Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(2)

“See you soon, Natalie.”

I ended the call before I realized I hadn’t thanked her.

I didn’t want to go back home, but there were Ma-ma’s affairs to settle—and what would I do with her apartment? I certainly couldn’t live in it.

There was nothing left for me in San Francisco, no friends, no family. Our neighbors in Chinatown had known Ma-ma’s agoraphobia meant she couldn’t leave the apartment, yet when I was growing up they had never visited or offered aid. Even Celia, whom I’d left my number with, was a stranger. She’d always been my mother’s friend, not mine. My father had abandoned our family before I was born, so I was tasked with the sole responsibility of taking care of my homebound mother. While our neighbors’ indifference had taught me the valuable lesson of self-reliance, their inaction contributed to the heavy burden of responsibility I’d carried as a child.

They were content to remain bystanders while I had become a caged bird, first as Ma-ma’s helper, then her keeper. For as long as I could remember, my mother’s dark spells had been a part of her, as day coexisted with night. I loved her all the same, though my memories of those times held a certain fuzziness at the edges like that of an old afghan. When Ma-ma’s reservoir of sadness overflowed, she retreated to her bedroom: paralyzed, weak, speaking in endless whispers. I brought her cups of hot oolong. Food was ordered in until I was old enough to cook.

I would sit by her side, stroking her dark hair, threading the inky strands through my small fingers. My mother’s cheek was smooth and decorated with rivers of tears. Nothing I did could banish the sadness, so I stayed with her, hoping my presence would ease her pain and that most of all, she would be reminded she was loved.

And things would have remained this way if she’d accepted my desire to go to culinary school. But she’d adamantly denied me my heart’s wish, insisting on college instead. I didn’t need her permission to pursue my dreams, but I had wanted her support and blessing. I realized then that I had to leave and go out on my own. I couldn’t stand another day of fighting with her. She refused to acknowledge that I wanted a different path.

It took me two years to save up fifteen thousand in tuition for the first year of culinary school in the city while working three jobs. The glorified closet I’d lived in still sucked up most of my income. Rent in San Francisco was steep, even with three roommates.

When I started culinary school, I thought it would be easy, but the pressure of fulfilling my dream crushed me. Self-doubt suffocated me and made my hands shake. I ended up failing all of my courses, and I’d blamed Ma-ma.

But I’d refused to return home in defeat. I’d used the opportunity to travel, something I was deprived of while caring for my agoraphobic mother. I decided to go around the world and find a culinary education through other means. My dream had always been to open my own restaurant, and I couldn’t competently do this without learning more first.

And so I’d traveled, funding my journeys with the humility to work any menial job. One stint as a painter had me dangling off the side of a building in Prague as the strings and woodwind section of an orchestra practiced in the courtyard below. As a dishwasher in Cairo, I’d snuck off into the night for a ride in the desert to see the pyramids. My peripatetic lifestyle hadn’t allowed me to make many friends, but the practical education I’d received from working in kitchens was invaluable. I hadn’t achieved my original plan of getting a degree in culinary arts, but I’d successfully defied Ma-ma and learned just the same. However, my dream of running a restaurant remained unrealized.

And now seven years had passed and Ma-ma was really gone.

After I settled her affairs, nothing would tether me to San Francisco. Perhaps when all was done, I could return to traveling, but to where? Now that my mother was gone, the world suddenly didn’t hold as much allure as it once had.

Despite our falling-out, I had lost the only person in this world I cared about. It had always been just the two of us. My grandmother, Qiao, died before my parents were married. My father was gone. Ma-ma and I had clung to each other for love and survival until I’d left.

As strange as my mother had been with her quirks and superstitions, my memories of her and our time together were stitched into the thickest of blankets, ready whenever I needed comfort. And I needed it now.

While I was gallivanting across the globe, my mother had died alone.





Chapter Two





San Francisco undulated with hills against the blue of the bay. As the cab headed from the airport to my mother’s home, the balmy summer breeze threaded its way through the open windows into the strands of my long hair, sending it flying like fluttering ribbons of black silk.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that my mother had known she was going to die, but hadn’t wanted me there when it happened. She had always told me, “Death is not meant to be seen. It’s an immovable force that claims every living thing. Might as well strap yourself to a tree to witness a hurricane.” Perhaps my mother meant to spare me some pain from the inevitable.

What do I do now?

I had planned on leaving Montreal soon. I had been there for a year and was searching for the next port, even while my anemic bank account urged me to seek stability. Most twenty-eight-year-olds had family, careers, a foothold in some sort of direction—wanted or unwanted. After all this time, I found myself yearning for the very same thing I’d sought when I left—a career doing the thing I loved most of all: cooking.