returned 6000; the actual difference this time is -1000)."
"Have you finished your side's tally?" He pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, the gesture exactly like when he checked footnotes in the library during university. Only back then, he would first tuck the stray hairs from my forehead behind my ear, his fingertips carrying the minty scent of shampoo.
The sweat seeping from my palm wrinkled the nightgown in my grasp. That morning, when Mom slipped the bank card into my bag, the calluses on her fingertip gently brushed the back of my hand: “Shirley, this is the family's goodwill. Don't let Andy look down on you.”
At that moment, I was busy wiping away tears; the train whistle urged me on so urgently that I forgot to ask for the exact amount.
“About... a little over sixty thousand?” The trailing tone floated like a feather, instantly swallowed by the screen filled with numbers. In the photo frame at the corner of the table, our high school graduation picture showed us squeezed in the back row; he secretly wrote 'I like you' on an eraser and slipped it to me. The rubbery scent of the eraser mingled with the late summer osmanthus fragrance—this was the underlying hue of my entire youth.
"Be precise." He tapped the keyboard, the Enter key clicking crisply. “I'm accurate to the cent; being short by a few thousand on your side could affect the subsequent distribution."
In the bedside cabinet drawer, the calculator suddenly pressed against his leg. It was the solar-powered model he had specially bought yesterday, still bearing the supermarket price tag at the price of 9.9. He said, “No more wasting batteries when doing the accounts.”
I pulled open the drawer to search for the red envelopes; the red and gold embossed 'Happiness' word wrinkled beneath my fingertips—my mother had exchanged all the cash gifts for crisp bills, stuffing them into ten red envelopes embroidered with mandarin ducks. Now those envelopes lay at the very bottom of the suitcase, pressing down on the train of my wedding gown.
"Sixty-two thousand three hundred." When I counted the last red envelope, my fingernails dug deeply into my palm. On that snowy night eight years ago, he used half a month's pocket money to buy me a hand warmer. While charging, it suddenly sparked; he held my scorched fingertips and blew on them through the night, the moisture on his eyelashes like a thin frost. Three years ago, we squeezed into a 12-square-meter rented room without heating in winter. He tore apart his down jacket, took out the feathers inside to make me a seat cushion, wrapped himself in an old coat shivering, yet said, “Men are not afraid of coldness.”
Those memories, once warm, are now being slowly torn apart.
"The cash gifts from both sides belong to each party respectively, offsetting the banquet expenses initially advanced by the parents." His mouse glided across the screen, the cursor pausing on the 'Mutual Friends' column: “Thirty-two thousand eight hundred, the rule of a Dutch pay is the fairest."
The transfer notification suddenly blared while I was staring at the watch on his wrist—that watch I bought with my first month's salary. He once held me and said, “From now on, my time is all yours,” yet now he uses it to calculate how much cash gift I should receive."
When he reached out to embrace me, I recoiled as if scalded, the dull thud of my lower back hitting the bedpost startling the night birds perched on the locust tree outside the window. Moonlight slipped through the gaps in the gauze curtains, flowing over his stunned face. Suddenly, I saw the red veins behind his glasses—this wedding, which had drained all our savings, had also exhausted the last trace of warmth between us.
"What's wrong?" His voice carried a barely perceptible panic, reminiscent of senior year when I discovered he was secretly working three jobs to buy me a birthday gift. Before I could even answer, he had already lowered his head to continue checking the spreadsheet: "By the way, you recorded your cousin's cash gift as 2000, but it's actually 1999. It must be corrected tomorrow; even a slight difference is unacceptable."
I stared at the red silk entwined on the ceiling and suddenly realized that some things had quietly died within the calculations long ago. Those confessions hidden inside erasers, the down feathers inside the down jacket, the lingering warmth of the hand warmer—all ultimately succumbed to the cold decimals in the Excel spreadsheet. On the bedside cabinet, the box of wedding candies left unfinished last night lay open, the milk candies gleaming white under the moonlight, like tears that could never melt.
The sunshine on P Island was molten gold, splashing onto the beach and scattering tiny shards of light. I crouched before the suitcase, repeatedly tugging at the zipper; the lace trim of that white dress kept getting caught—this was the honeymoon dress I had chosen over three months, chiffon fabric embroidered with silver sparkles. Just imagining wearing it for a sunset stroll made me smile aloud.
"Stop fussing." Andy Clark shoved the army-green thermos onto the luggage rack; the tea stains at its base seeped onto the pristine white sheets, forming a brownish blotch like an ugly flower. "The seaside wind is strong; wearing pants is practical." He said, pulling out a folding clothes rack and biting open the plastic packaging with his teeth, his gums still stained with the remnants of last night's takeout instant noodles.
The wind chimes in the hotel lobby tinkled softly as a waiter in a batik uniform carried a silver tray. The mint leaves in the iced lemon tea swayed gently among the ice cubes, droplets of condensation trickled down the glass, pooling into small puddles on the tray. Just as I reached out my hand, he gripped my wrist with a force strong enough to crush the ice.
"Drink this." He twisted open the thermos, and a scent mingled with rust and stale tea surged out. The mouth of the pot was ringed with a deep brown scum, like an ugly ring of years. “A cup of tea in this hotel is too expensive."
As the waiter turned away, I saw his shoulders tremble slightly. Outside the glass door, the coconut trees bent in the wind, their broad leaves bowing as if apologizing on my behalf. A foreign girl in a bikini walked by carrying a surfboard, her silver bell-like laughter striking the marble floor and shattering into a ground of awkwardness.
The first thing he did upon entering the room was pull out some wide tape and wrap the minibar refrigerator handle like a mummy: "Cola is priced at 5, but the convenience store downstairs only charges 3.5."
As he spoke, he rummaged through his backpack, pulling out compressed biscuits, ham sausages, marinated eggs, and finally a palm-sized folding electric kettle, its base still bearing the hotel tag from last year's business trip.
"This should last for three days." He arranged the instant noodles into a neat square formation, as if organizing supplies in a trench. "The money saved is enough to buy a return ticket."
That night, the moonlight was unusually thick, like molten silver pouring into the room. I stared at the clumped instant noodles in the bowl; the oil droplets floating on the soup's surface resembled a mocking face. Laughter from the couple next door drifted over, mingled with the crisp pop of champagne corks. Andy Clark sat facing his mobile phone calculator, calculating exchange rates; the clicking of the keys was piercingly sharp in the silent night, as if counting the remaining feelings between us.
"Why did we come here?" My voice was carried away by the air conditioning breeze. The white dress was still curled up inside the suitcase, its lace edges probably already wrinkled like a crumpled scrap of paper.
"It’s cheap." Without even looking up, his fingers flew swiftly across the screen, “Tickets at the end of the rainy season are 70% off, hotels include breakfast, and you can even snag some bread for lunch."
The next day, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried, hot water flowing down the tiles into the drain, as if counting down for me. He knocked on the door outside: “The water's been running for ten minutes. According to hotel charges, that'll cost 20!”
Compromising, we went to the street stall just as the setting sun dyed the sea orange-red. The sari-clad shop owner brought out seafood fried rice, the edge of the plate still clinging to the charred shells of grilled shrimp; the aroma mingled with the sea breeze, stirring a tumult in my stomach. I had just speared a piece of squid when I heard the calculator clicking—he was muttering over the invoice: "Your fried rice costs 80,000, mine 50,000, exchange rate 1:2000, the difference is 15."
The couple at the next table suddenly burst into laughter; the man tapped his glass with a fork, while the woman covered her mouth and glanced over, her blue eyes sparkling with unabashed mockery. The shrimp in my mouth suddenly turned to stone, stuck in my throat, refusing to go down; the salty, briny taste of the sea spread from my throat all the way to my eyes.
"And you drank one-third of my iced tea." He wrote the calculation on a napkin, the pen tip scratching the paper like nails on glass: “This cup is 15, one-third is 5, so you owe me 20 in total."
The sea breeze carried a briny scent as it rushed over me; I saw my reflection in the glass, my eyes rimmed red as if soaked in shrimp broth. In sophomore year, he worked three jobs to take me to an all-you-can-eat barbecue, piling peeled shrimp into a small mountain while he nibbled on free steamed buns, saying, “Seeing you eat fills me up.”
At that time, his eyes sparkled like stars; he never kept accounts, only worried that I wasn't eating enough.
"I won't make up for it." I slammed my fork on the table, making the rice in the plate jump, and said, “Is 20 enough to repay the time you spent peeling shrimp for me eight years ago?"
At the moment he was stunned, fireworks suddenly burst in the distance, golden fragments falling onto the sea like scattered crushed diamonds. But those lights could not reach the rift between us—a bottomless chasm carved by countless '15' and '20' reckonings. I lowered my gaze to the lace trim of the white dress, suddenly realizing it had long since been creased unsightly by the weight of the suitcase.
When I tossed the empty sunscreen tube into the trash, the metal container gave a crisp clink. The skin on the back of my neck felt as if sandpaper had rubbed against it, burning fiercely; as sweat trickled down, it felt like a layer of chili oil had been poured over it.
"Don't throw it away." Andy Clark bent down to pick it up, holding it up to the sun and shaking it gently. "There's still some left to squeeze out."
He bit the tube's opening with his teeth and squeezed hard; the muscles on his cheek twitched, as if a grasshopper was hopping inside. The paste squeezed out formed tiny lumps at the tube's mouth, like solidified tears.
"Go buy a new one." I stared at the sunscreen in the hotel lobby's freezer; the coconut pattern on the packaging looked so refreshing. “Sunscreen, only 100.”
His eyes suddenly lit up, as if discovering a new world, poking at the mobile phone screen: “There's a supermarket two kilometers away selling the same one for 50, we can save 50!”
The sun, scorching above thirty degrees, baked the asphalt road until it oozed oil, and the air was thick with the acrid scent of tires burning against the ground. My thong sandals had soles as soft as marshmallows, sticking to the ground with every step, and when I lifted my foot, a faint 'pop' sound echoed. My calves throbbed wildly, as if a grasshopper were hopping inside.
"Shall we take a taxi?" I tugged at his arm, the scenery before my eyes beginning to blur. "The starting fare is only 10."
"Ten can buy three bottles of mineral water." He shook off my hand and took longer strides. "It's good to walk more—just think of it as losing weight."
A sweet fragrance drifted from a roadside stall selling coconuts; droplets of water on the icy coconut shell trickled down the greenish-brown husk, pooling into small puddles on the ground. The vendor in a floral shirt split open the coconut shell with a machete, revealing the snow-white flesh. The moment the straw was inserted, I seemed to hear the sound of sweet juice flowing. I stared at that coolness and swallowed hard; my throat felt as dry as if it were smoking.
"Stop looking." He dragged me forward, "a coconut costs 6, enough to buy two packs of tissues."
When we reached the supermarket, the shelves before my eyes began to spin; I steadied myself against the biscuit cabinet to keep from falling. The chocolates on the shelves were melting, their wrappers sticky and clinging, the air thick with a sickly sweet burnt scent. He ran over holding sunscreen, the plastic bottle flashing a dazzling light under the sun: "Look! 50! Half the price of the hotel!"
I touched the burning back of my neck and suddenly laughed out loud, tears mingling with sweat streaming down my face. At the high school sports meet, after running the 800 meters, I collapsed on the track. He carried me on his back, rushing to the infirmary. The sweat stains on the back of his school uniform blurred into dark clouds. He said, “You are more important than my life.” Now, it seems my life is only worth the 50 saved.
The day before leaving, I saw a tie-dyed silk scarf in a craft shop. The indigo patterns hid tiny fragments of gold leaf, as if stars had been crushed and woven in. The shop owner said it was handmade, the only one of its kind in all of P Island. “I'll bring one for my mother; it's only 200.”
I touch the corner of the silk scarf, imagining my mother dancing in the square wearing it; her friends would surely envy her."
"This is a personal expense." He dragged me outside the shop, “Article 3 of the 'Prenuptial Agreement' states, 'Buying gifts for each other's relatives counts as private spending.'"
Passing by the tobacco and alcohol counter, he picked up a coffee gift set of 300: "My father loves this. It will be a gift from both of us."
The shadow of the phoenix flower flickered across his face; petals fell on his shoulder like drops of fresh red blood. Suddenly, I wanted to slam that silk scarf hard onto his head and ask him whether the boundary between 'shared' and 'personal' was truly drawn between his family and mine. Local children in school uniforms ran past carrying surfboards, their silver bell-like laughter startling the sparrows in the trees and shattering the last fragment of my illusion.
After returning from P Island, I had a high fever for three days; the red line on the thermometer writhed like a venomous snake, stubbornly lingering at 39°C. When Andy Clark brought the white porridge, the back of his hand still bore burn marks from splashes during cooking. He stirred the porridge round and round with his spoon: “I'll change, I promise I will.”
I stared at the mist on his glasses, suddenly recalling the senior year when I had chickenpox. He climbed over the school wall and arranged a row of candles outside my dormitory window, saying, “Viruses fear the light.”
Back then, he even insisted on choosing the most expensive scented candles, lavender-scented, saying, “They'll help you sleep well.” Now, even a simple 'rest well' is laced with calculation.
On the third day after moving into the new house, I was leaning against our wedding photo when he suddenly brought a ladder and nailed an A3 sheet of paper in the most conspicuous spot in the living room. The bold-faced [family agreement] hung like a talisman, casting the warm yellow living room into a cold chill.
"Article 1: Water bills are shared according to shower duration. You average 15 minutes, I 8 minutes, ratio 6:4." He drew a wavy line under the numbers with a red pen, as if sentencing them: "Article 2: Gas fees are calculated by cooking frequency. I cook 5 times a week, you 2 times, ratio 7:3."
I pointed at Article 5, 'Daily necessities follow the rule of a Dutch pay,' and laughed out loud: “Then how do we split the toothpaste? You squeeze 1.5 cm, I squeeze 1 cm?”
He actually fetched a ruler and marked the toothpaste tube: “Measuring by weight is more precise. Next time, buy one with scales.” On the toothpaste tube, the centimeter marks looked like ugly scars.
Over the weekend, he squatted in front of the supermarket shelf for half an hour, clutching a pack of toilet paper. The promotional pack was 19.9 for 10 rolls, the printed pack 25 for 8 rolls. He held both up to the light: “This one weighs 120 grams per square meter, that one 100. Actually, the promotional pack is more cost-effective.”
I gripped the printed pack's packaging tightly—it was the brand my mother often used. She said the lily pattern on it was gentle on the face. Every time we video-called, she would remind me, “Girls should be nice to themselves.”
“Buy your own.” He tossed the promotional pack into the shopping cart; the iron wheels clattered against the floor tiles like counting. “Anything over budget is on you.”
That very night, the guest bathroom's toilet paper ran out. When I got up at night, I saw him holding his mobile phone's flashlight, sneaking out of the master bedroom, clutching that roll of promotional toilet paper, its edge brushing against his pajamas like a mouse stealing grain.
"Afraid you wouldn't get used to it..." He stuffed the paper onto the guest bathroom rack, his voice as soft as a mosquito's hum. "I'll buy a roll with patterns tomorrow."
But until that roll of promotional paper was used up, the patterned kind never appeared. I stood before the bathroom mirror, staring at the fine lines at the corners of my eyes, suddenly realizing that some things had long since rotted away in the calculations. Now, even the rolls of toilet paper have to be divided into 'yours' and 'mine.'
A photo from high school popped up on the mobile phone album: he stood under the basketball hoop holding a bottle of mineral water, his face as red as a tomato baked by the sun. That day, when he handed me the water, the bottle was as cold as ice—he had run three blocks to buy chilled water, saying, ”I don’t want you to feel hot.”
Eight years is enough time for chilled mineral water to turn into a rusty thermos, for scented candles to become promotional toilet paper, for “I give you everything” to become “this is the account you should settle.”
The devil's ivy on the balcony had withered, its leaves yellowed like faded old photographs. We planted it when we first fell in love; he said, “Just like our relationship, it needs careful nurturing.” Now its roots soak in murky water, like a decaying memory.
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