Picture Us In The Light(79)
I don’t know why I never put it together before this. And now—what have I done?
We’re back home. I can feel the lines of my life like watercolor blurring and starting to bleed. My dad gives the driver four twenties and tells him to keep the change.
Inside the apartment it’s stale the way small places get when you leave them for a long time, those scents of your life distilled and amplified back at you, and the squeak of our footsteps against the square of linoleum in the entryway echoes accusingly, all our shoes lined up in the entryway staring at us.
My dad helps my mom to my bedroom. I hover in the doorway, my head pounding, my chest hollow. My dad goes into the bathroom and I hear him open the medicine cabinet, and then he’s in the bedroom for what feels like a long time. When he comes back out he closes the door behind him.
I can’t speak. My dad folds his arms across his chest and stares around the apartment, and I wait for him to say something. For the first time in my life I’m afraid of him. Not that he’ll lose his temper, not that he’ll hurt me; it’s that he’ll confirm for me that I’m exactly the person I’m afraid I am.
I’m shaking. Outside a car honks, and a truck shudders by. My dad stands still. Finally I can’t stand it anymore and I say, “Ba—”
I mean to say I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, to say I swear to you that somehow I will fix this, and maybe also I mean to beg him to tell me things will be okay. I don’t get even halfway there. Instead I break down and cry, and whatever punishment I deserve, my dad spares me. Instead, he awkwardly pats my back and says, sternly, “Stop it. She’ll be fine. She’s strong,” and he doesn’t mention the car, or what happened to my mom, or what I’ve done. He doesn’t ask me if I meant to do it.
And then, painstakingly and clumsily, because he so rarely does it, he cooks me dinner. He starts the rice cooker and stands in front of the freezer a long time, staring at it, then defrosts a package of ground pork and makes mapo tofu from a box mix and sautés wilted bok choy with garlic and ginger while I try to pull myself together a thousand times, a thousand ways. Then he scoops everything into bowls and puts them on the table and comes to where I’m still standing in the entryway and puts his hand on my shoulder. He says, very gently, “Come sit.”
I ask him when we’re finished eating, which for me happens a third of the way through my bowl. And he’s going to lie to me, I can see the words forming, but then he massages his temples with two fingers and says, quietly, “Yes. Your mother and I are in this country illegally.”
Small fireworks light up in the edges of my vision, the room around me going hazy. “It’s both of you?”
“Both of us, yes.” His eyes are glittering. “But you have RISD now. You’ve achieved everything we dreamed for you. So you don’t have to worry anymore. Your future is secure.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“We never wanted to worry you.”
All this time. It’s been years—years—and I had no idea. “And you can’t apply for citizenship because you were charged with a crime.”
He catches his breath. “Yes.”
I lean over and rest my head against my knees, trying to let blood rush to it. I’m light-headed. I wanted him to tell me I was wrong.
“But we have been very careful since then,” he says quickly. “And so—”
“What happened?” My voice comes out muffled, trapped against my knees. I sit back up, all the files in his box spilling back into my mind. “Who are the Ballards?”
“They’re—they are no one. They’re strangers. They stole from us and I confronted them. It was a very brief mistake. But afterward we realized our status was in jeopardy. Green cards are revoked in the case of certain crimes committed.”
“But what—”
“It was when we were living in Austin. Your mother and I came to visit California and it happened while we were here. So then we knew—we knew it was important to act fast. We returned here to California and I interviewed for jobs right away, hoping that if I received an offer it would all be too quickly for the background check to reflect what had happened. And then we were very lucky. I received the offer at San José State, and after the background check, I simply told them I wished to be called Joseph Cheng and I changed various pieces of information on my hiring papers. The university never investigated further.”
And then, of course, their green cards were as good as useless at that point, and they couldn’t renew them ever again. “Did we—” I swallow. “Did we move because you’re afraid of someone finding you?”
“No, no, Daniel. We moved because we knew we would need the money, as much of it as possible, to save. We are still facing uncertainties. It’s better to have the money in savings than to pay it in rent. That’s all.”
He’s lying. By now I know his face when he lies to me. Regina’s made us read accounts of immigration raids before, ICE officers with assault rifles and kids cowering in fear as the world closes in on them, screaming for their parents as they’re yanked away. There’s an unraveling feeling in my stomach, the world going soft at its edges, and in that blurred space Mr. X rises up to leer at me, his mocking smile aimed triumphantly at the terrified kids, at me, at my parents; he’ll toast to our removal, he’ll cheer our terror and heartache, he’ll go home and sleep in peace. And my dad’s not unaware of any of this, obviously, he’s just trying to make me feel better. I start to say it. But what would that do—force him to admit it aloud, pull the fear from the depths of his mind and sculpt it into something hard and ugly to set down on the table between us? I say, “Okay.” And then: “Do your friends know?”