by Lillian Li
She couldn’t remember when she’d started letting her son live his own life. She wanted to believe it was because she trusted him. Because Pat was a good boy. Even after the sudden dip in his grades (despite the study sessions), the calls from school, his shocking expulsion, she’d chanted this like a prayer. The other part of the truth was impossible to bear—she was just too tired to stop him.
She might as well have been one of those divorced American fathers who saw his children on alternating weekends and the occasional holiday. At least those parents used their limited time to spoil their children, with trips to amusement parks and arcades. Nan was tempted to sleep straight through her one day off a week, and the times she’d taken Pat to the movies, she’d nodded off before the trailers ended.
“I can go on my own,” Pat had said after she’d slept through another one of the Batman movies. “We shouldn’t buy two tickets if you’re not going to watch.”
Tonight, small blessing, he was at home when she opened the front door. His backpack hung from the staircase. The microwave whirred as she shut the door behind her. She approached the kitchen, her movements careful. Pat was waiting while a frozen pizza made circles in the microwave. He had a new phone in his hand, and her stomach ached at the sight of it. He must not have heard her come in. She should have made more noise. Now she’d have to try to confiscate the phone, just as she had with his last one. When would she fit in her apology for slapping him? She’d never learned that maternal skill of showing love through her scolding, of acknowledging both their faults in her apology. She was always too cruel or too kind.
She rustled the plastic bag she’d carried inside. Pat jumped from the counter. He stashed his phone behind him in his waistband.
“I get you Slurpee,” she said, taking the domed cup out of the bag and pushing it toward him across the kitchen table. She’d spent half an hour driving around, looking for an open 7-Eleven. “In case you thirsty.”
“How’d you know I drink Slurpees?” He seized the cup with both hands. With a decisive squeeze, he popped the plastic cover off and examined the insides with the long, shovel-ended straw. “Coke and blue raspberry. I like these flavors.”
“I pay attention.” She massaged her lower back against the edge of the counter. “To my favorite son.”
“I’m your only son.”
“My only favorite son.”
Pat gave her a small nod. He was a good boy; he let her have this joke every time.
She wasn’t lying when she said she paid attention. She’d noticed the empty Slurpee cups in the trash and the colors that pooled inside the bottom ridge: brown and blue. Just as she had noticed, last month, that he went through the frozen macaroni and cheese faster than the spaghetti and meatballs. She’d made the adjustment the next time she went grocery shopping. She knew when, earlier this year, Pat had started having his friends over, because of the overripe smell of teenage-boy deodorant in the living room, and she knew when the contents of her dusty liquor bottles had started smelling less and less like alcohol. Perhaps these were the same boys who’d talked him into setting that fire, but at the time, she had only stocked the pantry with more chips and salsa and popcorn. She hadn’t asked Pat who his friends were. He wouldn’t have told her the truth.
When she’d first entered the house, she’d spoken her most careful English, different from what she used with customers in the restaurant. She had lowered herself in this uncertain tongue to let him know how sorry she was. But as he drank his Slurpee, she switched to Chinese.
“Where did you get that phone? I took yours away.”
“What phone?”
“Don’t try to lie to me.”
“One of the busboys lent it to me.” He reached back to pull the phone out of his pants. “Filipe.”
“Why would an amigo do that?”
“Don’t call them that,” he said, tucking the phone into his pocket in case she tried to take it. “They have names.”
“You work there one month and you think you’re their savior.” She shoved the 7-Eleven bag under the cupboard and closed the door with a bang. “The amigos can take care of themselves.”
“Whatever.”
“Give me that phone.” She held out her hand.
“I have to give it back to him tomorrow.”
“I’ll give it back for you,” she said. “You’re not allowed to have a phone.”
“I need one.”
She kept her hand open in front of his face.
“This doesn’t have to be so difficult,” she said.
“Okay.” He took the phone out again. Instead of handing it over, he resumed whatever game he’d been playing before. He leaned his elbow casually against the tiled counter. The pizza in the microwave was bubbling over. Nan took a step toward him and Pat took one back, not looking up from the screen. His thumb had stopped moving over the keys. He was feigning interest in a blank screen. The microwave beeped and neither of them moved to open it. What was her son reducing her to? She made a halfhearted lunge for the phone. He moved easily out of her way.
Before Nan was forced to try again, her doorbell sounded out a flurry of rings. She poked her head into the hallway. Pat popped the pizza out of the microwave and followed her out of the kitchen.
“I’m not through with you!” she called over her shoulder. His feet stomped up the stairs.
Without checking to see who was outside, Nan wrenched her front door open. The person behind it fell through, colliding into her arms. Ah-Jack!
She patted him down, looking for an injury. “Are you hurt? Are you okay?”
He quickly straightened up, and she got a good look at his face.
“I’m great!” His voice was loud but hollowed out at the same time. His eyes bulged out of his thin face, rimmed with red. “Never better.”
“I don’t need more liars in my house,” Nan said.
“I’m not lying.” Ah-Jack stumbled through the house, into the kitchen. Pat had left the Slurpee on the table, where a ring of condensation gleamed under the light. Ah-Jack seized the cup and sucked thirstily from the straw. “My blood sugar is a little low. But I’m fine, really.”
“Why are you here in the middle of the night?” she asked. “I know something’s happened, and the longer you keep it from me, the more worried I’m going to get.”
“For you, to think is to worry,” Ah-Jack said, still drinking the Slurpee.
“Does Michelle know you’ve left the house?” Nan pulled out a chair for him. “If she wakes up and you’re not home, what’s she going to think?”
“She’s not home either.” He ignored the chair and ground his knuckles into his temple, grimacing from the chill of his drink. He went over to where Nan kept her liquor.
“Is she okay? Where’s she gone?” She intercepted him as he went to grab a tumbler for his whiskey, taking the bottle away from him. She didn’t want to explain why the whiskey had been replaced by brown-tinged water.
“Stop minding my business,” Ah-Jack protested, but he finally sat down. “I don’t know where she is. I came home and she wasn’t in bed. I called her and when I asked her where she was, she told me she was sorry, but she wasn’t coming home tonight. Then she hung up, and she won’t answer, no matter how many times I call. Now you know everything I know! Are you happy?”
“Of course I’m not.” Nan squatted beside him, her hands balancing on his knee. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I’m sure Michelle has a reasonable explanation. She’s a sensible woman.”
“I don’t know what kind of woman she is anymore,” he said. “Fifty years of marriage, and not a single problem.”
“You’re exhausted.” Nan stood and pulled Ah-Jack up with her. “You’re staying here tonight. I’ll set everything up in the living room, and then you just sleep. Everything will look better in the morning.”
“As if I can sleep now.” He fought back a large yawn.
“Don’t be stubborn, old man.” She pushed him gently into the living
room. “You stay right here. I’ll get you some clean sheets.”
They barely spoke while Nan made up the pullout bed. Her mind moved so quickly that it grew clumsy as she tried to figure out where Ah-Jack’s wife had gone. Michelle was a devoted woman, and very sweet, but she was hardly as simple as Ah-Jack seemed to believe. This was the woman who, after Ah-Jack was diagnosed with diabetes, had thrown out all the flour and sugar in her house. Who, to keep Ah-Jack on his diet, had eaten the leftovers from every meal, gaining over twenty pounds in three months. Nan had never thought a day would come when Ah-Jack was no longer in Michelle’s care.
“Now get in,” Nan said, holding up the blanket for Ah-Jack to squirm under. He’d changed into a pair of old pajamas that Nan had found in the back of her closet, so old she couldn’t figure out if they had belonged to her or her husband. She thought she’d thrown out everything of Ray’s after he’d moved to California, but her husband had a tendency to insert himself into the cracks of her life.
Ah-Jack lowered himself onto the bed, bouncing lightly, as if to test the springs. Nan watched how gingerly he moved and fought the urge to help. She laid the blanket over him and gave his hand a small squeeze.
“I’ll be right upstairs if you need anything,” she said, lowering her voice as she turned out the lights. “Good night.”
She was almost out of the room, already thinking about what she would do with Pat, when she heard Ah-Jack crack one last joke.
“This has absolutely ruined my day off.” His voice was muffled beneath the covers. An old slyness had returned, off-key.
She laughed. It was what he wanted.
*
Nan was nearly at Pat’s door when she heard a noise from out on the street. She didn’t understand what the sounds were—an animal? a car honking?—but an unrecognized instinct kicked in. Pat was about to escape. She had to stop him.
Her eagerness to move made her paralysis all the more painful. Every breath she took marked another moment she might catch her son. One breath, and she could grab him by the elbow; another breath, his hand; yet another, by the collar of his shirt, wrenching him back from the window. A small grunt of effort came from inside; Pat was lowering himself down into the bushes. Her body unlocked.
She crashed into the door. Pat had shoved a stack of clothes and blankets up against it. The door kept catching on the pile, barely opening. She wrestled with the fabric. Finally eking out a space wide enough to get her foot through, she kicked the bundle out of the way and pushed into his room. Only to face an open window.
A warm breeze blew in, fluttering the pages of a comic book he’d left open on his desk. The bells of the good-luck charm she’d nailed over his bed hung silent. Nan gathered the pile of blankets on the ground. She dropped them in a heap at the end of the bed. The outline of a body wrinkled his sheets.
8
When his GPS announced that he’d arrived at his destination, Jimmy double-checked the address. The street he’d pulled onto was short and cramped. No more than a sliver of room existed between houses, thin paths barely wide enough for a person to slide through. Trees along the curb were spindly, newly grown. A steady stream of cars rumbled across a nearby highway bridge.
Jimmy had always assumed that Janine’s calculations carried a queenly detachment. She sold houses to pass time, subdued men for the same reason. Her office was in the middle of downtown Bethesda. She drove a car that cost more than most people’s salaries. Once, while searching for one of her cell phones, she’d pulled a Rolex out of her purse and tossed it like a tissue onto the table. But her house didn’t even have a garage. Her Mercedes was parked on the street.
Jimmy cut across the stubbly lawn, dawdling on his way to the door. He was angry he hadn’t thought of the possibility sooner. What if Janine worked not with Uncle Pang but for him? What if she was caught in the same bind that had held Jimmy and his father? How helpful could one trapped rat be to another?
Sweat pricked the backs of his ears. Last week, like an idiot, he’d suggested the possibility of a future without Uncle Pang. But who could blame him? At his lowest point, she’d made him feel untouchable, materializing as if his heart had summoned her. He’d come back to the Duck House from the bank, having overdrafted his account by ten thousand dollars, and there she’d been, waiting by the bar with a bottle of champagne.
Hopping off a stool that a waiter must have dragged over for her, Janine told him that she wanted to make a toast. In his cramped office, she popped the champagne.
“Gan bei,” she said. Her fingers caught the strings of froth slipping down the dark-green glass. He could practically taste her perfume in his mouth. “To starting anew.”
“Hello, future,” Jimmy said. He hid the sudden crush in his lungs. His bank account had loomed back onto the horizon.
They’d clinked their flutes together and Jimmy had prepared for his first taste of alcohol in over a year. Little bubbles jumped from the glass and fizzed against his wrist. The sweet fumes tickled his nose. Weeks of sleepless nights caught up to him. He fell into his office chair with such a thud that he sloshed champagne onto his leg. When Janine asked him what was wrong, he ignored her, opening and closing his desk drawer without taking anything out.
“Are you hurt?” she tried, and then, “Are you sick?” He expected her to keep pushing and prying. She’d clapped her hands in front of his face instead.
“If you won’t tell me what’s wrong, then stop making a fuss.”
Jimmy stared up at her. She’d scolded him, as if he were a child.
“You’re not acting like yourself,” she added more gently.
The anger growing in Jimmy’s throat died down. These would have been empty words from anyone else. He put his champagne down and laced his fingers together in his lap. Janine, who didn’t seem invested in anything, was invested in him.
“I’m a little overwhelmed.” He picked his words carefully. “This isn’t what I imagined.”
Janine took a sip of her champagne. Her lipstick left a faint imprint on the glass. “What’s different?” she asked.
“Too many goodbyes. And not just the Duck House.” He counted on his fingers. “My old customers. My employees.” He hesitated. “You.”
Janine’s eyebrows barely lifted, but she sat down on his desk and crossed her legs.
“I have a confession to make,” she said. “The toast was a front.” She traced the outline of her mouth with a finger, smiling behind her hand. “I wanted to see if you would consider me for future projects. I think we work well together, don’t you?”
“Of course we do.” Jimmy leaned closer. Seconds ago, he’d had no future projects in mind. Now he did. Janine had that effect on him. He grew bolder. “I think we would work even better without Pang in between us.”
“Middlemen should be cut out,” she had said, her hand crossing the foot of professional space that had always separated them. “That’s just good business.”
Janine’s eagerness to part with Uncle Pang had felt miraculous. The unexpected weight of her hand on Jimmy’s arm had stunned him further. He hadn’t asked any questions.
Studying her neighborhood again, Jimmy couldn’t believe it was so different from what he had imagined, from what, he could swear, Janine had pretended it to be. He kicked a brown clump of grass on her lawn, digging his toe into the dry sod until he’d worked a hole in the ground.
At the door, he rang the bell with his thumb. Before the button could decompress, he pushed it again. This time, footsteps followed the muffled ring.
“Coming, coming,” Janine yelled from inside. The door opened and the chill of her house hit his face. Vapors of a finished dinner hovered in the air. Her house was small on the inside but airy, all warm wood, mirrors, and soft lighting.
To his disappointment she was in her business clothes, with her makeup freshly applied. Almost eleven o’clock and her voluminous perm was not the least bit deflated. She looked no different than she had on the first day they’d met, when
she’d aimed her gleaming car into a Duck House parking space with frightening speed and accuracy. Her ever-moving face still flustered him.
She was even wearing heels. On another woman, the shoes would have looked like torture, but Janine’s hummingbird frame seemed to put no pressure on her feet. Following her into the kitchen, Jimmy was reminded of the Barbie dolls his niece, Annie, used to leave all over the place, their feet permanently molded into severe arches. He spotted no toys scattered around Janine’s home; she must have tidied before he came.
“Will you get out of those shoes?” Jimmy tried to tease but sounded fussy instead. He’d slipped out of his shoes—force of habit—at the front door.
“I like to hold myself to a dress code,” she said, but she stepped out of her heels and lined them against her oven. “Are you feeling better? You sounded so unlike yourself over the phone.”
He tried to think of an answer. She pushed him into a chair and went to her pantry.
“I’ve got just the thing to loosen you up.” She pulled out a fat glass bottle of baijiu and set it in front of him on the kitchen table.
He twisted the cork out and sniffed the bottle’s opening.
“You drink this shit?” He wrinkled his nose at the searing sweetness.
“Same calories as vodka,” she said. “But twice the kick.”
Moving to the cupboard, she rustled up two ceramic cups, no bigger or deeper than his thumb. She sat down across from him and took the bottle out of his hand.