Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(74)

The voice of your erhu needed to be heard.

Your seat and the audience were waiting.

But I don’t want you to leave.

Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t . . .



Thus confirmed my mother’s transformation into a recluse. The neighbors mentioned that my mother hadn’t always been this way. Like her beloved birds, the loss of my grandmother had trapped and caged Ma-ma until she’d been a prisoner of her anxiety.

Oh, Ma-ma. How I missed you. Reading your words lulled me into believing you were still with me. Was this when my father left you? When he went to this audition and never returned?

I searched for the end of the diary, keeping a finger in my place so I could pinch the number of pages left to read. My papery version of a countdown clock. The precious time with my mother was drawing to a close. Thus, I held on, clinging to her final written words and hoping she would provide answers about my father.


Where are you, my love?

It has been two weeks and you fail to return or call . . .

Did you finally realize I am a broken woman with too many flaws to reconcile?

Did I scare you away and into the arms of another woman?

I know I’m strange. I don’t leave the house, I can’t. My demons will never leave me.

The neighborhood whispers. I know you must have heard it, my love, yet you show me no signs that the horrible rumors about me exist. But I know. Strange girl. Never comes out. Full of ill luck. Not normal. Broken ever since her mother died. Strange, oh so strange. Not right in the head.

They’re right. I am broken, but when I’m with you, I feel whole. I feel loved and worthy of love. You don’t judge me. You accept me and understand.

Has this changed?

Have you had enough?

Where are you? Are you coming back?

You can’t leave me . . . us.

Not now.

This morning, I found out I’m carrying your child.

We’re supposed to see your family in a month so they can meet me.

Your daughter, Thomas.

You have to come back to meet your daughter!

Come back . . .



I wiped my tears away. He hadn’t known I was his daughter because he’d already left us. My mother. My poor Ma-ma. How could he have done this to her? How could he have left her when she’d needed him the most?

Tears streamed down my cheeks, unrelenting, soaking the pages of the diary on my lap and down my bare legs onto the floor. I welcomed the dampness. We’d been abandoned. Nothing he could say could change this.

One entry left and my heart bled ocean blue.


What have I done?

Our child can never know. She would hate me . . .

I received a call this morning from a stranger.

Do you know Thomas Kuk Wah?

Yes.

Are you his wife?

Why?

I’m sorry, but he has been in a terrible motor vehicle accident. If you are his wife, you need to come down to the morgue and identify the body.

I’m not his wife. You are mistaken.

I’m so sorry to bother you then, ma’am. We will notify his next of kin. I apologize again for having taken your time.

I denied you, Thomas.

I can’t leave the house.

You’re dead because you left.

You shouldn’t have left. I was right.

And now, you’re dead. Like Ma-ma.

I won’t leave the house. I don’t want to endanger our baby.

Can’t leave. No, my baby or I could die.

My love, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I love you. Always.

Forgive me, Thomas.

Please forgive me.

Forgive me because I can never forgive myself.



My father was dead?

Why didn’t Ma-ma ever tell me? She had never said a word. Didn’t she think I had a right to know? Ma-ma led me to believe that we had been abandoned. She must have chosen not to tell me he died because perhaps, after all these years, she couldn’t accept the truth herself. Ma-ma also grappled with guilt, and if I had been in her situation, could I have told my daughter the truth about how my father’s body was robbed of the rituals he needed to enter the afterlife? That she couldn’t claim his body in fear of leaving the apartment? Why he still wandered this world as a ghost?

Ma-ma had no one left to help her. She was alone with a baby to care for and crippling agoraphobia. As angry as I felt for having been lied to, I couldn’t hold on to that pain. My mother did what she thought was best for me. She could not explain her mental illness to those who would not understand. Her fear and her shame were heartbreaking.

Oh, Ma-ma.

How could my father be dead? I’d spoken to Mr. Kuk Wah most of my life. I had heard him play, just like Ma-ma had described in her journals. But according to this journal entry, he died a long time ago.

Baba. Father. All these years, had I been communing with a ghost? Baba’s ghost.

I had thought he had abandoned me.

He must not remember me because he died before I was born. Someone told me once that ghosts can be forgetful. They also choose only to appear to those they want to be seen by. My father had been with me for a large part of my life. He must have loved me, even if he didn’t know what our true relationship was.

I closed the final book and hugged it to my chest.

I had to talk to Ma-ma.