Wing Jones(81)

“I have a lot on my mind! I think about Marcus and your mother, and you. And the house! And the money! Too much to think about. Chicken, chicken is least important.”

Thwack.

The cleaver goes through the chicken’s breastbone. LaoLao isn’t really looking where she’s cutting, she’s just tearing the chicken apart.

“And Mister Head Chef pretend he being nice. He say, ‘Oh, you so tired, go get rest,’ like I have a choice. I know what he doing. He sending me home because I am old!” She thwacks off a leg.

“But, LaoLao … you are tired.” I don’t tell her she’s old. We both know she’s old.

“But we cannot afford for me to be tired!”

Again, her words send a tremor through me. That’s how I feel. I don’t want LaoLao feeling like that. That’s why it’s so important for me to win on Saturday. My LaoLao shouldn’t be feeling like this.

“It’s OK,” I say, stepping closer to her. “Here, why don’t you go lie down?”

Thwack.

I see the cleaver going into the soft underside of her arm, below her elbow and above her wrist. A chunk of skin comes off with it; it looks alarmingly like the raw chicken. And then, blood.

For a second, I don’t move. It looks unreal. Like I’m watching a movie. But then LaoLao gives a short, sharp shriek of pain and the cleaver clatters to the floor.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. Blood is getting everywhere. LaoLao has slumped to the ground, she’s trying to cover the gaping hole with her other hand, but blood is spurting out through her fingers.

“Wing…” she says, her voice scared, “get Dee Dee.”

I can’t leave LaoLao. I grab a dish towel but then worry it’s dirty, and I don’t want to put a dirty dish towel over an open wound, so I whip my shirt off and try to staunch the blood.

It keeps coming. Oh God, it keeps coming. She must have cut an artery.

“Granny Dee!” I scream as loud as I can. “Granny Dee!”

Granny Dee comes into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. She must have been napping in her room.

“Oh my Lord! Mei!”

I’ve never heard my Granny Dee call LaoLao by her first name. By her Chinese name.

Granny Dee goes into action, hobbling around the kitchen while I keep the soggy and bloodstained shirt pressed up against LaoLao’s arm.

“Wing, call an ambulance,” Granny Dee says. She’s got the first-aid kit tucked under one arm and an armful of clean dish towels.

She takes my place next to LaoLao and I rush to the phone. Of course. An ambulance. I should have called an ambulance instead of shouting for Granny Dee. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave LaoLao on the floor by herself, bleeding all over the place.

The 911 operator has a calm voice. She asks me a few questions and says an ambulance will be here shortly.

Then I call the restaurant. Lisa, the girl who works at the hostess stand, answers. She’s cheerful and says she doesn’t know where my mom is but can she take a message?

“Just tell her to come home as soon as possible. Tell her LaoLao cut herself real bad and we had to call 911.”

“Oh my goodness!” squeaks Lisa. “Is she OK?”

I can smell the blood now.

“I don’t know. Just tell my mom to hurry,” I say, and slam the phone back in its cradle.

Granny Dee is holding a bloodstained dish towel against LaoLao’s arm, but the blood just keeps coming. LaoLao is getting paler and paler and she has her eyes tightly closed.

“Come on, Mei! Keep those eyes open and that head up. Can’t have you dying on me now. Not after all we been through together. Not after Marcus has just woke up! Don’t you leave me to look after this family all by myself.”

LaoLao doesn’t even smile. Granny Dee’s voice is shaking but she keeps shouting. “Wing! Get more towels! I’ll stay with LaoLao.”

I run, really run, down the hall and into the bathroom, grabbing as many towels as I can, and sprint back to the kitchen.

There’s more blood pooling on the linoleum floor. So much blood. I start to feel dizzy and I slump against the kitchen table. I don’t want to look away from LaoLao, but I can’t stand to watch all that blood draining out of her. How can my LaoLao be losing so much blood? She moans and her head lolls over on Granny Dee.

“Hold on, Mei, an ambulance is coming! You’re gonna be all right.”

The ambulance is taking too long. I should have driven them. Marcus should have been here. Where is he? Then I remember, it’s Tuesday. He’s at physiotherapy. He won’t know what’s happened till my mom goes to pick him up tonight.

Marcus would have known what to do. Or at least, the old Marcus would have known. I don’t know what this new Marcus would have done. Still, a useless Marcus is better than no Marcus.

Where are my dragon and my lioness now? I need them. I need them.

LaoLao isn’t responding to Granny Dee. Granny Dee is trying to support her, but she’s so small and frail and LaoLao’s so much heavier than her. I go behind LaoLao – at first I try to avoid stepping in the blood but it’s impossible – and try to support her.

She’s deadweight.

Granny Dee is crying but I don’t thinks she knows it. She keeps crooning to LaoLao as she swaps out one blood-soaked dish towel for another.