Chapter 1In my family, having a meal is more formal than a royal court ceremony.
Mom has to invite Grandpa seven times before he even considers touching his utensils.
One time short? He won't eat. Tone off? She has to start over.
For thirty years, the whole family has just accepted it.
Until the day my fiancée walked into my life.
She took one look at the stone-cold food, then a glance at Grandpa, who was still waiting for his fifth invitation.
She stood up and started clearing the table.
Not eating?
Fine, suit yourself!
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My name is Shawn Miller, and I'm twenty-eight years old.
If you were to ask me what I've been most terrified of my entire life, what would it be?
It wouldn't be finals, getting grounded, or needing to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
It's dinner time.
In my family, every meal is a grueling endurance test.
To be precise, it's a form of performance art.
Mom carries the food out from the kitchen, sets the table, and takes a deep breath—
"Dad, dinner's ready."
That's the first time.
Grandpa sits in his oversized leather recliner in the living room, clutching his transistor radio, not even batting an eye.
Right.
That's the rule.
I've known since I was a kid that the first call never gets a response.
It's just like sending a "Hey" to your boss on WhatsApp—you know you're never getting a quick reply.
Mom waits thirty seconds and speaks up again.
"Dad, everything's served. Better eat while it's hot."
That's the second time.
Grandpa's nose twitches, as if he caught a scent.
But his body doesn't move.
Not a muscle.
Dad and I sit at the dining table, staring at a feast of steaming dishes.
Braised pork ribs, sweet and sour fish, garlic broccoli, and a pot of soup Grandpa loves.
The aroma is practically punching me in the face.
But nobody touches their utensils.
We wouldn't dare.
In this house, there's an ironclad rule—until Grandpa picks up his fork, no one eats.
And the condition for him to start? Mom has to ask him seven times.
Not one time fewer.
Not one word different.
Do you think I'm doing a stand-up routine?
No, I'm just describing my daily life.
"Dad, I made that duck soup you like today, I went to the farmers' market especially to pick out the best one."
That's the third time.
Grandpa lets out a faint "Hmm."
Don't get too excited. That "Hmm" doesn't mean he's getting up, it just means "Message Read."
It's the equivalent of a boss putting a checkmark on your report. That's it.
I check my phone—6:18 PM.
The food hit the table at 5:50.
Based on past experience, the whole ritual usually wraps up around 6:40.
Which means that plate of sweet and sour fish has to endure a fifty-minute cooling-off period from the stove to the first bite.
Fifty minutes.
Hot food turns to warm food.
Warm food turns to cold food.
Cold food turns into—an art installation.
"Dad, why don't you come over and sit? Everyone is waiting for you."
That's the fourth time.
Mom's voice remains gentle, her face fixed in the perfect, practiced smile.
After thirty years, she's perfected that smile so it doesn't even tremble.
But if you look closely—her knuckles, gripping the edge of her apron, are deathly white.
Grandpa turns off the radio.
A good sign.
But he doesn't stand up, instead, he picks up his teacup and takes a slow, agonizing sip.
Dad nudges my foot under the table.
I know what he means: stay quiet, we're almost there.
I suppress the sound of my stomach growling.
"Dad, it's all the food you like. Those ribs have been stewing for two hours, the meat is falling right off the bone."
That's the fifth time.
Mom's voice is a little raspy.
It's subtle, but I can tell.
For over twenty years, I've known this process all too well.
Grandpa puts down his cup and stands up.
I perk up.
Here we go, finally!
Chapter 2
He walks to the doorway of the dining room and stops.
He sweeps his gaze over the food.
Then, he frowns.
"Where's the ladle?"
Mom freezes, then scurries back to the kitchen to grab it.
She sets it down.
"Dad, please have a seat. Everything is ready now."
That's the sixth time.
Grandpa strides toward the head of the table.
My mouth is practically watering.
Dad's fork has already shifted three millimeters on the table surface.
Grandpa sits down.
He places his hands on the table.
But—he doesn't reach for his utensils.
Right.
There's still one more.
I don't know if this is the logic in his head, but he insists on the number seven.
If there's one missing, even if the whole family were starving to death, he would sit there like a stone statue.
Mom stands beside him and speaks for the final time.
"Dad, please start eating."
That's the seventh time.
Three seconds of silence.
The corner of Grandpa's mouth twitches, and finally, he reaches out and picks up his fork.
He grabs a piece of pork rib.
Puts it in his mouth.
Chews.
"Hmm, the ribs are pretty good today."
That sentence is the starting gun for the entire family.
Dad's fork practically launches like a rocket, landing precisely on the fish.
I grab a rib in my left hand and a chicken drumstick in my right, feeling like I could shove my face into the plate.
Mom sits down last.
She is always the last one to sit.
You might think this is insane.
I used to think so, too.
Around the time I was eight, I felt like something was off—why did my neighbor Mrs. Davis's family start eating the moment they sat down?
I leaned over the balcony, watching the lights in the Davis house, seeing the three of them just sit down, grab their utensils, and chow down on a meal without a second thought.
No ritual.
No waiting.
No seven invitations.
I thought to myself: "The Davis family, they're so uncivilized."
Eating after just one call? Where's the discipline?
You see.
Once a person is domesticated for long enough, they start to think the cage is normal.
Later, when I grew up and moved out for college, renting an apartment with roommates and eating meals in total freedom for a few years.
That's when I realized—
My family was the one that was off.
But knowing it is one thing.
Coming home, the rules are still the rules.
When Grandpa sits there, he is a mountain.
You can't move him.
Nobody can move him.
Not my dad, not my mom, not my uncle, and definitely not my aunt.
"He is the elder, after all."
"He's an old man, just let it slide."
"As long as he's happy."
That's the standard line the whole family uses.
They've been saying it for thirty years.
Thirty years.
Every winter, Mom gets a bout of chronic pharyngitis.
The doctor tells her to talk less and drink more water.
But how can she talk less?
Three meals a day, seven times per meal, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
You do the math.
Seven thousand, six hundred and sixty-five times.
A year.
And she's been doing it for thirty years.
But that's not the point.
The point is—I'm about to get married.
And I'm bringing my fiancée, Juniper Peterson, into this house.
I glance at Juniper's profile picture on my phone.
That face, beaming with sunshine.
But when she loses her temper, she can scream loud enough to make an HVAC unit stall out.
I suddenly have a very bad feeling.
The rules of this house, I'm afraid, are about to reach their breaking point.
Chapter 3
It all started a long time ago.
The "invite seven times" rule in my family didn't exist since the dawn of time.
According to Mom, the year she first married into the Miller family, the rule was three times.
That's right.
Three times.
Back then, Grandpa had just retired from his position as a department manager at the local cooperative.
Having been a "leader" his whole life, he was used to it, and he needed that sense of "being respected" even at home.
"You have to invite me three times to eat, that's just common courtesy."
That's what he told Dad.
Dad was just married then, at that age where he was eager to be a dutiful son, so he agreed without a second thought.
Mom had even less of a say—a new bride wouldn't dare object.
"Dad, dinner is ready."
"Dad, the food is served."
"Dad, please come eat."
Three times.
Simple, fast, done in fifteen seconds.
The food was still hot.
For those years, everything was normal.
If the story ended there, my family would just be an ordinary household with a few minor quirks.
But human desire tends to expand.
It's like how you start off just wanting to slack off for a few minutes, but it ends up with you wasting seven and a half hours out of an eight-hour workday.
It happens gradually, silently.
Five years later, three times turned into five.
The reason? I was born.
In Grandpa's words: "The family has grown, so our rules must be upgraded. If a daughter-in-law can't even be bothered to invite her father-in-law to dinner properly, the moral fabric of this family will fall apart."
Dad nodded in agreement.
Mom just sucked it up.
Five times, fine.
It was just a few extra words.
Five years later, I started elementary school.
Five times turned into seven.
The reason this time was even more ridiculous—Grandpa watched a period drama where the old patriarch was invited to the table by the whole family chanting, "We invite the Master to dine."
He came back and said, "Now that is what I call a rule. Seven—seven represents perfection. From now on, it's seven times."
Mom put an extra two ounces of salt in the cooking that day.
Dad said the food was so salty that day it felt like his throat was smoking.
But the rule became seven times regardless.
From then on, it never changed again.
It's not like no one ever challenged it.
My aunt—my uncle's wife—was a bit hot-headed, and one time during the holidays, she came over for a reunion dinner.
It was her turn to invite him—yes, when there were guests, Grandpa would designate who had to do the inviting—and she got impatient after five times.
"Dad, please just come already! The food is getting cold!"
Grandpa's face darkened.
He didn't say a word.
He stood up.
Went to his room.
Locked the door.
He wouldn't eat.
He didn't come out for the entire New Year's Eve.
My uncle spent two hours at his door apologizing.
On the morning of New Year's Day, Grandpa opened the door and his first words were:
"Rules are rules. If you can't stand them, you can leave."
My aunt never sat at our dining table again after that.
Every holiday, she always "happened" to have something come up so she couldn't make it.
After that incident, no one in the family dared to question the rule again.
Mom became the sole, permanent "Official Inviter."
Day after day, year after year.
Invite seven times.
Wait for him to start.
Serve hot food only to eat it cold.
I watched this from the time I was a kid.
I didn't think much of it when I was young, but as I grew up, it started to feel wrong.
But I didn't say anything.
It's not that I didn't want to.
It's because Dad warned me beforehand.
"Your grandfather is just like that. He has no other flaws, he just loves his ego. Your mom has put up with it for so many years, so don't go poking that hornet's nest."
My dad, how should I put it?
He is the world's greatest expert at "mediating by smoothing things over."
If smoothing things over were an Olympic sport, he'd take the gold.
If smoothing things over were a field of study, he'd be a professor.
When a conflict arises, his standard procedure is: bow his head, stay silent, pretend his phone is ringing, or go to the bathroom.
For thirty years, he has never said "no" to Grandpa's face.
He's never said a word to defend Mom either.
His life philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: just endure it, and it will pass.
Endure what? A whole lifetime?
But I never had the right to judge him before.
Because I'd been enduring it for over twenty years, too.
Until I met Juniper.
