The Astonishing Color of After(72)

“Okay,” says Brian slowly. “Do you want me to go with you? To Taiwan?”

She looks confused. “Why?”

“Well. Um. I know the timing is terrible. But this… is important to me.”

“This?”

“Us.” He gestures toward her, then toward himself. “You and me.”

“It has only been few months,” says Dory.

“So?”

She’s silent.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, and his voice cracks the tiniest bit. “Please. Just be honest. Because I know what I want.”

“What do you want?” Dory’s voice is barely audible.

He looks at her like he can’t believe she’s even asking. “I want us to be together. For starters.”

Flash.

There’s my mother again, still college-student young, wearing a loose cotton dress and perched on her suitcase on the curb outside the airport. A yellow cab winds through other cars to pull up in front of her. The man who steps out on the street side is barely recognizable at first, but then I notice the turned-down corners of the eyes, the strong jaw. This is a much younger Waigong. The other door opens, too, swinging slowly out above the curb. Waipo steps out, her eyes bleary, her face ashen.

“Did they figure out the cause?” asks my mother. The quality of her voice is different; she must be speaking in Mandarin, though the smoke once again allows me to understand her perfectly.

“An aneurysm,” says Waigong. His voice is low and hoarse.

“She had symptoms,” Waipo adds. “Nausea. Headaches. But she thought it was only a virus.”

My mother’s head droops, her shoulders slumping like she’s given up.

“I told her to rest, but you know your sister,” says Waipo shakily. “Always working. We even saw her for lunch that day.”

A strange wave of relief shudders through me. An aneurysm. Not intentional. Not like my mother.

Flash.

My mother standing in a corner, cradling a chunky plastic phone between her ear and shoulder. Her face is toward the wall, where nobody can read her expressions. She pushes the spirals of the phone cord onto her index finger, loop by loop, stacking them until her knuckles are completely swallowed. The sound of a young man’s voice comes through the receiver, the voice slightly thinned, so that it takes me a moment to realize it’s my father.

“But how are you doing?” Brian asks.

“Am fine,” says Dory, her voice a little quiet, a little shy. I realize then that Waipo is standing mere paces away, in the kitchen, listening closely to the exchange with a strange look on her face.

“I miss you,” says Brian.

“I miss you, too,” Dory replies softly.

“Can your parents hear you talking on the phone?” he asks.

“Yes. But they don’t understand. It’s okay.”

There’s the sound of him drawing in a breath. “I’m coming to see you.”

Dory pauses. The set of her shoulders changes. She reaches a hand up to grip the phone tightly. “Really? You come to Taiwan?”

“Yes. And if your parents would be willing to meet me—I’d like to meet them.”

She nods slowly, speechless.

“Dory? Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” she answers finally, her voice thick with emotion.

Brian’s voice drops lower. “Are you all right?”

She nods again, though he can’t see. “Yes. Am fine. I need to go now.”

“Okay. Goodbye, Dory.”

“Goodbye,” she practically whispers.

When she hangs up, Waipo has stepped out of the kitchen to stand directly in front of her. “Who was that? Who were you talking to?”

“A classmate,” Dory answers.

“What classmate? An American classmate? From the summer?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you sound so strange?” Waipo demands.

“I didn’t,” says Dory, but she doesn’t make eye contact. She makes a show of glancing up at the clock. “I’m going to the market now, before the best vegetables are gone.”

Waipo says nothing but turns away scowling.

As Dory pulls on her shoes, she pretends not to hear the conversation between her parents in the other room: “Who was that?” says Waigong.

“She said it was a classmate.” Waipo doesn’t sound happy. “I think it was him.”

“The American?”

“Yes,” says Waipo. “She was speaking to him in English.”

“She can’t have this American boyfriend. She must marry someone Chinese. She must.”

“You tell her,” says Waipo. “She’s being strange.”

Dory closes the door behind her as quietly as possible and runs down the stairs.

The light changes. The memories retreat.





75





Jingling. She died so young. How did I never know?

And my grandparents—I never realized they had such strong feelings about who my mother loved. It’s hard to imagine them so stern, so overbearing. Why did it matter if Mom married someone who wasn’t Chinese, or Taiwanese, or Asian at all? And what do they think of me, then, the product of their daughter and a white man?