Picture Us In The Light(72)

“Folks.” In spite of my lungs compressing at what he said, all the air squeezed out in a whoosh, I can’t help smiling. “You sound…really Texan still.”

“Oh, sure,” he says, and I can hear that he’s smiling, too. “Sure. You vanish into thin air and call me up out of the blue twelve years later with no explanation, and you make fun of my accent? I see how it is.”

It’s surreal to be talking to him. I’ll worry about what he told me when I have the space for it, because I think it’ll take a lot. For now I ask Ethan to fill me in on his life since we left. He tells me when he was eleven his family moved to Ann Arbor, where his parents both got jobs at UMich, and he’s at Howard now, wants to intern for a congressperson, loves DC. And then for a long time we stay on the phone, excavating old memories from Texas, and that world I lost takes on shape and form again—the humidity bearing down on you in summers, the way the gravel in the landscaped pits outside felt against bare feet, the Popsicles Mary Peelen’s mom used to give us when we played outside. It’s like being given back my childhood, and it reminds me what I always felt I had in drawing: how it can hold this same power, can capsule up that same rush of texture and memory that we all carry and can never fully share.

“You still draw?” he asks. “I remember how good you were at drawing.”

“I do. I’m going to design school next year, actually.”

“No way, man, that’s awesome. You’re going for it all the way, huh?”

“Something like that, yeah.” That small flash of joy each time in claiming it aloud for myself, the way it shines through the haze of everything he told me about us leaving—I hope that never goes away.

“What about your parents?” he says. “How are they doing?”

Less joy. I tell him.

“Your father’s a security guard?” he repeats. “At a mall?” There’s a long silence, and my shame blooms bright and hot inside it. I want to explain it’s not like that, but, I mean, it is like that. “He could’ve gotten a job anywhere,” Ethan says. “My mom always said he was so brilliant. And wasn’t your mom taking business classes? Didn’t she want to open a hotel?”

“Yeah, well.” Not much else to say there. “Hey, Ethan, this is going to sound really stupid, but do you remember their names? My parents?”

“Do I remember your parents’ names? Sure. Anna and Joseph Tseng.”

“Or—right. I mean their Chinese ones they used. I’ve never been able to remember, and they stopped using them when we moved.”

“Why don’t you just ask your dad?”

“Ah—it’s kind of a long story.”

This is a tribute to our past together: all these years later, Ethan accepts that as an answer. “Ah, I got you. I can ask my dad. He’d probably know.”

“All right. Hey, tell him hi for me, will you?”

“Yeah, of course. He’ll be thrilled. He’ll never believe I actually found you.”

He texts me about ten minutes later. Mr. Parker didn’t know my mom’s legal name, but he knew my dad’s: Tseng Huabo.

I google it. And there staring back at me is the truth, what they’ve been hiding from me all this time: for the last twelve years, since right around the time we moved here, my parents have been wanted for false imprisonment and assault.





The paragraph is from an archived article on an Atherton community website. Huabo Tseng (may also go by Tseng Huabo) and an unknown female accomplice wanted in connection with an incidence of assault and false imprisonment in the 800 block of Watkins. Huabo Tseng is described as an Asian American male, five foot eight inches and a hundred and sixty pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. His female companion is described as Asian American, five foot four inches, a hundred and ten pounds, with long black hair and brown eyes.

I look up everything else I can think to, every iteration and misspelling I can imagine white people making of my dad’s name, everything I can remember from his files. It gets me nowhere. I go to the pay phone outside the 7-Eleven on the corner so nothing can be traced to our apartment. My hands are sweating, and my throat feels like it’s swelling shut. The phone rings once, and then a dispatcher picks up. “Is this an emergency?”

“No, I wanted to look up an incident report?”

“You wanted to what?”

Immediately, my resolve weakens. “Um—I’m allowed to do that, right?”

“I’ll transfer you to records.”

On hold, I picture the person on the other line frustrated with me, picture pretending not to notice as I make my demands, and I almost hang up. The person I’m transferred to doesn’t sound much more thrilled to hear from me. “You want to look up an incident report,” he repeats, in a grumbly voice. “All right. What is it.”

None of his questions have question marks at the end. I read him the date from the police blotter, and there’s a long silence that means I’m not sure what. Finally he clears his throat and says, “All right. What is it you want to know.”

“Is there any information that’s not in the police blotter? More of what happened, or anything?”

Another long, irritated silence. I can feel his annoyance radiating through the phone line. “You want me to read it to you?”