The Leavers(40)

She transferred food to plastic containers and pressed down on the lids, double-checking to make sure they were sealed. “Do what?”

He turned the faucet on and pumped soap onto a sponge. “You said you’d be back for me soon, but you signed a form that gave me away to strangers. Indefinitely.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vivian opened the refrigerator, restacked the containers, and pulled out other leftovers to make room. She removed a carton of orange juice, squinted at the label.

“You made me think my mother abandoned me, that she didn’t want me.”

Vivian studied a gallon of milk. “You could’ve been deported.”

“How? I’m an American citizen.” He turned to check that Michael and Timothy were still at the table. “What do you know about my mother? Where is she?”

Vivian’s face was hidden by the refrigerator door. “I don’t know anything.”

He scrubbed the dishes, scraped hard, making his skin sting. “You actually went to court to get rid of me forever. You screwed up my whole life.”

“I didn’t screw up anything. You wouldn’t be in college, otherwise. You wouldn’t be living in Manhattan and playing on your guitar. If you stayed with your mother, you’d be poor. You’d be back in the village.”

“That’s where she is? Minjiang?”

Vivian’s words were quiet and tunneled. “I don’t know.”

It didn’t add up. There was no explanation for Mama’s absence, her never getting in touch. Daniel looked at Vivian, staring hard, daring her to face him.

“Is she dead?”

At last, she turned around. “No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because of Leon.”

HE WALKED TO THE subway after hugging Michael and shaking Timothy’s hand. “See you soon,” Michael said. “Don’t forget to let me know about your next concert.”

In Daniel’s pocket was an envelope that Vivian had given him as he was leaving. Less than half a block from the house, he ducked beneath a store awning and opened it. Inside was a hundred-dollar bill and a slip of a paper with a bunch of numbers that could pass for a long distance phone number in China. Leon, it said.

Daniel put the envelope in his pocket and laughed, a hot jelly laugh, until he was shaking. As if one hundred dollars was supposed to make it all better. He walked until the block of shuttered storefronts dead-ended and took a left, reaching the entrance of Sunset Park. The air was warm, the trees in bloom. He made his way up a hill, above the streets and storefronts, a family trundling along the path below, the father pushing a stroller with a silvery red balloon tied to the handle. Daniel saw the Manhattan skyline, recognized the sketched spire of the Empire State Building, the sparkle of bridges, and from this vantage point the city appeared vulnerable and twinkling, the last strands of sunshine swept across the arches as if lulling them to sleep, painting shadows against the tops of buildings. No matter how many times he saw the city’s outline he pitched inside. He had Leon’s number. His mother was alive. Leon knew where his mother was; they had been in touch. The prospect made him rubbery. Knees quivering, he folded in half and burped garlic and strawberry cake.

Then he was cold. When Vivian pressed the envelope into Daniel’s hands she had also said this: “I paid your mother’s debt. When Leon left there was still money owed. Who do you think paid? If I hadn’t paid, you’d be dead by now.”

Unable to decide whether to hate Vivian or be grateful to her, Daniel had only been able to take the envelope and say, “Thank you.”

He dug his heels into the dirt and walked downhill, down the park’s curved side, slow at first, getting faster, a grace note as his legs bounced upwards.

He would go home. He would call Leon. Propelled, he was almost in flight.



The Leavers |





PART TWO

Jackpot





Six



The night you came back into my life I was walking down the same old street in Fuzhou, from World Top English to the seafood restaurant where Yong always had his client dinners. He offered to pick me up but I said no, wanted those twenty precious minutes to myself. In my gray suit and leather shoes, I could pass for a city person. My life felt like a confection, something I had once yearned for, but sometimes I still wanted to torch it all over again, change my name again, move to another city again, rent a room in a building where nobody knew me. When I thought of all the seafood dinners I’d gone to and all the ones I had yet to attend, I felt an empty, endless DOOM.

Walking in Fuzhou: bicyclists, mopeds, trash bags, busted furniture, city people, migrants, all fighting for not enough sidewalk space. I walked to lose track of the life that had solidified around me when I hadn’t been paying attention. I liked how close the past felt, how possible it might be to make up a new history. All the different routes I might have taken, all the seemingly insignificant turns that could change your entire existence. I could’ve become anyone, living anywhere. But let’s be real, I was forty years old and most of my choices had already been made. Made for me. Not so easy to veer off course now.

Yong didn’t see the need to walk when he had a perfectly good car, had no curiosity for exploring the city he’d lived in all his life. If he wanted an adventure, he said, he wouldn’t walk around a couple of office buildings; he’d take a trip to Hong Kong or Bangkok or Shanghai, though he never did those things either.