The Leavers(78)

I said I’d call again, in a day or two, after I bought tickets for a bus from New York.

My Wednesday shift had been shortened, so later that day I was able to meet you when you got out of school. The building seemed like it was always under construction, metal scaffolding attached to its sides for as long as you’d gone there, and the few times I had been inside, I had been struck by the stale, mildewy marinade of sweat, glue, and floor cleaner. It wasn’t safe for children to go to school in a construction zone.

“I’m not going,” you said, when I told you about Florida.

“Deming, I’m your mother. You have to go with me.”

“You weren’t with me when I was in China.”

“Yi Gong was with you. I was working so I could save enough money to have you here. It’s different now.”

“Different how?”

“You’ll love Florida, too. You’ll have a big house and your own room.”

“I don’t want my own room. I want Michael there.”

“You’ve moved before. It wasn’t so hard, was it?”

You answered in English. “I’m not going! Leave me alone!”

I knew the proper words to respond, but didn’t say them, didn’t want to give you the power of making me switch languages, to talk only on your terms. A dense heat rose in my face and arms, like I was fighting against being shoved into a bag.

We were outside the bodega. I saw Mrs. Johnson from our building watching us. Your face was wrinkled and hurt, so I hugged you, hard, and you squeezed out of my arms and ran ahead of me, arms sticking out the wrist holes of your coat. Deming, I loved you so much. I made a note to buy you a new shirt. We wouldn’t need coats in Florida.

That night, I stayed up as you slept, waited for Leon to get home from work. You asserted yourself even while unconscious, flopping on your side, while Michael slept on his back with his arms and legs straight. I hadn’t been that much older when I had left home. It was good for a child to experience new things, learn how to be brave and independent. Like when you had fallen off a swing. It was scary, but I was proud of you for being strong. I wasn’t going to baby you. I wanted you to be smart, self-sufficient; to never be caught off guard.

When you were a baby, small enough to fit on top of a pillow, I couldn’t bear to be away from you, craved my skin against your skin. The city had seemed too harsh and loud for a child, and I wanted to protect you from the outside, ensure you’d be safe. I still did. I wanted to give you the chances I hadn’t taken for myself. Show you that you didn’t have to settle, stay put.

Streaks of light appeared in the sky. I drifted in and out of sleep and woke to Leon’s weight next to me. I curled into his shoulder, pressed myself against him, and he patted my back. “Go back to sleep. It’s late.”

“If we were both working at the restaurant, we’d go to sleep together every night, wake up together every morning.”

“Mm,” he said.

“Don’t you want to go with me?”

“I can’t leave my sister. She’s my family.”

“Vivian and Michael can come with us.”

“She doesn’t want to leave New York.”

“How do you know? Maybe she does and you don’t know it.”

“She called me today. Thought I was leaving without telling her. I didn’t know what she was talking about.”

“I don’t either.”

“You told Deming we were moving to Florida. I didn’t agree to that. And he told Michael, of course, and Michael got scared and told Vivian, and she called me. She was so upset.”

“I didn’t tell Deming we were moving.”

He pressed his finger to my lips. “Be quiet. You’ll wake the boys.”

I pushed his hand away. “You be quiet.”

“You want to take your son away from here, but what about what he wants?”

“Deming is a child, he doesn’t get to decide.”

Leon snorted. “A mother is supposed to sacrifice for her son, not the other way around.”

“You better take that back.” This man I had slept next to for years, this man I was supposed to marry—he’d never known me. “Take that back right now.”

A mother was supposed to lay down and die for her children, and Leon got to be called Yi Ba because he watched TV with you several afternoons a week. If he bought you a cheap toy, Vivian would crow, “How thoughtful!” and when he took you to the park the neighbors complimented him for being such a good daddy. But no one called me a good mama when I did those things. And now Leon was blaming me for wanting a better life?

I smacked the bed, hard, with the edge of my hand. “You think I don’t love my son? Go fuck yourself.”

You grunted in your sleep. Leon pulled me up and led me out of the bedroom.

We sat at the kitchen table in the dark and whispered as Vivian slept on the couch.

“You’ve never liked her, have you,” he said.

“Vivian? Of course I do. She’s my sister.”

“You wanted her to accept you without question.”

“Is that so wrong?”

Leon looked as if he was coming to realize an unpleasant truth.

“I was the new one,” I said. “You have each other.”