American Panda(32)

I could see him turning the words over in his head and it sent a zap of frustration through me. “Stop filtering everything, Xing. Just tell me what you’re thinking, the truth. Not some pretty answer you think will resolve everything.”

He spoke immediately, the words falling out fast and a bit jumbled. “I didn’t want to make you choose. I bowed out so you could keep your relationship with them. You need them more than you need me.”

“How could you decide all that without asking me?”

There was a long pause. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have. But you were so young. I thought I was doing what was best for you.”

“Best for me? You shoveled a bunch of crap on me when you left. I had to fix everyone whenever your name came up, and worse, I had to become the perfect Taiwanese poster child to make up for all the shame you caused. I was never let out. I missed prom. I became this sheltered, awkward turtle destined to be an outcast no matter where I went. You weren’t there to tell me about the world, and because of you, Mom and Dad made sure I never saw it. Now I’m a seventeen-year-old college student who’s never been kissed and who’ll end up with the guy who peed on my foot because you couldn’t try to make it work with our parents.”

Okay, that may have gotten away from me a bit. But when I raised my gaze to meet his, I saw in his eyes that he understood and he was sorry. We shared a sad, knowing smile.

Then a shadow crossed his face (and I couldn’t help but think how much he looked like my father in that moment). There was an edge to his voice as he said, “Mom and Dad and especially Nǎinai are so backward in some of their thinking.” Offer up your fertile sister rang in my head. “There’s no working anything out with people like that. So you’re right. I didn’t try that hard, at least not after that night. . . .”

That night. That night had haunted me for so long. I had watched from the stairs, too young to fully understand but old enough to know something was different about this fight.

Xing had pleaded, begged on his knees, for our parents to give Esther a chance. But when they yelled at him to gun and roll out the door, his face had changed. It was like I could see the ties breaking, see everything drain from him to the point where he no longer cared what they thought.

“How could they throw away their son over a girl they hadn’t even met yet?” Xing’s voice was rising. “One strike and . . .” He slashed his finger across his throat.

Esther’s reproductive challenges had been the sole reason for Xing’s disownment. Her congenital endometriosis was caught late, and doctors informed her she may have trouble conceiving. Otherwise she was perfect, even by my parents’ standards: intelligent, Taiwanese, beautiful . . . or so Xing had said. My parents had refused to meet her. Not bearing grandchildren, especially if you were the firstborn son, was the worst kind of disobedience possible. And not only was Xing the firstborn son of a firstborn son, but he and my father were the only sons in their family. Double, triple, quadruple whammy. I never understood what was so bad about having fewer Lus in the world, but to my parents it was a crime.

“I’m sorry they were so hard on you,” I said, placing a palm on Xing’s.

He patted our pile of hands with his free one. “Thanks, Mei-ball—it means a lot.”

That nickname hadn’t touched my ears in so, so long, and hearing it now, my heart was bouncing in my rib cage. I felt us taking one step forward, together.

I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me and how much I had missed him, but I didn’t know how to say it. So I said the next nicest thing I could think of. “You and Esther looked happy.”

“Thank you. You’re so kind.” He smiled, intentionally revealing the chives stuck in his teeth.

I laughed, my insides warming at the game we used to play. With my tongue, I pushed shrimp bits onto my incisors. “You’re so welcome, good sir.”

“Tell me, what’s new with you?” he asked, his voice serious but his mouth full of turnip. It helped decrease the awkwardness of how he was asking me to sum up the past four years.

“I’m at MIT. I like it.”

“Premed?” he asked, but it sounded more like a statement, like he knew I didn’t have a choice. Which, well, he did know.

I gave an imperceptible nod. “Do you like it? I mean, I assume you’re a doctor now?”

He nodded. “It pays the bills. I’m in my first year of an internal medicine residency, still at Tufts. I’m thinking about doing gastroenterology, you know, endoscopies and colonoscopies.”

I couldn’t help cringing. “Was it hard to get used to doing those?”

Xing sipped his tea, oblivious to my nausea. “Yeah, it took some time. I used to laugh whenever I thought about the colonoscopy recovery room, where the patients can’t help farting up a storm. The attending threw me out my first day. Now look at me! I just told you about the room without even cracking a smile.”

I laughed, deep and throaty. Xing joined in, and the hearty sound filled me with memories. Xing reading me comics—Chinese or English, depending on our mood. Xing joking, asking me whether I thought Wang Leehom’s parents were prouder of their Taiwanese pop star son or the son who went to MIT. (We both agreed: the MIT son.)

“That is not what I meant,” I said between laughs. “I was asking if you were ever grossed out.”