Joan Is Okay(30)

I don’t suppose you want to come, he asked. To ski or sit with our mother since the aide had been given the weeks off. I suppose you have to work through the month to avoid spending any time with us.

I said he wasn’t being fair.

Am I wrong?

No, I said, but this wasn’t necessarily just about right versus wrong.

There is right and there is wrong, he said, in the same tone that he used to talk about profits, about gain and loss.

I told him about my raise, hoping that once he heard this piece of news, he would be more content.

But is your title the same? he asked.

It was.

Ask for a real promotion next time. Tell your director that he either promotes you or you walk. Be more aggressive.

Berating is love, and here I was at thirty-six, still being loved.

He asked why I was always so indifferent.

Not my intention, I said, just how my voice, tone, and in-person facial expressions seemed to come across.

I didn’t like the word indifferent either. It was just two letters off from the word that I hate.

My brother launched into a series of loaded questions, which was another technique he used to wear his recipient down. Did my indifference to a title change link back to my refusal to start a private practice, and did that link back to my refusal to leave a chaotic city for a place with more comfort and space? Did my inability to take any time off stem from either a lack of belief in my own self-worth or a masochistic nature? Or both. Because my brother has never been able to pronounce that word perfectly, he said, instead, math statistics.

Was I a math statistic?

But Fang pushed on.

You need to advocate more for yourself.

You need to do this and that.

Negotiation 101: If a person doesn’t ask, she won’t receive.

All this being said, he still found my overall problem to be one of perspective. I didn’t view success in the same way he or Tami did and I didn’t care for the outward appearance of it, even though maintaining a facade, however superficial, was essential to moving up. Why I couldn’t grasp these points had something to do with my attitude, he believed, that I found any sign of wealth repulsive. I chóu fù–ed them, a verb that means “to hate the rich.”

I don’t chóu fù anyone, I said.

Tami feels the same way.

She chóu fùs you too?

She thinks you don’t respect our progress, that you don’t engage with us on the right level and you downplay everything we’ve worked for.

Again, not everything Fang said was wrong.

In his concluding remarks, he emphasized that if he didn’t care about me, nothing I did would ever matter to him. But if he didn’t voice his concerns, then who would? I was part of this family and he simply wanted to see me do well. So, when they returned from Colorado, he expected some things to change. You’re coming to see us more. You’re coming for Chinese New Year. Nonnegotiable.



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SOMEWHERE OUT THERE IS a video of this amoeba eating its meal. Magnified four hundred times and at double speed, the appendages of the amoeba begin to extend and to encircle a jumpy paramecium. The large and translucent appendages touch as fingers do, thumb to index. A-OK, this amoeba says as its fingers fatten, shrinking the small circle of space until the paramecium is absorbed. Talking to my brother could feel a little like that. Me, the paramecium; him, the amoeba.



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AS A TEAM, MY parents had worked well together. My mother was better with big picture, long term; my father was able to think through daily affairs. He would leave notes for her around the house to turn off lights, to jiggle the toilet knob when it wouldn’t stop running, to always use the security chain when he wasn’t home. He kept all our passports and important documents in one place. He placed her and his reading glasses on either side of their bed.

Text from Mother: Can’t find my reading glasses. Don’t remember where I put them.

Try the bathrooms.

Tried all the bathrooms.

Use your second pair.

That was my second pair.

Phone call from Mother: We’re about to leave for the airport soon and I can’t find my passport. I can’t find my green card.

Nightstand?

Why would I put something like that in there?

Can you look in your nightstand?

Loud rustling. The phone is set down, picked back up.

Did you find them?

But how am I supposed to know if this is my passport?

Is your name on it?

I can’t find my reading glasses.

The lodge has too many fireplaces, she wrote after they’d made it to the airport, barely, boarded the plane as the last ones, flown five hours, deboarded, and checked in. And they’re too tall, these fireplaces, they’re taller than me.

Did you see me take my blood pressure medication this morning?

I said I did not. Because I couldn’t have.

Tami said she saw me take them, but I don’t think I did. Did I mention to you about taking them?

I said she had not.

Did I turn off the lights?

The lights?

I’m in the lodge now, but I don’t know if I turned off the lights back in my room. Tami said I did, but should I go back and check?



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