Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(72)

So I stayed and waited until you came home from the restaurant.

I spoke my heart’s desire.

You said it was too soon.

But this was what I wanted.

And then you withheld your blessing.

The dishes smashed. The apartment shook with the thunder of exploding ceramics. White powder sprayed from the opened cupboards, creating an impromptu blizzard. False snow created from the debris of the dishes.

I burned the pages we wrote together in your recipe book. I destroyed what I knew would hurt you the most.

This was the consequence of your anger, Mother.

In a last bid, I prostrated before you, but you cast me away.

You never saw me leave.

I found out later from the neighbors that you lost your sight for a week.



This entry was out of order. Old Wu had mentioned how much of a temper Laolao had had. Although I hated my father, I felt horrible for Ma-ma. This was the time she ripped out the pages in the recipe book to hurt her mother. It confirmed what Old Wu told me. Ma-ma fell in love with someone Laolao deemed unworthy and had lost her mother in the process. She must have been as angry as my grandmother. This explains why Ma-ma had been so supportive about anyone I’d decided to date. She’d wanted to spare me the sting of a parent’s disapproval over my heart’s choice.

She had tried her best to be the mother she’d wanted, the one Laolao couldn’t be.

I read on with a sense of dread, bracing myself against the revelations regarding the man whom Ma-ma had given her heart to.


My husband.

You love me for who I am.

You found me when I suffered in darkness.

You charmed me with your love for Teresa Teng and parcels of glutinous rice with Chinese sausage wrapped in banana leaves.

When you played “Sono andati?” from La bohème, you collected my heart.

Your talent, my love, was one of the many marvels I saw.

As long as we are together, happiness is within my reach.

I love you, Thomas.

My Thomas.

Thomas Kuk Wah.



The diary slid off my lap, slamming with a thud onto the floor. My hands shook. An earthquake vibrated from my bones, trembling, causing my teeth to clatter together. I wrapped my arms around myself to suppress the tremors. The cat jumped off me.

I closed my eyes.

Mr. Kuk Wah was my father?

The musician whose erhu played to my soul.

The man who refused to let me run away from the mess I’d created.

My father.

Starlit fireflies danced before my eyes. I calmed my breathing to stop the Tilt-A-Whirl sensation brewing in my stomach. I wondered whether I could ever regain my balance. I didn’t understand it. He had never said anything. Mr. Kuk Wah had begun appearing on Grant Avenue when I was six. We’d become friends when I was on my way to pick up mail from the Chius’ convenience store. He’d played my favorite piece from La bohème for me. La bohème. Ma-ma. He’d never said anything about it or acknowledged me as his child. All these years and all our talks about everything from music to love. I found him so easy to confide in.

He was my friend. I’d even told him about the bullies at school. He had listened to me and comforted me with a rendition of “Three Little Maids from School.”

He was my father? But my father was the beast. A horrible creature who’d abandoned my mother and me. He’d never cared about his family. My hatred for him was a tattered cloak—woven with vitriol and aged by habit.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. If there was someone who I’d wished was my father, I might have chosen Mr. Kuk Wah. In hindsight, I could see what his appeal was and why Ma-ma was smitten. He’d been here all this time, and Ma-ma couldn’t see him because she never got out of the house and he had always been a little farther down the street and away from the neighbors.

He had mentioned his wife. He could have remarried. Perhaps that was why he had avoided Ma-ma. But it didn’t make any sense. None of it. Why had he abandoned us, but continued to see me? Why hadn’t he told me who he was? These were good questions I needed to ask the next time I saw him.

Right now, my mother’s words were an anchor I clung to, to stop the world from spinning. I must know her side first so I would be prepared with the right questions for my father. And the harder I struggled to cling to my hatred, the harder it was to grasp, like attempting to squeeze a fistful of water.

I had to continue reading. My mother hadn’t finished speaking to me.

I picked up the diary and returned it to my lap. My fingers trembled as I turned to the last page I had read.


Mother, you should have been inside.

What were you doing outside of the restaurant?

You shouldn’t have gone outside.

If you stayed inside, you would still be alive.

Mother, why did you go out?



The lines repeated themselves for pages and pages with erratic handwriting. The paper they were written on undulated like waves on a seashore from the enduring moisture of Ma-ma’s tears. The rising anxiety from my mother’s thoughts vibrated my fingertips. The cat squirmed from the disturbance.

The next entry was dated months after the death of my grandmother.


It’s strange living away from the only home I had ever known.

This new apartment in Nob Hill feels like an itchy sweater in the winter.