Rules of the Game
Waverly Jong goes to a Christmas church party and everyone receives a gift; she got a lifesavers box and her brother Vincent got a chess set. This chess set was used all the time by her and her brothers and she ended up getting very good at the game and then her brothers stopped playing against her because she would always end up winning. While Waverly was walking past their neighborhood playground, she spotted men playing chess and took one of them, named Lau Po, up on a game. This man showed her all the tricks he knew and she joined competitions, winning every one of them and her mother finally started acknowledging her skill for the game. She became a national champion.
The Voice from the Wall
Lena St. Clair lived in an apartment with her family. While laying in bed, she always her screaming and yelling from the neighbors next door; she always convinced herself that the woman was beating her daughter to death, and when she would see the girl the next day, she would tell herself that she is back again. Lena's mother became pregnant and later had a miscarriage after complications and her mother later admitted that this was the second time that she had killed a son of hers. Lena felt bad, but not as bad as she felt for the girl next door. She secretly found joy that they were more miserable than she was.
Half and Half
Rose Hsu becomes nervous when she has to confront her mother and tell her that her and her husband Ted are going to get a divorce. This triggers a memory of when Rose's family was at the beach a while back and Rose was instructed to watch her younger brothers. One, named Bing, ventured off and was going to their father who was fishing in the sea, while the other two stayed back and were playing around. The boys started fighting and Rose's mom told her to watch them and in those few moments that she was away from Bing, he was swept out by the sea and never to be found again. Everyone made up reasons why it was their fault and the guilty mother and Rose came back again to look for Bing, but they couldn't find him. Her mother proves a point that fate is "shaped half by expectation, half by inattention", which is why Rose think that Ted sent the request for divorce. Rose looks at her mother's bible, rarely used, and looks to the back where her mother had written a list of deaths and under it lied a name, "Bing".
Two Kinds
Jing-Mei remembers back when she was a child and her mother wanted her to become a child prodigy, like a Chinese Shirley Temple. This want involved harsh piano lessons and make up artists. Jing-Mei had a performance and she completely did not care about it and only liked how she looked in her hair ribbon and new dress; she screwed up the piano performance and her mother was very disappointed in her and realized that she didn't want it like she did. After the performance, Jing Mei thought that she would be done with piano forever, but she wasn't and her mother still forced her to do it. After much resistance, Jing Mei asked why she had to and her mother responded, "There's two kinds of daughters. Daughters that are obedient. And daughters that have their own mind they follow. And in our household, there's only an obedient daughter." Jing Mei was surprised and later when her mother died, she remembered what she said and she took home their old piano and remembered all the notes and played it perfectly.
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