American Panda(65)

Now I couldn’t keep the tears from falling, but for once I didn’t try to hide them. “Thank you for saying that. I know this hasn’t been easy for you. Any of it. As a child, I could tell you didn’t want me. And now you standing up for me . . . well, I feel like you want me.”

She looked up, her eyes transparent for the first time. “Of course I want you. Maybe I wasn’t . . . ready . . . when you were little. I’m sorry you could tell. You weren’t planned. Actually, I found out I was pregnant with you at my appointment to get my tubes tied. Counting doesn’t work, even if your period is regular.”

I wanted her to add, just kidding, but I knew she was telling the truth. It explained why Xing and I were nine years apart in age. Deep down I had known that I was an accident, but I could never admit it to myself. I couldn’t handle my parents not wanting me before and after my birth.

“I want you now.” She placed a hand on mine, but as soon as contact was made, she lifted and pulled back. “Xing was such a handful—he ran off at airports, colored the carpet with marker—and I had him before I was ready.”

She took a few moments to collect herself, then locked eyes with me. “Your yéye was dying when Bǎbá and I met. Emphysema. He only had a few months. Bǎbá was the only other Taiwanese student in Missouri, where we were in graduate school, and I was already twenty-seven. Past marrying age. My eggs were going to be dinosaurs soon!”

I groaned but let her continue.

“We married after three months. I didn’t love him. How could I when I barely knew him? I hoped the feelings would grow with time. But I didn’t know he couldn’t communicate. That he was so angry underneath.”

Her eyes left my face, as if she couldn’t look at my reaction as she told me the rest of her story. “As you already know, Bǎbá is the eldest and only son. He had to carry on the family name. The moment we married, Yéye demanded a grandson. If it was a girl, Yéye didn’t want her. Girls don’t matter. For Yéye’s generation, only the boys count. He used to say he has three siblings when he actually had eleven—three brothers and eight sisters.”

I knew the culture was largely to blame, but I couldn’t help loathing him a little. “Well, good job, you had a boy.”

“I ate nothing but tofu, lettuce, and oats for a month.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I felt like we were speaking different languages.

“Those foods increase your body’s pH, which helps you have a boy.” ?The usual lecture quality to her tone was missing. In its place, regret. “As soon as Xing was born, Nǎinai and Yilong took him from me to Taiwan. To Yéye.”

I thought of the pile of photographs in the back of the hall closet that I had stumbled upon when I was too young to understand. Hundreds of photos of Xing’s first year of life—all of him with Nǎinai, Yilong, and Yéye. The only photo of Xing with my mother from that year was in the hospital, right after he was born. I had never guessed the truth—it was too preposterous, too horrifying. But now, hearing it straight from my mother, it made complete sense, and I wondered why I had given my dad’s family so much credit that they had never earned.

Her voice became stripped, raw, breaking between sentences. “I didn’t see Xing for the first year of his life. I couldn’t afford to go with him. I was still in school. We were living in a trailer home. No health or auto insurance.”

Part of me wanted to say, How could you let them take him? But I knew there was no way I could understand what it had been like for her. And hadn’t I also felt trapped? Hadn’t I done things I normally wouldn’t have because I felt I had no choice?

She dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “When Yéye died, they sent Xing back. Suddenly I had to figure out how to become a mother on my own. Bǎbá didn’t help at all. I became bitter at everyone. I couldn’t take it out on Nǎinai or Bǎbá, so I took it out on Xing. Then, when you came along, I took it out on you. I’m so sorry.”

I felt like I had been dragged under by a wave, overwhelming me in the moment but washing me clean in the process. For the first time, she had been honest. And for the first time, I saw her. “I’m sorry it was so terrible for you.”

She planted her palms on the table and closed her eyes in shame. “I want to redo it. I want to shove you back in”—she pointed to her womb—“and start over. When I think about all the things I did to you that I hated when I was in your xiézi, I feel so sorry. I regret it. Please forgive me.”

She reached for my wrist but stopped before contact, her hand hovering. I grabbed it and squeezed.

“I’m trying to make Bǎbá come around,” she said. “He’s just so difficult. But he needs me. He can’t cook or clean or do laundry. I have some leverage. One time he brushed his teeth with Preparation H, then blamed me! Can you believe it? He said I shouldn’t have left it so close to his toothbrush.”

“Yeah, Mǎmá, how could you do that to him?” I let out a laugh, mostly from picturing my father brushing with hemorrhoid cream.

She joined in, and we laughed together for a few minutes. A first.

She stared at our hands, still adjoined. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see, especially when I suffered in similar ways. I do want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. But now I see—your idea of happiness doesn’t match mine. Mei, I want more for you than me. I always have.”