Fiona and Jane(16)

Ona blinked. Another realization dawned: The secret she’d promised to keep from her mother wasn’t the one she thought she’d been guarding at all. She understood now that her grandfather had wanted Ona to stay quiet because the girl wasn’t supposed to know. Her mother had deliberately kept her in the dark.

“Oh, Ona . . .” Her mother pressed her fingers to her temples. “I wanted to tell you when you were older. When you could understand better . . .”

“Why doesn’t he live with us?” Ona said. “Where is he, Mama?” In a small voice—the smallest voice—the girl finally asked the question that had been plaguing her since that afternoon out on the balcony: “Doesn’t he love us?”

“Love?” her mother said. She paused a moment. “No, my dear. He does not.”

Ona recalled her grandmother’s criticisms: That her mother was too proud. That her mother had made a huge mistake. She thought of the bedroom her grandmother had offered, a bed of her own next to a bookshelf filled with picture books. Her mother had refused it, and the girl didn’t understand why.

“What did you say to him?” Ona asked. “You made him go away?”

“That’s not what happened,” her mother said. “He left on his own.”

Ona stood from the sofa, apart from her mother. “Why?”

“A father is not a necessity,” her mother said. “It’s nice to have one—even better, a grandfather—”

Ona shifted from one leg to the other. She scratched a mosquito bite on her left arm, above the elbow.

“Love is a condition suffered by fools,” her mother said at last, under her breath bitterly, but Ona caught the words, and they stayed with her, whether her mother meant them to or not.

She was six years old, turning seven in September. That Sunday afternoon, Ona made a choice to put away any questions she’d had about her father: who he was, and why he didn’t come around. More importantly, she resolved that one day, when she herself became a mother, she’d never tell her own daughter any lies. Still, she forgave her mother almost instantly. She would always be the kind of daughter who did so, with ease. In this respect, Ona and her mother differed greatly.



* * *



? ? ?

Back in her apartment, Fiona called her mother. She told her about receiving the check in the mail, depositing it at the bank.

“You’re rich,” her mother said. Fiona laughed. “Don’t tell anyone,” her mother added, becoming serious. “You don’t need to say—”

“I know, Mom.” Fiona paused. “Did you book your plane ticket yet?” The hotel room, the rental car—Fiona wondered if she was supposed to reimburse her mother for these expenses for attending her commencement, now that she had the cash. Jane was coming up for the ceremony, too. Fiona hadn’t talked to her yet about moving to New York. She was afraid of what Jane might say to ruin it for her.

“Ona,” her mother said. “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “When you walk across the stage—”

“I’m not coming back to LA after graduation,” Fiona blurted out. “I’m moving to New York.” Her mother didn’t answer. Fiona hesitated. “I’m going with Jasper,” she said finally.

On the other end of the line, she heard the sound of a lighter clicking, then her mother’s sharp inhale.

“We haven’t found an apartment yet,” she said. “Jasper has a friend there, Kenji—he’s going to help us look—he graduated a couple years ago. I want to work for a couple years then apply to law school. I already talked to my professors about it, for letters of recommendation. I still need time to study for LSATs. I—” Fiona broke off her rambling. Her mother still hadn’t replied. “Mom? Aren’t you going to say something?”

“What should I say?”

“Are you mad?”

“You love this boy?” her mother said. “You want to marry him?”

“I—Mom—yes,” Fiona stammered. “I think so. Maybe. Not right now. In the future—”

“You told him?”

Fiona was silent.

Her mother sighed. Or maybe she was only exhaling her cigarette smoke. “Remember your ballet classes in Taiwan?”

Fiona pressed the phone against her ear.

“Remember that big earthquake? You had a friend—she lived downstairs?”

“Shulin.”

“Shulin. That’s right.” Her mother paused a moment. “We didn’t have anything back then, did we?” Another pause. Fiona imagined her mother lifting the cigarette to her mouth, the ember glowing orange between her mother’s fingers. “We had each other.”

“You wouldn’t let me go to her funeral,” said Fiona.

“The money for ballet—your slippers and costumes—I just couldn’t afford them.”

Fiona said aloud what she’d long ago figured out. “My grandparents paid.” She recalled suddenly the neat little bedroom in her grandparents’ apartment, the smell of mothballs, her grandmother’s gentle voice inviting her to test the bed. She’d passed away six years ago—another funeral Fiona had missed.

A long silence.

“Mom?”