The Astonishing Color of After(99)

I think of the cracks spreading across the ceiling until the world around me shattered.

“Though it sounds like you still managed to do a fair amount of exploring.” Dad smiles. “You went to a couple of my favorite temples.” He sees the question in my eyes and explains. “She’s been calling me with updates here and there.”

“You shouldn’t have left.” It’s not the thing I was planning to say, and so the words surprise me, too. “It was shitty that you just walked out of here when you couldn’t deal.”

His head droops. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“What were you guys even arguing about?”

“It was ridiculous. Your grandmother made a joke about, I don’t know. Something about how if we’d come years ago, things could be different now. I didn’t even fully process what she was saying—I think the joke might have ultimately been about food? Really, I just took it as an accusation, and I exploded, and she exploded right back. It was a mess. I’m sorry, Leigh. I really am. And I’ve apologized to your grandparents, too. Emotions were just… running high. For everybody.”

I don’t know what to say to all that, so I drop my gaze and let my eyes wander. I look over at the nightstand, suddenly remembering the photograph—the last one from the box. The one I never burned. Dad picks it up for me. It’s a little bent, the edges charred.

It’s a color photograph, but everything is so faded that at first glance it almost looks like it was taken in black-and-white. There’s my mother with long, looping braids that hang down against her shoulders. Jingling has a short bob that barely reaches her chin. The two sisters sharing secret smiles. They look like they’re not even teenagers yet. And behind them, Waipo and Waigong, gazing into the camera, mouths straight but not unhappy.

“Why didn’t you tell me I had an aunt?” I ask.

Dad’s face tightens, looking angry and guilty and sad, the color of burnt carmine. “It wasn’t for me to say. But I should’ve made your mother tell you. You deserved to know.”

“What about me? Like—” I struggle to find the words. “When did you tell Waipo and Waigong that… I… even existed?”

“I went to see them—you were just about two years old at that point. I was on a trip to Taiwan for work, so I brought them photographs of you.”

“You just showed up? Why did you wait so long?”

“I only went after I opened a letter they’d sent to your mother. Your waigong said they wanted to make amends. I thought maybe I could help fix things.” His face was full of anguish. “Everything that happened after Jingling—” Dad lets out a heavy breath. “Your mother blamed herself for it. She kept saying she should’ve realized that something was wrong. That Jingling was sick.”

I blink. “How could she have?”

“That’s what I said. But she was convinced. And after, your grandparents pressured her to stay in Taiwan. They wanted her to quit music, do something practical. Something Jingling would’ve done. They wanted her to marry someone Chinese or Taiwanese. I flew to Taipei to meet them, and they shut the door in my face. Your mother was terribly wounded by that. When I got back to the States, I called her, and she was so upset. Impulsively—and maybe foolishly—I proposed. When she said yes, it was her way of running away from home.”

I imagine my mother making the decision over the phone, no hesitation, already throwing the few things she would need into an empty suitcase.

Dad goes on. “For a while, I wondered if she only said yes to rebel—whether she would’ve said no under better circumstances. And then I felt so guilty. Maybe if I’d just given her time to forgive herself a little. Maybe if I’d had more faith in us. I was just so in love, and so afraid I was going to lose her.”

He shakes his head. “I never wanted her to divide up her family. But she felt that without Jingling, there was nothing to close the rift between her and her parents. And I—well. I couldn’t bear to make her do anything that might make her miserable.”

I swallow hard. “So you—you still—loved her? Love her?”

“Of course. I never stopped, Leigh. Never.”

I turn my face away because it’s too hard to look at him. “It’s just. You were gone so much. You… changed. You turned into this career guy, and then Mom and I were just that family tucked away in the back of the closet.”

Dad inhales sharply.

“Sometimes it seemed like you were just pretending everything was fine, like the problem might fix itself. But things like that don’t go away on their own.”

He makes a sound like he’s quietly choking.

My voice cracks. “We needed you, Dad.” There’s both a pain and release in saying it out loud. I spent so much time trying to convince myself that it was better when he wasn’t around. That we didn’t need him. That Mom and I were a complete unit on our own.

Now that I’ve said the words, I don’t even feel angry anymore. Only sad.

I listen to his thick inhalations.

When he speaks again, his words are shaky. “I never meant to let my work take over. But you’re right. And when I finally realized something was broken… I didn’t know how to make it better. Every time I came home, there was this unbearable weight. It was easier to be gone, you know? To be a family via the phone. Like we were in our twenties again, keeping it up long-distance, separated by the Pacific.”