The Astonishing Color of After(96)

“That’s all that matters,” says Waipo.

Waigong closes his eyes. “Did she tell you what we said to her? When she decided to marry you?”

My father looks embarrassed. “Yes. She told me.”

“We never should have said that.” His voice is gruff, his eyes slightly red. “It was our fault. We only thought it would stop her from leaving.”

Colors dim. Light flashes.

My mother and father sitting with a younger version of me at the kitchen table, holding spreads of cards in their hands. My hair has a streak of purple. Was I in seventh grade?

“It’s your turn, Leigh.”

My memory-self lays down a card and Mom gasps. Her lips stretch into a wide grin.

“Dory, you’re giving yourself away!” says Dad.

My mother shrugs. “So what?”

“You’re supposed to bluff.”

Mom squints at him. “Bluff?”

“You know,” memory-me says. “Try to trick us.”

“Oh, well, I am tired. Let’s eat cake. You want cake?” My mother stands up.

“Um,” Dad begins to say.

“Sure,” memory-Leigh replies, and they all set their cards aside.

Mom brings out the freshly baked pan of chocolaty goodness.

Dad crams a piece into his mouth before my mother has had a chance to properly serve them. “These are actually brownies, you know.”

“What’s difference?” my mother says. “Brownies just like chocolate cake.”

“There’s a big difference—” And with that, Dad launches into his explanation, waxing poetic about the denseness, the ratio of chocolate, the various optional ingredients.

Dad’s always been a dessert person, and I can’t help but smile as this memory unravels around me. This was back before he started flying all the time, before work took him away from us.

“Okay!” my memory-self says. “Can we play? The game’s almost over.”

“Yes, okay,” says my mother. She gathers up her cards.

“Go ahead, Mom,” says memory-me.

Dad finishes the last of his fourth brownie, brushes the crumbs off his fingers, and reaches for his cards.

“Oh, me?” My mother looks delighted. “So here! Look!”

She lays out her final hand.

“I win!”

“What!” Memory-me throws her hands up in the air. “I was so close.”

Dad furrows his eyebrows at the spread he’s holding. He looks down at the table. “Hey, wait. Those were mine! You stole my cards!”

“Nope,” says Dory. “You said I need to bluff. So I bluff. So I win.”

“What a cheater!” Dad cries. He reaches over to tickle her in punishment.

My mother curls away from him toward the side of her chair and collapses into giggles.

“Cheater, cheater, cheater,” Dad chants, his face glowing.

My memory-self rolls her eyes. “You guys are ridiculous.”

Darkness. New light.

There are my parents, standing in the kitchen. They’re even younger than the last memory. I’m nowhere to be seen. My mother’s shaking her head at something in my father’s hands.

Dad’s holding plane tickets. Three of them. Destination: Taipei.

“Why do you do this?” Mom’s voice is low and raw in a way I’ve never heard.

“Don’t you think it’s been long enough?” says my father very gently. “They deserve to see you. You deserve to see them. Leigh deserves to meet them.”

“No. They don’t deserve to meet her. You don’t know them. I know them. They’re my parents. They have only disappointment in who I am. My entire life. Disappointment.”

“It’s been so many years,” my father says. “Enough time for everyone to think about what’s happened. To regret what’s been said.”

“Yes,” says my mother, her voice shaking even harder. “I have lots of time to think. All I do is remember what they say. They say, ‘You are supposed to marry Chinese man. If you marry that white man, this is no longer your home. You are no longer our daughter.’ How can someone say that to their child?”

Dad wraps his arms around her; she holds her hands in tight fists between her chest and his. “They didn’t mean it.”

“They did,” says Mom, weeping now. “They mean it. I know they did.”

“Dory—”

“They blame me. They think if I never come to America, if I never meet you, Jingling would be alive. Why everything always my fault? Maybe I blame them. They ate lunch with her the day she died. They should see how sick she was. Why everything my fault? Why not their fault? They will never meet Leigh. They will never hurt her like they hurt me.”

Dad doesn’t say anything after that. He holds her, and she buries her face in his neck, her shoulders shaking.

The memory flickers and dies like a lightbulb going out, the floor dropping from my feet.





95





I land on the moon.

Not the whole moon, but just a patch of it. A moon broken into pieces; this is all that’s left. The ground is bleached and sickly, and when I walk a few paces forward, I stop short, because the edge drops away like a cliff. I’m peering down at an entire world. Spread out before me is a blackish indigo, and it glitters with stars, specks winking here and there.