“Do you want to learn how to drive the car?”
She realizes that there are no conditions attached, or rather that she has already met the conditions. A small smirk precipitates beneath her nose, and electricity courses through her body. “Sure. Are you sure Mom won’t get mad?”
“Mom won’t need to know.”
A smile stretches from cheek to cheek. “Okay,” she says. Mingfang skips to the swings, and she swings, kicking her feet up high in the sky. Christmas brings out the best in people, even mean older brothers.
Some twenty minutes later, she stands at the door of the banana car. She looks at me through the driver’s side window. I am sitting in the middle of the front seat. She is still not sure if this is for real, and if it is, if it’s okay. But if it isn’t okay, I can see that makes her even happier. No one but her big brother would let her do this. And even he is acting strange. She opens the door slowly, as if it were the lid to a magical treasure chest.
“Okay, go ahead and sit in the seat.”
She giggles as she settles down on two pillows I have set up on the seat. She is only four and a half feet tall, and without the cushions, she wouldn’t be able to see above the dash. She grabs the steering wheel with both hands and peers through the windshield as if she were already driving. “Start the car by turning the key,” I tell her. She turns the key slightly. “No,” I tell her, “you need to turn the key harder.” She puts her shoulder into it as I pump the accelerator.
Vroom! “There you go,” I say. “Okay. Now I have my feet on the accelerator and brake. I’m going to reverse the car first, and then after that, we’ll drive.” I maneuver the car into the center of the kindergarten parking lot. Good thing there are no kids here. I put the car in drive, and Mingfang lets the car coast in a straight line until we reach the edge of the lot. And then she tries to make a left by turning the steering wheel ninety degrees. I step on the brake before we hit the curb.
“It’s hard to turn the steering wheel,” she says. The banana car has no power steering. I rotate the steering wheel all the way to the left. “I didn’t know you had to turn the steering wheel so much to make it turn,” she adds.
We turn to the left and keep turning to the left, and we make slow doughnuts in the middle of the parking lot. Cutie giggles with glee, “Heeheehee!” The sun shines brilliantly, and the sky sings a true blue. On the faint smudge of the moon, I can almost make out the innocent face of Hello Kitty.
“Watch out!” We’re about to smash into the kindergarten. She arduously turns the wheel, and we roll alongside the kindergarten and not into it. She kicks up her feet and bounces on the pillows. We turn again.
“Wow,” she says. “It’s really hard turning the steering wheel. I thought you just needed to turn the wheel a little bit.”
We turn the wrong way down a one-way street, and we pass the front pavilion of the school. We turn into the parking lot next to the gym and cruise around. “This is neat!” She smiles at me. We drive a few laps in the parking lot before I put on the brakes for good. She turns to me. “Thanks, Chi. That was so fun! Can we do it again?”
“Maybe tomorrow, on Christmas Day.”
“Okay. You’re the best.” She sniffles and smiles.
“Let’s go home. I don’t want your cold to get worse.” I sit down in the driver’s seat. “And please don’t tell Mom about this.”
“Okay.” She beams. “I promise.”
14
Wake Up!
Christmas Morning, 1987;
College Station, Texas
I launch out from beneath the covers, and the cold hits me. I shiver all over. I walk into the living room, hoping, just hoping. Wiping away the condensation on the window, I peer outside searching for a white ground, a patch of white, any fleck of white. The Bermuda grass of our front lawn is dry and wilted. Another brown Christmas morning.
I turn around and look at the two handmade red and white stockings pinned to the living room wall. Mine will be filled with what I get every year: long tube socks and a red and gold Chinese envelope carrying one twenty-dollar bill.
I walk into the kitchen. My mother is rolling bean paste into balls, then wrapping dough around them. We can’t afford Nintendo, but time is free, and my mother gives all of hers.
“Merry Christmas, Mom!”
“Merry Christmas.”
“What are you making?”
“Bean cakes.”
“You mean bean grenades. They are just the right size to pound Mingfang’s head with. They smell so disgusting. You know that I’ve never eaten one. Besides, don’t we have the bean grenades from last Christmas?”
“Leave me alone to do my work. Go wake Cutie up. She’s usually the first person to open her presents.”
“Oh, let me guess, Mom. It’s socks and a twenty-dollar bill!”
“Leave me alone,” says my mother, having not changed her tone the entire time.
I carry the “bean bombs” to my sister’s bedroom door. I tap lightly on the door. No response. A sign on the door shouts, “Stay Out!”
“Mingfang,” I say. “Mingfang. I have your Christmas presents for you. They’re nice and tasty.” No response. The door opens on its own. I stick my head into her room. “Wake up! It’s Christmastime.”
She is lying on her side with her back facing me. “Wake up, Mingfang,” I say mischievously. “Don’t you want to eat these bean grenades? Come on, wake up, sleepyhead.” I shake her shoulder; she falls supine. Her hands and face are light blue. The bottom half of her body is a dark blue. Horror wrenches my body. My hand carefully touches her face. It is icy cold. I jerk back. “Mom!” I scream. “Mom! Come here!” My mother’s feet pitter-patter across the linoleum floor, slide against the carpet as they run into Mingfang’s room. Chinese bean cakes make a dull thud on the ground. A scream reverberates within the four walls of my sister’s room. My eyes dilate. Shock anesthetizes my mind. Like a forklift, I stick my arms under my sister’s icy body, and I carry her into the living room.
Fwuoooo. Fwuoo. Her lips are cold and pasty. Her chest rises with every breath pushed into her lungs from my own, just like the mannequin Annies in our high school health class. My hands push into my sister’s chest. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”
She died hours ago. I knew that as soon as I touched her face. The breath of life that blows into her chest is my own, filling a hollow cavity to circulate meaninglessly. I am breathing for myself, for my mother, for the appeasement of our souls, to let us know we are doing something, so that we may more clearly hear ourselves screaming, futilely, at God: No!
Fwuooo. Fwuoooo. “One, two, three, four, five . . .” Sirens knife into my ears. The red lights of the ambulance shine like a beacon, leading me where? I fear to tread this path. I stare into Mingfang’s eyes, and she looks deeper into my eyes than she ever did alive.
Two men and a woman in white jumpers walk into our living room. The woman and a tall man lay out a stretcher. They look up at the chubby man, who says, “Let’s resuscitate her here. Please step aside, son.” I step back and sit on the couch. Can’t stand.
Shmack! My sister’s body lurches up as if she might burst through the ceiling. The defibrillator jolts artificial life into her small body. “Turn up the joules,” says the woman. “Clear!” says the chubby man. Shmack! My sister jolts up again, possessed by the spirit of medical technology. The woman places a plastic mask over Mingfang’s face and pumps air into her mouth. “Clear!” Shmack! She is still limp. Still cold. Still blue.
“Okay, let’s take her to the hospital,” says the woman. She turns to my mother, who has remained standing, with the same expression on her face, unburdened by fear or despair but taut with readiness. Just tell me what I can do, her face says. “Ma’am,” says the female medic, “we are going to take your daughter to Saint Joseph Hospital. Do you want to ride in the ambulance with us?”
“No. I go by car,” my mother replies, and she runs into Mingfang’s room.
The two men strap Mingfa
ng onto the stretcher and carry her out the front door. Sirens fade away. My mother comes back into the living room, holding a bag.
“What’s in the bag?” I ask.
“Mingfang’s clothes. I am going to the hospital,” she tells me in Taiwanese. “Call your father and older sister and tell them to come home.” My mother hops into the banana car and drives away. My father is visiting his parents in Taiwan, and my sister now lives in San Antonio with her husband. I am alone now.
What just happened? I want to be a little ball, curled up like a roly-poly bug shielded from the world by its exoskeleton. I sit in shock for a long time.
I switch on the television. The Green Bay Packers are playing in one foot of snow at Lambeau Field. The snow falls quietly on the players and the grass. The game of moving a piece of leather one hundred yards to an end zone is oddly soothing. I cling to my sister’s favorite animal, a life-size teddy bear. Time passes. Passes.
The doorbell rings, and I nearly jump off the couch. Who is here on Christmas morning? I open the door. A big-boned policeman introduces himself and says, “Sorry to disturb you, but I need to investigate the house.”
The policeman walks into Mingfang’s room and looks at the homemade banners on her wall and the jumble of stuffed animals on her shelves. He picks up a bottle of amoxicillin sitting on the desk. The pediatrician had prescribed the antibiotics for her cold. He opens the container and sniffs at it. “Did your sister take any illegal drugs?”
“No, sir.”
“Did she ever tell you that she wanted to kill herself?”
I think about this question. Was Mingfang happy? I don’t know. “No, sir,” I say.
The policeman wants to know why Mingfang died. Yes, why did she die? This man is probably a Christian. Officer, please tell me why your God chose to kill my sister on Christmas morning.
He opens each drawer of Mingfang’s desk, inspecting the Hello Kitty pencils I gave her for suffering through obstacle courses. We walk into the living room. The Packers just scored a touchdown. The wide receiver showboats in the end zone. I take a seat on the couch and hug my sister’s bear. The officer looks at me. “Would you like me to stay for a while?”
“No, sir. I will be fine. Thank you though.”
The door shuts and I am alone again. I make a call to my older sister. The answering machine picks up. “Zee-zee!” I say. Big sister, where are you? Tears stream down my face. “Zee-zee! Zee-zee! Are you there? Pick up! Cutie died. Mei-mei died. Zee-zee, where are you?”
I sit on the couch again. My lips continue to tremble as my eyes soak Mingfang’s teddy bear. I want to wail. I want to wail from the pit of my diaphragm. But what good would it do? I flip the channels: MTV, ESPN, CNN, ABC, NBC. I don’t want to be alone.
Hours later, I call my buddy Chris Dinkel. “Hey, Chris. I was wondering if you could drive me to get something to eat. My sister just died and I am hungry.” I state my sister’s death as a matter of fact. I am full of emotion at one moment and devoid of feeling at another.
After lunch with Chris, I sit on the couch again, staring off into space. Another knock on the door. A stout man with a peppered beard stands before me. He carries a black leather Bible. “Hello,” he pronounces slowly in a Texas twang, “my name is Pastor John.” He hands me a card:
Pastor John
2nd Baptist Church of College Station
In the love of Jesus!
I gaze into his eyes as I consider how utterly cheesy his card is.
“May I come in?”
Sure. Why not? At least he’ll talk. The next twenty minutes are a blur. Pastor John speaks of love and Jesus’ concern for us during times of tragedy. His words sink in as deeply as an echo does into the Grand Canyon. Finally, he asks me, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
I want to tell Pastor John that the bubble that was my world—a world that made a little sense, a world of some minimal pretense of justice—has popped. Don’t waste your time on me, I want to tell him. Maybe you can ask your Jesus why He kills innocent kids.
“Yes,” I say to Pastor John. “Can you take me to Saint Joseph Hospital?” Pastor John graciously agrees, and we climb into his Ford Ranger truck.
Mingfang lies on a white hospital bed, and my mother sits at her feet. I hand the bear to my mother and stand before Mingfang’s face. A thick crust of blood stains the left side of her mouth. Out of her nose sticks an offensive tube leading to a suction container, wherein percolates green mucus. Her frozen chest, her slackened face, the pall of death veiling her undramatically—seeing all this, I know for sure now. Christmas brings no miracles.
My mother does not take her eyes off of Mingfang. She cares for Cutie more than me or Chiufang because Mingfang is the weakest of her three. Mothers protect the most vulnerable. The ones God has determined to die prematurely. The mothers of the world universally scream, “No!” But today, my mother wasn’t strong enough to defy God or fate or whatever it is. Mingfang’s spirit was stolen away in the night. Why He would take my sister instead of taking me I do not understand. My life has been blessed in so many ways. Take me. Take me. Take me instead! Yet I am still here, and she is gone.
A nurse enters. “Ma’am, we’ll need to use this room for trauma cases.”
“Oh.” My mother looks confusedly at the nurse. “Sure. Um. We will leave as soon as my daughter wakes up.”
15
Just One More Time
December 26, 1987;
Rider Funeral Home, College Station, Texas
The mortician is a little middle-aged man wearing a suit from the 1960s. His skin is a jaundiced yellow, exposed to too much artificial light. He is developing a small hump on his upper back. My father looks at the mortician, wondering how to broach the subject. He has just flown in on the red-eye from Taiwan. He was there visiting his parents, whom he hadn’t seen in years. Sheepishly, my father asks, “Um, can I see my daughter?”
Embarrassed, I tell him, “Dad, I thought we were going to pick out a casket.”
He waves me off.
“Well,” says the mortician, “your daughter has not been removed from the refrigerator.” Refrigerator? She must be cold. No. I am being silly. She is dead. I just keep forgetting.
“Uh, Dad,” Chiufang says, “I don’t think it’s such a good idea. Mingfang’s body is still blue in some areas. The morticians haven’t done the cosmetic work yet.”
My father ponders this for a long moment. “Okay,” he says, “we will wait until the funeral.”
“How much cost—box?” my mother asks.
The mortician jerks his head toward my mother. He is caught off guard. My mother has changed the tone. It is time to get things done.
“Well”—the mortician points at a shimmering hardwood casket—“this fine model is airtight, and it is five thousand dollars.”
“Too much,” says my mother. She leads us to a Ford Escort–type casket. “How much?”
“That one is two thousand dollars.”
“Okay, we take,” my mother replies. “We go now. You prepare everything.”
I sit, hunched over and limbs cramped, at Mingfang’s desk. This rickety old hand-me-down is where Mingfang studies. Sticky contact paper covers the desktop, and atop it resides a panoply of trinkets and small toys. On the right side of her desk stands a picture of Mingfang wearing a tutu, standing in a ballet pose. And on the wall behind the desk is taped a newspaper clipping of me winning a ribbon for my science project, which addressed the effects of aspartame artificial sweetener, as a possible neurotransmitter, on the heart rhythms of cockroaches. The project won second place in the Life Sciences category at my high school. I cut open roaches and placed NutraSweet directly on their hearts. It all seems so silly now. Even perverse.
Mingfang idolized me. She couldn’t excel in school, so she did it through me, posting every clipping on her bulletin board. From me, any bit of warmth expanded in her heart exponentially. Instead of warmth, I gave her help. What I thought she needed
. I made her run laps in the cold.
I pick up her Cabbage Patch doll. She got it last year despite my mother’s reservations. I don’t even know its name. A silvery, aerodynamic Matchbox car sits precariously on the base of the study lamp. Its windows are tinted, and the small doors open and shut. It’s odd that Mingfang, a girl, collected cars. This was her dream car, this silver Mazda RX-7.
I tilt the desk drawer up in order to open it. Tucked squarely in the back right-hand corner of the drawer is a stack of worn blue playing cards. It was a part of her ritual at night to play cards, usually by herself and sometimes with my mother or me. Crazy Eights. Hearts. Twenty-one.
I look around her room. I read the banner above me: “Mingfang’s Room.” She will never again shout out from behind this door, “I didn’t need that!” What if I had studied less, played less tennis, and spent more time with Mingfang? What if we all acted like we loved the ones we claim to love? What would the world be like? There’d be less technology, less production, fewer things, but used for better purposes. We’d all know the names of each other’s Cabbage Patch dolls.
Mingfang lies before us in an open casket, watching heaven. In the front row of pews sit my father, my mother, Chiufang, and me. My father sits stone still. Then he doubles over, and a terrible sob throbs upward through his body. Tears spray the floor. He shakes. Gee, I have never seen my father cry. I don’t like it. Fathers are not supposed to cry. Stop! Stop your crying. You can’t cry and break down. We need to be strong.
To divert myself, I look behind us. Every pew is packed. All three aisles overflow with people. The throng stretches through the church doors and out onto the lawn, all the way to the walkway. I never knew Mingfang was so well loved; I don’t think she did either.
Chiufang’s husband begins reading the eulogy. I’ve been in no shape to read anything, so we asked him to do it. As I listen to my brother-in-law speak, I hear my own words echoing from the past: “Mingfang, you look like our national bird. Yep, the bald eagle.” “Hey, roly-poly, you better stop eating or else you’ll become just a poly and won’t be able to roll any longer.” Perhaps the simplest one was the most powerful: “Retard!” I was young then. I didn’t understand why she was treated the best even though she wasn’t good at much. I was so mean, such a jerk, until the last hours of her life. Now it’s too late to make it up to her.
When Invisible Children Sing Page 13