Fiona and Jane(41)
“Shut up, Won,” I said. “I hate you so much—”
“I hate you more,” he said.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “Don’t call me.”
“Why are you still here?”
“I love you, stupid.”
“You’re welcome for the haircut!”
“I know you love me, too,” I said.
“Stop coming on to me,” he said. “I don’t like you like that, Jane. I told you—”
“Stop lying,” I said. “You asked me to marry you.”
* * *
? ? ?
2. Controlling
I thought about the fight we’d had about my mother. After Mah’s knee surgery, I started visiting her at home more regularly on the weekends. Up until then, Saturdays had been my standing date night with Carly, when we treated ourselves to dinner out and a movie at the ArcLight, or cooked a meal together at her place, Xena and Gabrielle underfoot. After accepting a few rain checks, Carly wanted to cash in. She said she wanted to meet my mother. I hesitated. She asked if I was out to my family, and I reassured her I was. Mah knew what was up with me, though she wasn’t exactly rallying to head up her own local Asian American chapter of PFLAG. I told Carly I needed more time.
Besides my past with men, this issue became another battle she waged constantly. I told Carly I wasn’t close to my mother. Still, I was her only child, and as her daughter I had certain responsibilities. When she needed help around the house, I showed up. I had to. There was no one else.
Later on, Carly started following a new thread. “She met your ex,” she said.
“Baby. Don’t start.”
“She liked him? What was his name?”
I didn’t answer. She knew his name was Danny and that he was locked up now for assault and battery, grand larceny.
“Because he’s Asian?” she said.
“She’s going through a lot,” I said. “She’s still recovering from her surgery.”
“I just want to know what kind of bigot I’m dealing with,” Carly said.
“What did you say?”
“You’re blind to it, Jane. Your mother is ignorant. She uses her Bible—”
That was when I stood up and without thinking, I slapped her face hard.
“Don’t you ever talk about my mother like that,” I said.
She sat there quiet, cradling her cheek in her hand, her eyes wet.
I remembered the shock of feeling her skin beneath my hand, how soft it was. How easily her head snapped sideways, against her shoulder. The fear in her eyes, the reproach in her downturned mouth, how much like a child she looked then.
I apologized right away—I fell to my knees—I don’t know what came over me, I said. Please, baby, I said.
But I knew something had changed for her. In that moment, I’d become her father. And there was no coming back from that.
* * *
? ? ?
Saturday afternoon I drove out to the suburbs to visit Mah. I threw my overflowing laundry hamper in my trunk before I left my place and tossed a load into the machine in the garage before going inside.
“I’m here,” I shouted. “Mah! You home?”
The Jesus painting we’d had since forever hung crooked above the sofa. I sank into the worn cushions and found the remote in the crack between the seat and the arm. The TV flickered to life on LA-18, in the middle of a Mandarin talk show. I watched for a few seconds before I flipped through the channels, settling on cartoons.
Mah poked her head out of the bedroom, blinking her eyes. Her hair was flattened against one side of her head. I must’ve caught her in the middle of her afternoon nap.
“Eat yet?” she said.
She headed for the kitchen before I could reply, and I jumped up and followed her.
Mah listed a number of dishes she could cook for me to eat, tapping her fingers against her thumb. “Noodles, you want? Or white rice? With braised short rib stew.” She filled up a dented pot with water and set it over the flame. “You cut your hair?”
“Won did it,” I replied.
“Too short,” she said, dismayed. “Just like a boy.”
“I like it short, Mah.”
“Makes your face look big.”
“Don’t you know it’s the style now?” I said. “Having a big face is very popular. Every girl wants a big face. Bigger the better.”
Mah smiled and shook her head. When the water boiled, she tossed two bundles of clear rice noodle sticks into the pot. She stirred the strands apart with a pair of long wooden chopsticks, talked with her back to me about her plans to redo the kitchen tiles this summer. Ever since her fall and the subsequent surgery, Mah stood crooked on her feet. She favored her right hip now. When she looked over her shoulder at me, her body seemed as curved as a bell.
I skirted out during a pause in her monologue to stuff the wash into the dryer. In the garage there were boxes and boxes of my father’s stuff. After all this time, Mah couldn’t bear to donate it or throw it out. I didn’t know what all was there, and I didn’t want to find out. Tossing everything without going through it seemed wrong, though. Nothing to do but leave the boxes stacked there, gathering dust with time.
Back in the kitchen Mah pulled two bowls off the dish rack and set them down on the counter. She ladled noodles and steaming broth into each. A silence hung between Mah and me. It wasn’t a bad silence. Just the same old quiet. We sat down at the counter stools. I finished the first bowl and filled another. I ate until I was full.