The Leavers(39)

“Are you serious?” Daniel said. “No fucking way.”

FRIDAY NIGHT, DANIEL TOOK the subway out to Sunset Park, Brooklyn Chinatown, and as he walked down Eighth Avenue he recognized the neighborhood as where the Chinese couple had lived, where Peter and Kay had come to get him. He didn’t know how he would get through this dinner without saying something terrible to Vivian, but the chance to say anything to her pushed him on.

They lived on one of the numbered streets off Eighth Avenue, in the bottom half of a two-family home, a two-bedroom apartment with a large front window that looked out onto the street. The house smelled like rice and pork and garlic. He removed his shoes and jacket, returned Michael’s hug, and saw Vivian padding toward them in fuzzy purple slippers, plumper than she’d been ten years ago. He didn’t remember her teeth being so bright before.

“Deming! You look the same,” she said in Fuzhounese. “Big and tall and healthy. Exactly like your mother.”

How could she mention his mother after what she had done? “Hi, Vivian.”

“Do you still like pork?”

“Of course.”

“I made pork and fish.” Vivian pointed to the kitchen. “We’ll eat soon.”

Michael and Daniel sat on a dark brown couch facing a wide-screen television and a shelf with glass figurines of unicorns. “Remember that couch we had?” Daniel asked.

“That thing was busted,” Michael said. “It had those giant flowers in puke colors. Remember that time that kid beat me up and you went and beat him up?”

“And then your mom went and beat me up.”

Michael laughed. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

“I really loved that apartment.”

“You remember that kid Sopheap? I heard he’s in jail. And there was that time those guys got killed in the park—”

“I don’t remember that.”

Daniel ran names, tried to match them to faces, the kids of P.S. 33 with their giant backpacks. He tried to remember Sopheap, the park—which park?—and was alarmed at the inaccuracy of his memory, wondering what else had he forgotten, how much had he gotten wrong about his mother, Leon, even himself.

“Remember Tommie? Our neighbor? I used to think my mom ran away with him.”

“That guy?” Michael cracked up. “No way.”

“I heard he got married.”

“God. I haven’t thought about him in years.”

Timothy arrived, carrying with a white bakery box wrapped in red string. “You must be Deming,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about you.” His English had Chinese-shaped tones, and his vowels were warm and curved.

Vivian had cooked a casserole of tofu and beef and mushrooms, greens with garlic, noodles, crispy pork, even a whole steamed fish. The smells were comforting, ones Daniel hadn’t experienced in years. Timothy handed him a plate. “You’re in school, Deming?” he asked in English.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be called Deming. “I’m a Communications major, at SUNY. I play music, too. Guitar. I go by Daniel now.”

“Daniel. So you like the arts and the humanities. Michael is more into the sciences.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a CPA. Accountant. That’s how Vivian and I met.” Timothy switched to Mandarin. “Vivian worked in the office across the hall.”

Vivian cut the greens. “I cleaned the office.” It sounded like a script she and Timothy had recited before. “Me and Michael lived with my friends in Queens. We had no money.”

“One day we met in the elevator at work,” Timothy said.

“That was a long time ago,” Vivian said. “Things are so much better now. Michael’s going to Columbia, and Deming is in college, too. Your mother would be proud.”

Daniel picked out fish bones, wanting to ask Vivian what she knew. His mother might have wanted him, after all. She couldn’t have known that Vivian would give him away. He took seconds, thirds, fourths, trying to ignore Vivian’s pleased expression as he loaded up his plate again, the credit she was surely taking for cooking so well, for feeding the starved orphan boy. He couldn’t get sucked into how good the food tasted, how familiar it felt to be here.

Timothy passed Daniel the plate of greens. “Deming, I mean, Daniel, you still speak Chinese?”

“Yes,” Daniel said in Mandarin. “I still speak Chinese.”

“You have an American accent. I have it, too.”

“Michael still speaks perfect Chinese,” Vivian said. “He can even write in Chinese.” She unveiled the contents of the bakery box, revealing a fluffy white sponge cake, a cloud of frosting studded with strawberry slices, and Daniel pretended he was watching a scene from television, narrated by the authoritative male voice of nature documentaries. The female animal cares for only its biological young. It rejects any nonbiological children as a threat to the family unit.

When they finished dessert, Michael collected silverware from the table. Vivian brought plates into the kitchen, and Daniel got up. “Sit, sit,” Timothy said, but Daniel grabbed the dishes and trailed Vivian. He was much taller than her and could see the white roots in her thinning hair, a baby bald spot on top of her skull.

He spoke fast, in English. Vivian’s English was much better than it had been ten years ago, but he still had the upper hand. “Why did you do it?”