The Wondrous Woo

by Carrianne Leung

  “What about you? What happened to you?” This was the question I dreaded most. If Ba had given The Gifts to them, then why not also to me?

  “Nothing.”

  “How did that make you feel, Miramar?”

  “How did I feel? I don’t know. It was pretty overwhelming.” I decided right there I did not want to think anymore. I wanted to remove my head and pour it in the doctor’s lap. Maybe she could sort it out, repair it and give it back to me and I would be good to go.

  “Maybe … maybe, I wasn’t worthy of it,” I stammered. My hands began to sweat.

  “Really? But you seem like a good person. I mean, Darwin and Sophia think you’re the best thing since sliced bread. And they said you were always the good kid, the one closest to your dad. Why would he leave you out?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ll have to think about that.”

  “Good. I hope you do. That’s all for today, Miramar. Would you come see me again sometime? I mean, to help me with Darwin and Sophia?” She stood up, smoothing her grey tweed skirt.

  “Sure. I’m here every day to see Ma anyway.” I also quickly got up.

  “That’s great. I’m always free around noon to two. Maybe we can have lunch sometime.” She walked toward the door, putting her glasses back on as she did.

  “I’d like that.” I said it to be polite, because like she said, I had always been the good kid. But then as soon as I said it, I realized I meant it completely.

  Chapter 33 ~

  After ten years of battle, Kue made her way home. As she neared her village, she saw two figures approaching her. She ran to them, not believing that she was not alone in the world. Their faces had changed, their limbs grown longer, and they towered over her. But they recognized her immediately and called her Ga Jia — Big Sister.

  THAT CHINESE NEW YEAR in February, with Ma still a stone figure in her room, Sophia, Darwin, and I went to Swiss Chalet. In a corner booth among cheerful families, we ordered the works: rotisserie chicken, hand-cut fries, and apple pie. It wasn’t the elaborate meal we were used to having from Ma’s kitchen, but we had made a promise to each other that we would be together, and here in this booth in this restaurant, we were. This fact was so singular and special it demoted all the other seasonal traditions to secondary. Besides, we loved Swiss Chalet. As kids, we had always begged to come here, but Ma had always scoffed that it was a major rip-off. “You want chicken? I make you chicken,” Sophia imitated Ma. Darwin and I cracked up.

  “Remember the year Ba brought us here when Ma went on that church trip to see the fall colours in Muskoka?” I reminded them.

  “And Ba told us not to tell Ma!” Darwin chimed in. That year, the four of us had eaten our Swiss Chalet meal like we were committing a felony. It made the forbidden chicken even that much more delectable in our minds and stomachs.

  “We had funny parents,” Sophia said.

  “Hey. Ma’s still here,” I interjected. We all fell silent.

  “I don’t mind just hanging around and waiting for Ma to wake up. Anyway, it beats being a musical prodigy,” Darwin stated as he forked some coleslaw into his mouth.

  “Really?” I was a little more surprised than I was when Sophia had told me she had not found her Gift to be all that. He had seemed to somehow embrace his life as a musical prodigy more personally.

  “Hell, yeah,” he continued. “When was the last time I got to spend so much time just being a kid?” He smiled shyly. “I also get to hang out with the two of you.”

  “Wow, Darwin. You actually like your icky sisters?” Sophia teased him.

  “Yeah, you’re all right.”

  “What about music, Dar?” I asked.

  “I like music. I still want to play. In fact,” he sighed and lowered his voice. “I actually think it might be coming back a little.” He eyed us nervously. “But swear you won’t tell anyone!”

  “What?” Sophia and I both shrieked at the same time, and then, by habit, we yelled, “Jinx.”

  Darwin leaned in closer to us. “I’m just not sure what I want to do about it yet.”

  “Seriously, Darwin?” Sophia asked.

  “Yah. I picked up my school violin yesterday and started to play. I can do it. It’s coming back.”

  I was speechless. I could not believe he had not told us this before.

  “But look. I want to make the decisions this time with what I want to do, okay? I don’t want to go back to London. I don’t want to be performing again. I need a break. And I think I want to start my own band. I like rock. Not so thrilled about classical anymore.” He continued to eat, gnawing on a drumstick.

  Sophia and I just stared at him. He was so mature. I was acquiring a new respect for my brother.

  “That sounds pretty good, Darwin.”

  “Nothing’s happening to me,” Sophia said.

  “But do you want it to?” I asked her.

  She thought about it. “Not sure. If it did come back, I wish it would come back as something else. Not math. Maybe in fashion design or something.” She studied her fork as she considered the possibilities.

  “You probably don’t have to wait for The Gifts to return for that, Sophia. You’re pretty good at ripping apart your clothes and sewing them back together already,” Darwin commented.

  “This is true,” I agreed.

  “Hmmm,” was all Sophia said.

  All in all it was a wonderful dinner in many ways, reminiscent of our first time with Ba when the chicken was the juiciest I had ever had. But, despite having my siblings back and by my side, all the food, even the pie, tasted like nothing. Ma was still wasting away, alone, in her room.

  Chapter 34 ~

  There was one more thing Lian needed to do before she returned home to vanquish the enemies who had occupied her village. She travelled to the bamboo grove to visit the old sage. She had heard he had the secret that could unleash a thousand years of peace. When she got there, she only saw an ancient man who had grown roots and was melded to a tree. She asked for the secret, but he appeared to be sleeping. After much poking, he finally lifted his head and met her eyes. His were cloudy and blue with age. He took her hand and dropped thin air onto her palm, and said, “Here you go.”

  “What did you give me?” she demanded.

  “You better figure that out yourself, little girl. Don’t you know all Chinese fables end this way? Now, shoo. I need to get back to sleep. Damn tourists.”

  ON DAYS WHEN I WAS ALONE with Ma, I tried to keep up some level of chatter just so she could hear my voice. I told her how Sophia was planning to apply to fashion design school and seemed really excited, while Darwin had returned to school and was hanging out with all his old friends again. We had made some room in the basement for his Atari, so everyone could come over and have a place to hang out. He was a teenager, after all. I had never talked to her this much in my life, but even with all the news about my siblings, I ran out of easy things to say. There were, of course, other things I wanted to say. Like that I was sorry for leaving her. That I was beginning to understand some things. These sentiments did not come easily, but one day I forced myself. I stumbled with them but it got easier the more I talked. It would have been a nice touch, I thought, to do it in Cantonese, so I actually tried, even without having the right vocabulary. I took my time and stretched it out over many visits. I also did things I had always wanted to do but never had the chance to. I stroked her hair, touched her face. I tried to bring her back to me, to love her differently.

  One afternoon, I took the elevator down to Dr. Fey’s floor. I was hoping to bump into her, make it seem like a chance encounter. I did not see her then, so I began doing it every day at lunchtime. It took me a week, but one day, I caught her coming out of her office. There was something so elegant and competent about her, the way she dressed in luxurious knits and wools, wore clean perfume, and exuded
an easygoing warmth.

  I cruised by her as if I was on my way to somewhere.

  “Hey, Miramar,” she called after me.

  I swivelled and feigned surprise. “Hi, Dr. Fey.” I walked back to her door.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Um, just taking a walk. I was visiting Ma.”

  She smiled. “Wanna have that lunch?”

  “Sure.”

  And so, that was how it started. Each Tuesday and Thursday, while Dr. Fey ate a sandwich in the cafeteria, I told her stories about Ba, Ma, Sophia, Darwin, and me. And kung fu. And Mouse. Dr. Fey laughed at my stories. She said I had a gift for storytelling. Mouse would’ve been proud on my behalf. I vaguely let myself wonder if anything would ever happen to our scripts.

  “What are you going to do about this young man, Mouse?” she asked me one day between bites of her tuna sandwich.

  “I don’t know. What should I do?”

  “Do you like him? Like, really like him?” she teased.

  “Yeah. I do.” I smiled at the thought of Mouse and his antics. ”I love him.” There, I had said it, and saying it out loud made me realize how true and simple it was.

  “Well, that’s the answer to your question then.”

  If only everything were that easy. I could only deal with one thing at a time. First, I had to wait for Ma to do something, anything. Until then, I could not talk to Mouse. I did not have enough room in my body left for more than one complication at a time. But I missed him. I wanted to see his smile, to hear his loud laugh. As much as I assumed we lived exclusively in make-believe, it occurred to me that Mouse was the most real thing that had happened to me since Ba died.

  I had been staying in Scarborough for three weeks when Dr. Fey presented me with a theory. We were in the cafeteria and it was humming with people. I had to lean in to hear her. “Perhaps the grief of losing your father caused some kind of neurological process in Sophia and Darwin. Some tapping of a certain part of their neocortex resulting in their sudden extraordinary talents.”

  I considered this. “But why did they lose The Gifts? And at about the same time? What, they got over their grief, just like that?” I asked.

  “Have you?” She sipped her tea.

  “No. I’ll never get over it.” Since coming home, I missed Ba more than ever.

  “I didn’t think so. I don’t think they will either. But maybe something changed. Some shift. Maybe they’re ready to cope with their loss without The Gifts now.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.

  “The human spirit is a resilient thing. It has the will to do whatever it takes to survive, even thrive, under the most horrendous circumstances. Perhaps your sister and brother needed The Gifts. Temporarily. Until they were able to let them go and live life without your father.”

  “And me?”

  “You, Miramar, seem to be resourceful enough without The Gifts.” She considered this for a moment. “Or,” she smiled, “your Ba really was responsible for The Gifts, and he’s saving one for you.”

  “That’s not a very scientific explanation.” I arched my eyebrows at her.

  “I know.” She nudged me with her elbow. “Cool, eh?” She paused. “There’s something else I need to tell you. You know how I asked you to see me that first time, to help me with Sophia and Darwin?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it was actually Sophia and Darwin’s idea. They thought maybe I could help you.”

  I jerked back in my chair.

  “They thought it would be good for you to have someone to talk to.” She looked at me expectantly.

  “Really?” I sat way back in my chair. I thought I was back to help them, but here they were trying to help me. I imagined how I must have seemed to them then, and yup, I probably did come across as pretty fucked up.

  “Yes. What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think about that?” I asked. Maybe I actually did need some major help of the psychiatric kind.

  “I think, as a professional and all, that you’re okay, kid.” She gave me a wink and took a big bite of her sandwich.

  “And Ma? What about Ma?” I asked.

  Dr. Fey chewed thoughtfully and considered my question. “That remains to be seen, Miramar. I think your Ma has a long way to travel to come back. Hopefully, she’s making her way.”

  I nodded. It seemed Ma’s way was to finally give herself the solitude she needed to regroup, to let go of what she knew and loved and missed so badly; our way was to screw up and fall down and get back up and try again. All any of us wanted was to get back to normal, but normal was over. There was no normal, and all we had was now. I did not know what it was, this current state, and suspected it would be a long haul before we got to where we were supposed to go.

  Chapter 35 ~

  In the final challenge, it would take all of them to come together — the servant girl, the undercover princess, the bandit queen, the shepherdess, the blind girl, the woman warrior, the assassin. The women gathered in a circle and took up their kung fu stances and waited. Their ribbons flew like flags from their hair, their limbs, their swords, and their staffs. They would have to use all their powers to change fate and redetermine their destiny. The universe was held in a precarious balance between what was right and what was to be.

  ONE NIGHT AFTER MIDNIGHT, the phone rang. I groped for my glasses on the night table, stumbled out of bed, and hurried to the kitchen phone.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m calling from Scarborough General. Is this Ga Bo Woo’s daughter?”

  My legs turned weak. Oh my God, please do not let her be dead, I thought to myself, please.

  “Mrs. Woo is not in her bed. Is she with you?” The person at the other end struggled to sound professional even though I could hear the panic in her voice.

  I gripped the receiver. “No. I just saw her. I fed her dinner. She was the same as always. Are you sure you’re talking about my mother? Room 921?”

  “Yes, dear. I’m sorry, no need to be concerned. She must be around here somewhere. We do hourly check-ins with the patients, but in between that time, she must have gotten out of bed—”

  “I’ll be right there.” I hung up and yelled, “Sophia, Darwin! Get up. Ma’s missing!” Then I ran back to the bedroom and flicked the light switch on, looking for clothes. Sophia sat up and shook her head of sleep.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Get dressed. Ma’s missing.” She snapped awake and joined me on the floor, looking through our piles of clothes for something to put on. Darwin ran into the room, already dressed.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” he cried.

  We took a taxi to the hospital. Now that it was March, the worst of winter was behind us. The asphalt was wet with the thawing snow. We drove through the dark, empty streets. I held Darwin and Sophia’s hands in mine. The woman on the phone had assured me Ma was likely close by, that they would find her, that maybe she was having a stroll in the halls, but I knew that something was terribly wrong.

  “She’s gone. We searched everywhere,” the doctor in charge of the night shift told us. My stomach dropped. I had hoped I was just being dramatic, that my sense of impending doom was stupid. “We have security looking all over the building for her. She couldn’t have gone far. She’s only in her hospital gown.”

  We were told to wait. I couldn’t bear it. Sophia, Darwin, and I rode up and down the escalator, checking on every floor. Finally, I was convinced she simply was not there.

  “Miramar, we have to do something!” Sophia’s teeth were chattering.

  “I know, I know. Let me think.” There was only one person in the world I could call. I looked at a clock; it was two-thirty a.m. Maybe Mouse was still at Dusk. I ran to the pay phone in the waiting room, called Directory Assistance and got connected
to the bar’s line.

  “Allo?” I heard people and music. The place was still going strong.

  “Is Mouse there, please.”

  “Mouse. Hold up.” I heard muffled sounds and then someone yelling, “Mouse, phone’s for you.” I did not know how to feel: happy, nervous, grateful? I sighed, relief rushing through my body.

  “Wai?” Mouse answered.

  “Mouse. It’s me, Miramar. I need your help.”

  “Miramar? Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “Can you get a car? My Ma is missing.”

  “Give me the address. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  We hung up and it occurred to me that whether I was asking him to go around the block or journey to another country, when Mouse said he would be here in twenty minutes, I completely believed him.

  Mouse and I drove around the area surrounding the hospital. We crawled at a snail’s pace through the residential streets with a flashlight Mouse brought from the bar. Sophia and Darwin remained at the hospital in case someone found her. At every pay phone, I stopped to check in. She was nowhere. She had vanished, like vapour.

  We were in a beat-up Ford Escort that had holes in the floor, which flooded us with the cool air outside and the loud rumble of the engine. Bull, the owner of Dusk, lent it to Mouse.

  “Thanks for coming so quickly,” I said while we drove.

  “No problem. You’ve never asked me for help before, ya know.”

  I stared straight ahead.

  “It’s nice,” he said as he scanned the streets.

  We kept our eyes on the sidewalks, searching every crevice and shadow. Sometimes, cats appeared out of the darkness, flushed out of hiding by our roving flashlight. Each street seemed like a carbon copy of the other and soon we felt as if we had gone down the same street twice.

  We widened our circumference from the hospital, making larger loops through the suburban terrain. Finally, we were getting closer to my neighbourhood. At the next plaza, we stopped so I could call Sophia and Darwin at the hospital again. They still hadn’t found Ma. Mouse and I continued our drive until I began to direct him toward my house.