A Glasshouse of Stars

by Shirley Marr

  “You must be Meixing. Good to meet you. I’m Heather Jardine. You can call me Ms. Jardine.” She crouches down so she is at the same level as you. “Good to see you too, Kevin, yes, I am very well myself, thanks for asking.”

  Kevin grunts and kicks the wall. You become anxious that Ms. Jardine is calling him out for something wrong—you aren’t even sure why you feel anxious for him; it’s like you feel anxious for everybody these days—until you see that she is smiling and that Kevin is giving her some sort of half smile back. They are joking. You think. It’s confusing.

  “There’s a new program that the school is setting up. I thought I’d talk to you both about it. For an hour each day you will have class with me. We will work on learning new words, reading, and writing. How does that sound?”

  “She definitely needs it,” says Kevin, pointing at you. “She doesn’t know the language at all. As for me, I’m just stupid. Ask anyone you like! No one believes in me, anyway.”

  “I believe in you,” replies Ms. Jardine.

  This catches Kevin off guard. An expression of genuine surprise fills his face before he goes back to scowling.

  The bell rings.

  “I’ll see you both for the first class soon,” says Ms. Jardine. “I really look forward to it.”

  You do too. You look down at your hands. Through the tears in your eyes, the colors of the wall look like a rainbow.

  CHAPTER TEN Book

  Your heart fills your entire mouth as soon as you reach home after the school day. You look up at Big Scary looming large in front of you, her too-green cactus stems still pinned to the walls like surprised fingers pressed against her face.

  The eye in the Room on the Roof winks. Once. But it doesn’t make you feel any better, as you are so anxious about your mother. You shouldn’t have left her. But you are just a child and she ordered you to go to school. But what if something bad has happened? You trudge up the thirty steps.

  Ma Ma is strangely… okay. She is talking animatedly on the phone. When she hangs up, she tells you Second Aunty is making arrangements to come and stay for a while. Then she is on the phone again, talking to other family members back home. It is strange to see her so alive, excited almost.

  An arrangement of fresh vegetables in a cardboard box—the ones Mrs. Huynh brings around, with the words on the side that are neither the Old nor the New Language—sits on the floor and there is a wok on the stovetop. There are some sliced vegetables on the chopping board and an opened can of baby corn spears. For the first time since she got here, Ma Ma is preparing dinner.

  She doesn’t talk about Ba Ba. She concentrates on keeping herself busy, doing multiple things at once, and being more attentive and interested in cooking and housework—pointing out cobwebs that First Uncle the bachelor hadn’t dusted—than she has since arriving.

  Ma Ma looks as big as the moon. You don’t think she should be trying to do so much. You are sure Mrs. Huynh will tell her not to do so much. Ba Ba didn’t like her doing so much—well, he didn’t like it yesterday, anyway. Slow down and be sad with me, you want to say, tears in the edges of your eyes. But Ma Ma does what she likes, moving determinedly around with her belly out front. The only thing she can’t do is look you in the eye; in fact, she cannot look at you at all. You are acknowledged as there, but invisible at the same time. You wish she would stop and see you. You wish she would ask you how school was, if you had a good day.

  In turn, you want to tell her it’s not her fault that Ba Ba drove out last night. It’s not her fault that she had an opinion and got into an argument. It’s not her fault because you can remember her voice calling him back, but Ba Ba walked out that door anyway. You don’t blame her for anything. The police had explained to you clearly that it was an accident and had checked to make sure that part was understood by both of you.

  Yet, you cannot reach her. Ma Ma is still there, but disappeared within herself. You don’t know how to get her back.

  With your burlap bag almost falling off your slumped shoulder, you trudge down the steps into the backyard. The black-and-white cat greets you. In fact, she stands up on her hind feet and gives you a bow. In return, you have no choice but to bow back.

  The long grass sways in greeting, each blade like a subject in your kingdom, cheering for their approaching queen, although it is hard to see the individual blades when everything becomes soft and blurred through your tears.

  You greet your broken glasshouse as though it is your greatest friend. Maybe it understands what it’s like to look damaged on the outside but to be brimming with the hopes and dreams of an entire universe inside.

  First Uncle is where you left him, standing on his wooden stepladder in his orchard, except the weather has changed and he has put on his favorite sweater. The one in the photo that he sent with his last letter, so that you would all recognize him when he came to pick you up during the airport run that never came to pass.

  The sun, climbing to the middle of the sky, smiles down at you with a sweet, serene expression, the rays around her face like a golden crown. The waxing moon, with part of her face hidden like a lady wearing a large-brimmed hat, has her eyes closed and is sleeping peacefully.

  “Where are you buried?” you ask Uncle. “You didn’t invite us to your funeral.”

  “I didn’t have one. I was cremated without any ceremony whatsoever and then had a tree planted on top of me in honor. Guess what type of tree?”

  “Does it happen to be an orange tree?”

  “You’re a smart kid.”

  Ma Ma had mumbled something to you once, before you came here, about how she liked the idea of you getting a New Land education, but she wasn’t sure she wanted you to get any other funny New Land ideas. This is perhaps what she meant.

  “Do you want to plant another seed?”

  You nod and eagerly lift open his giant seed box. This time you select a much larger seed, dark brown and shiny; it sits in the middle of your palm like a coat button.

  Beside your field of blue flowers, you plant the seed, pat the soil, and give it a gentle watering. Everything in the glasshouse inhales and exhales at the same time, then begins to breathe. From the soil comes a shoot that shakes herself free and determinedly grows until she becomes a tree. Years pass in the blink of an eye, and she becomes tall, strong, and green.

  Then, all of a sudden, all the leaves drop off.

  The tree becomes completely bare. You feel how she feels. Overnight you lost everything too.

  But then thousands of soft little buds form at the tips of all her branches.

  And then she flowers.

  From the branches, masses of downturned blue flowers weep all the way to the ground. When you touch the smooth, twisting trunk, you know that the tree is only following the cycle of life. She knows your thoughts and your sadness and she tells you that it’s okay to feel these things. One day you will become flowers too.

  “Ah,” says First Uncle. “A blue Chinese wisteria. A fine choice of ornamental tree. It looks very lovely.”

  The pink serpent slithers up the trunk and tangles itself in the flowers. It hisses at you; makes you think of the girls at school. Although you are concerned it might be venomous, it is also candy pink, so you are not afraid of it.

  Underneath the sun and the moon and the curved glass ceiling, sitting with your back against the wisteria tree, you take your worksheet out of your burlap bag. In the absence of a cane on the palm of your hand because it is not allowed anymore, or a chicken feather duster on the back of your legs because you don’t have a father anymore, it’s as if you need to look at those fifteen red crosses to punish yourself. You stare down at the paper and sigh.

  A tear falls and turns one of the crosses into a little red galaxy before the whole thing slides off the page completely. And with that, something extraordinary happens. All the other wrong answers and gibberish words and sentences you don’t understand get up and walk off the page, never to be seen again. You stare at the blank page in wo
nder, like it’s telling you there is a possibility to start again. The piece of paper suddenly darkens so that only a little rectangle lights up, like a tiny cinema screen.

  What it shows you is a much older girl, a teenager with long legs and a short skirt, sitting under a tree in summer… like the tree you’re sitting against now. Except the tree is older and wiser and the flowers have all turned purple.

  She is reading a fat novel, one with long words, thin pages, and no pictures. The slight smile on her face indicates that she is lost within the pages; lost within her own world. You marvel at the peace she’s surrounded by, the contentedness she has created for herself, before you wonder if you’ve seen her before. She does look vaguely familiar…

  Maybe she is one of your many cousins, whom you have only seen in photos.

  But none of your cousins has a freckle under her left eye like this girl does. What Ma Ma and her sisters call a “bad luck beauty mark” because it means the owner will always weep. But you have often wondered in times of quiet reflection if it is okay for someone to cry throughout their entire life story if that’s the way they feel and if it gets them through in the end to become a stronger person.

  None of your cousins is marked like this. Only you.

  The scene of the paper cinema changes, and the same girl is now getting up on a stage and shaking hands with a woman who looks thrilled to be handing her a certificate and a wrapped present. The girl squints into the audience, but it is hard to see under the bright lights. All she knows is that everyone is clapping and some people are standing in their seats and someone takes her photo because it is a great achievement.

  You can’t read what is written on the certificate, but the girl is smiling and covering her mouth in surprise, and it is only many years later, when it all happens to you, for real, that you understand what it says:

  PREMIER’S SHORT STORY WRITING CONTEST

  OVERALL STATE HIGH SCHOOL WINNER:

  MEIXING LIM

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Paper Clip

  The following days are weird and frightening, in the sense that they merge into one monster of a nightmare, yet each of them are individually terrible, as though the monster has different faces. Ma Ma preoccupies herself with pulling out what appears to be an endless supply of bedding and bath towels from Big Scary’s linen closet as she readies herself for guests. The washing machine is on all hours of the morning and evening, and even when you are at school, you imagine it still spinning.

  Perhaps the loud clanging sound of the ancient machine helps to drown out the thoughts in both your heads. All you know is that every morning Ma Ma is trying to ignore you by not being around. You dress yourself, defrost a breakfast bao in the microwave, and place the lunch Mrs. Huynh has packed for you in your burlap bag. From the top of the back step, you stand and watch Ma Ma hang out the laundry, the cold winter wind pushing the sheets up and flapping them about like ghosts.

  One very early morning Ailing is the first to arrive. She is the youngest of all your aunts, except you are not allowed to called her Aunty. You have to call her by her first name only, Ailing. It doesn’t really make any sense because, out of courtesy, you are forced to call all manner of people who aren’t related to you Aunty, like Mrs. Huynh next door.

  You know that Ailing was given upon birth to your Ah Ma’s best friend, Madam Pearl, who had watched from her big beautiful house up at Dragon’s Tail as Ah Ma gave birth to one son and seven daughters and then an eighth daughter, all the while Madam Pearl remaining childless herself. Ma Ma had always told you in a flippant manner that Ah Ma gave Ailing away to maintain the friendship and to stop Madam Pearl from getting even more jealous. You think that maybe Ma Ma is jealous, as Ailing grew up rich, has had an expensive education in a Fancy Faraway Land, and doesn’t need a man to look after her.

  Ailing, though, has the saddest eyes you have ever seen. You have a feeling it’s not only because of Ba Ba’s passing, but because she is always sad. She goes to put her arms around Ma Ma and give her a kiss on the cheek, because that is the custom from the Fancy Faraway Land, but Ma Ma pulls away awkwardly, because Ma Ma is very Old Land.

  Ailing is busy as soon as she’s inside and has access to a phone, talking to the funeral home, settling legal matters, and organizing flights for your other six Aunties in her gentle voice that speaks the New Language perfectly, but somehow differently at the same time. Like how she asks Ma Ma if she has any breakfast “yog-gurt” and it takes you a while to realize she is asking for “yo-gurt,” the little tubs you’ve seen in lunch boxes at school. Ma Ma does not know either way since she’s never heard of such a food.

  “Do you want me to invite anyone from your husband’s side?” Ailing asks Ma Ma, switching easily back to the Old Language.

  “No,” Ma Ma says firmly with her mouth in a straight line.

  “Do you think this will cause drama?”

  “There is already enough drama within our family for an entire Peking opera.”

  “That is true.”

  “It is my husband, my rules.”

  Ailing purses her lips, shrugs, and goes to open the pantry. She takes out flour and, from the very back, a container of baking powder, which she shakes. The lump at the bottom of the container doesn’t move. You don’t know how long that baking powder has been in the pantry, a stray leftover from First Uncle perhaps.

  Eggs are cracked and milk splashed and Ailing is cooking fragrant round disks in a frying pan. You don’t know why, but you feel instantly comforted.

  “Pancakes,” says Ailing, and she slides one onto a plate for you. It is very good. You hope for another.

  Ma Ma stares at Ailing as if she is a new species of alien. Then she bends over with great difficulty and takes out the great big metal steamer from the cupboard.

  “I’m going to teach you to make kueh,” she says to Ailing.

  You love kueh. Your mouth waters at the thought of biting into those sweet, chewy pieces of tapioca. You hope it is the nine-layer rainbow one.

  “Using Ah Ma’s special recipe,” says Ma Ma. “No one has a better recipe, not even the sellers at the pasar malam.”

  Ailing’s eyes soften and take on a wistful look as she thinks of the desserts at the night market.

  You want to stay behind and hang around your aunt like a dog hangs around a person it has taken to, but you’ve learned your lesson about asking to stay home on a school day. You wave a shy goodbye to Ailing. She smiles and tells you to have a nice day. This small but kind gesture that Ma Ma has never indulged you with makes you feel good on the inside.

  Ailing eyes your burlap bag and her mouth makes a funny twitch, but you hope that she can see it’s only because Ma Ma can’t afford anything better, not because you are being neglected.

  * * *

  That afternoon your schedule at school changes. Miss Cicely tells you and Kevin to step out of the class and report to Ms. Jardine’s room. A spark of excitement like a miniature firework explodes in the darkness inside you, and you stand up like a shot. As you both make your way to the door, all eyes in the classroom are on you and you start to feel embarrassed. Your former friend whispers with the other girls, and they break out in tiny laughter.

  “They are lovers,” you hear her say. “Both as dumb as each other! Going to special class together!”

  You wish that Miss Cicely would tell your former friend to be quiet and not to talk out of turn, as those are Miss Cicely’s rules, but your teacher likes your friend. That is because she is everything you are not: spirited, confident, and poised. You pull a frown and hurry out of the classroom, putting a wide space between you and Kevin.

  Kevin tries to walk alongside you, but you keep hurrying on ahead. When you realize you don’t know the direction to Ms. Jardine’s room, you slow down and start trailing behind. He stops walking to allow you to catch up. You stop as well and refuse to walk while he isn’t walking. He scowls at you.

  That is why it takes you by surprise when he suddenly turns arou
nd and marches right up to you. You look around in desperation, but you have no choice but to stand where you are, as running away from him would be plain embarrassing. You will have to take the consequences of playing the silly game you started. He stops in front of you, takes hold of your wrist, makes you open your hand, and drops your Ah Ma’s gold ring in your palm.

  You stare at him, speechless as usual, but more so, as even the words inside your head, of all the things you want to say, have disappeared.

  “I stole it back off her before class this morning.”

  You stand there like a statue.

  “So do you want it or not?” he says irritably.

  You close your hand around the ring and drop your arm by your side. Thank you, you mouth.

  That is how you end up walking side by side over the green lawn and around the school lake, to a rickety old portable classroom standing on wooden legs. A huge mound of mulch beside it seems to have been there so long, it has solidified into a mountain.

  Kevin marches straight in without hesitation and you linger by the doorway, allowing yourself to look by pretending you are not looking at anything.

  It’s so pleasant and inviting. Shelves line the back of the classroom, brimming with books. There is a round rug, tufted with many different shaggy colors, and beanbag chairs around it.

  Sitting inside already, at one of the desks arranged into a small circle instead of rows, is the boy you recognize as the shy, comic-reading kid who Kevin had pushed in the assembly area that one time at lunch. Kevin sits down next to him without thinking this might make the boy uncomfortable or scared. But the boy doesn’t look fazed; his tongue sticks out the corner of his mouth as he concentrates on the work in front of him.