Joan Is Okay(49)

Home soil.

Home plate.

But what does the soil of home feel like? Because doesn’t all soil, at some point, get stuck under your nails and need to be cleaned out?

My mother and Fang argued more openly now. She would say what was another virus compared to what she’d handled in her adult life. She was tough.

Mentally tough did not equal physically tough, Fang would explain, and should she really get sick, determination to get well did not change the quality of her immune system or turn back time. You’re seventy, Ma.

She said she was sixty-nine. Her birthday was in November and she refused to turn seventy in this country, she simply refused to be here that long.

Fang tried to loop me into it, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take sides. Even though my brother was right.

I just don’t understand, Tami would say. Are you uncomfortable here? Have we made you feel unwelcome? Do you need more space?

When Air China postponed my mother’s March flight, then a day later canceled it, she came to the guesthouse to vent again and to call the airline’s customer service so she could vent to the first available agent.

Yes, hi, hello, I have some thoughts about what you’re trying to do to us. I left to visit my children as any newly widowed mother might for what I believed would just be a few months, and now you won’t let me back in, your own nationals. You’re trying to strand us and keep us in some kind of limbo. We’re expendable to you.

The agent apologized for any inconvenience, but there was really nothing he could do, these were government mandates, which flights were cleared for entry and which were not. Temporary measures, meant to reduce traffic and funnel international travelers through select airports that were able to handle individual screening.

How am I an international traveler? she asked. I live there. I was born there. I’m a citizen. Also, the daily case count was falling, so why was travel getting more restricted instead of relaxing?

The agent mentioned cases elsewhere.

But those are still so low. Why are you doing this to me? What kind of customer service is this?

Free of charge, the agent offered to put her on the next available flight in April, which is when they hoped to resume their normal flying schedule. He thanked her for her patience.



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TWICE A WEEK, AN American grocery van came to my brother’s house to deliver freshness and variety, then a second van would come carrying only Chinese produce and snacks. My mother shelled sunflower seeds at a rate of half a bag an hour. She preferred only specific brands of dried prunes and steamed sponge cakes only from Chinese bakeries. The drivers would unload their respective vans. The housekeeper and aide would stock the fridge and pantry. When my mother asked to help, she would be told that all the heavy lifting had been done.

But why is brown bread in America more expensive than white? she asked, peering into bags of insulated foil from the first van. Why is brown rice here more expensive than white? In China, it’s just the reverse. Because white rice takes longer to process and should cost more.

In China, public schools are better than private ones.

In China, students do their own homework because students are assiduous.

Said to me, as I was hunched over a new stack of paperwork, courtesy of my nephews.

I said I enjoyed it.

You enjoy doing other people’s work for them? she asked.

I said sort of, it made me feel needed or whatever.

But then the other person doesn’t learn, she said. You’re hurting the other person by taking away their chance to suffer.

In China, everyone knows how to suffer because everyone is assiduous.

In China, he and I were considered urbanites and well positioned to immigrate.

In China, I didn’t think immigrating would be so hard, I didn’t think it would be like this.

You’re not immigrating again, Mom, I had to remind her. You’re just here for a long visit.

Oh, she would say, snapping out of her trance and noticing that I was still sitting beside her. She must have been recalling a time before me, and when she and my father were still young. The date of her newly scheduled April flight would miss Qingming Jie, or Tomb-Sweeping Day. Who would clean off her husband’s tomb and place fresh flowers on the mantel? She could ask one of her sisters to do it, but it wouldn’t be the same. The first year he was gone, and she wouldn’t be there to pay her respects. She talked to him before bed now, as if he were in the room, about to go to sleep. She told him about her boring days.

Then her mood shifted. A glint of an idea had formed, causing her to tap the kitchen counter excitedly. What if we drove to the airport right now and spoke to an Air China employee in person? Once they heard her story, they would have to put her on a plane.

I said I wasn’t driving her to the airport.

What if she drove herself?

You can’t drive here, Mom. The green card is not a license, etc.

But what if I did?

What if you drove? What if you got on the highway?

I could, you know. I’m your mother. I’ve crossed more bridges than you have.

That’s a metaphor. Those are figurative bridges.

She grimaced and looked away. When she looked back at me, it was clear she was angry. How right you are, Joan-na. Everything about you is so perfect and right. Lucky me to have a daughter like you. She stared daggers into me and I knew this to be a challenge.