Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(57)

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?I handwrote a stack of letters, all apologies, ready to be mailed at the nearest post office before I headed for the airport.

Selling the building and its contents would have to wait. Mrs. Chiu and the lawyer could sort out the details. Ms. Minnows would not be involved: I would be sure to include specific instructions about who the ideal buyer should be as I owed the neighborhood that, at least. After I got a new job, I could pay for a professional packing company to come in and tuck Ma-ma’s things in storage. There wasn’t anything else left in the apartment that was valuable aside from my mother’s belongings; even those were only sentimental.

Exit plans were my forte: I always had my eye on the door from the moment I entered any room. I had my father to thank for it. He’d abandoned me and Ma-ma and left an indelible mark, teaching me that leaving was a viable solution to any problem. Fleeing was in my DNA. I’d often wondered if he had started over with a new family somewhere, if I had half siblings out there like me, but bringing up that particular line of thinking had only hurt Ma-ma. I’d always had the impression that as much pain as he had caused her, somehow a part of her had still managed to love him. I carried no such affection for the man whose genetic material contributed to my being.

He wasn’t here.

He had never been here.

He had left.

Maybe I was more like him than like my mother or Laolao.

He’d done us a favor by leaving.

And so would I.

The neighborhood was better off without me meddling in it and sticking around to rub my failures in their faces. I fell asleep with my passport on my pillow and the cat asleep on my stomach, hoping to dream about anything but what I was leaving behind. Sleep came with the heaviness of my world disintegrating. It pinned down my heart and soul until even hope couldn’t escape.





Chapter Twenty-one





The taxi pulled up as my finger was hovering over the send button on the message to Celia regarding my situation. I resolved to send it when I reached the airport. I’d bought a ticket back to Montreal, a city I’d wanted to spend more time in anyway.

As I glanced around the apartment, the cat rubbed against my legs. I picked her up and held her against my neck. “Oh, Meimei, I’m sorry, but I can’t take you with me. I’m asking Celia to take care of you. I’ll miss you. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay.”

The cat purred, sending gentle vibrations up my arms. If I could smuggle her into my shirt and past security, I would. It wasn’t fair that my mother had died, leaving her alone. It wasn’t fair that I was about to do the same.

Celia would take care of her. Meimei would be better off without me.

I wheeled my rolling luggage down the stairs. Each thud felt like another nail in the coffin. When I opened the door, I was surprised by who stood between me and the taxi.

“I knew you were going to run,” Mr. Kuk Wah said.

There was no sign of his erhu or its case. He crossed his arms over his chest; the writhing, tattooed dragons on his arms tightened into coils. The dragons were so lifelike I could almost hear the hiss from the rubbing scales. I waved the taxi off. I could always call another one later. I owed it to Mr. Kuk Wah to explain.

“There’s nothing left for me here,” I said.

“What about the restaurant? Your heart’s wish to open it?”

“It’s too late for that now. I’ve ruined my neighbors’ lives, and the fire destroyed the kitchen. I’m out of money. Even if there wasn’t a fire, Old Wu said he might block my permit application.”

He didn’t budge. “And you would let that stop you?”

I couldn’t answer. Instead, I walked toward the door of the restaurant and unlocked it. “You can see for yourself how hopeless it is.”

We both stepped inside. I was certain that once he saw how bad the damage was, he would understand why I chose to leave.

The thick stench of smoke still hovered in the air like an unshakable, oily blanket. I left the door open, hoping to disperse some of it.

“Where will you go?” The street musician’s dark eyes bored into mine. “You want to disappear again?”

Like my father, the one I hated the most in this world, the one wandering around in some city who probably didn’t care that his wife had died, the one whom I’d spent my entire life trying not to be.

“Your neighbors need you and so does the neighborhood. What do you think will happen when you leave?”

I didn’t want to answer his question because it meant confronting my own cowardice. The street would be fractured when Older Shen and I sold. Ms. Minnows and the others would descend on the opportunity and begin the process of gentrification. Gentrification would turn the Dragon’s Gate into a grave marker of what was once here. But my best efforts had created more harm than good, so I straightened my shoulders.

“What will happen, will happen. For seven years, I was gone. They didn’t need me then. They don’t need me now,” I replied.

“It sounds like this is what you want to believe. What do you actually want?”

I bared my soul. “I want this neighborhood to be as prosperous as it once was. I want my neighbors to be happy and to be able to provide for themselves and their families. I want my mother back.”