by Lillian Li
When he wasn’t with Nan, his chest sank and caved into its new hollow, which only grew with every passing day, scraped larger by invisible, impassive fingers. He was frightened of this pain, how it moved, how it hid, how it cast a long shadow. Even when Nan was there, those fingers were waiting to creep back from the horizon. Mornings were the most difficult. Waking up, he would grow aware of Nan’s warm body beside him. So comforting and neutral the night before, her body curdled in sleep, and while she didn’t smell bad or even that strongly, her scent was so different from Michelle’s that it startled him. Worse was waking up to an empty bed. His pain was banal, the stuff of pop songs, but it was blindingly new to him. Nearly seventy years of emotional placidity were a blessing, but he had no stores to draw upon, no old fortresses built in his twenties and thirties inside which to recover. The only person who might understand was the one who’d broken him in the first place.
He looked back at his wife, jumping when he saw her open eyes. She’d developed a slight flush in her cheeks, a few shades from being feverish.
“Go back to sleep,” he scolded, but he got up and fit his body next to hers.
“Sometimes this happens.” She tried to untuck the sheets to throw over him. “I get a big burst of energy and I can’t sleep a wink.”
“I’m glad you’re awake.” He stilled her busy hands. “I was getting lonely watching you snore.”
“I don’t snore; you snore.”
“I snort,” he corrected her. “And just once. You snore, continuously.”
She took a drink of water. “Well, you sound like an old goose with a sore throat.”
“Cancer makes you mean.” He played with the plastic on her left wrist. “I sound like a young goose in good health.”
They settled back into comfortable silence. Sometimes Ah-Jack thought that he only teased his wife to get to this quality of silence, which was never as rich or layered with anyone else. As his friends and colleagues would attest, quiet was not a flavor he came in. Without Michelle at home, his jokes and pranks could take on a yapping frenzy, like a small dog in the company of strangers. He would keep going, spinning stories, eager to delight and charm, until his own energy overtook him. After all, he’d proposed to Nan just this afternoon, and while he wasn’t ready to admit that he’d been out of control when he’d barreled into that pawnshop, he could admit that the walk-in fridge was the least romantic and least practical place he could have popped the question.
He admitted this ridiculous chain of events to Michelle. When he got to the part where he crashed down on one knee, she laughed so hard she started coughing.
“Poor Nan,” she said when she managed to calm down. “How could you put her through that!”
Ah-Jack laughed with her, always pleased to be the butt of the joke he was telling. But then, without warning, Michelle started to rub her face, massaging her cheeks in elastic circles. At first he thought she was showing how her face had been strained from laughing. But the rubbing continued. He waited, unease slowly eating away his own smile.
“A proposal?” she finally gasped out through her hands. “You bought her a ring?”
Ah-Jack was at a loss. He’d assumed his wife was too clean-hearted for jealousy. And even if she wasn’t a saint, he didn’t expect her to care. She was the one who’d left. But her skin was growing redder under her fingers. She wouldn’t look at him.
“She was thinking of moving to California.” He wasn’t sure if he should try to touch Michelle. “I didn’t want her to leave me.” He swallowed the “too,” but they both heard the absence of that pairing word.
“So you were going to marry her?” She tried to laugh again, but the noise came out strident and off.
“What about you?” he said. “Aren’t you going to marry Gary? He’s basically your husband now.”
“You are my husband!” Michelle’s volume made Ah-Jack lean back. He balanced on the edge of the hospital bed. “How dare you say those things to me.”
“But you don’t tell me you’re this sick.” Ah-Jack scrambled for his defenses. “You don’t want me in your life, or even to know about your life, but you don’t want me to move on either? Wifey, you used to make sense.”
“I wanted you to have a chance at happiness,” she said. “If you knew about my health, you would have dropped everything. But it’s not the same as what you and Nan have. You must have saved her in your past life. I wanted you two to have your opening. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hate that she has you now. I’m not perfect.”
“Of course you’re not perfect,” he said. “You betrayed me. You left.”
“You left me,” she said. She threw the hospital covers off, yanking the neatly tucked corners out from under the mattress. “You left first.”
Ah-Jack was stunned. He had never done what she had done, and certainly not first.
“I never, never cheated on you. Not with Nan, not with anyone, I swear. Is this why you left? Because of this thing you made up in your head?”
His wife ran a finger down her IV. Her eyes held the same intelligent light that had first caught his attention in school. She started twisting the frayed hem of her hospital blanket.
“I don’t mean to accuse you of something you didn’t do,” she said slowly. “I left you because Gary made me happy. It wasn’t your fault.”
In her stilted delivery, Ah-Jack heard a great weight of words unsaid. He hated that she had so much that could hurt him locked up inside her. He didn’t want to know the ways that Gary made her happy; he didn’t want to see the inverse image of all the ways he had failed.
“I’m glad you’re finally happy.” He stood up. “I’m sorry I made things so hard to bear. I guess you have nothing to be sorry for.”
Michelle made a rude noise with her mouth, her eyes rolling up to the ceiling while her head slumped into her pillow.
“I am sorry. You have to know that,” she said. “And I care for you more than you could fathom. But I’m not going to die alone and afraid of everything. Not even for you.”
Michelle didn’t bring up her illness or its implications—not lightly, not ever. He understood why now. The argument was over. Michelle had won. Her infidelity, the ways she had contributed to her own unhappiness, the times she might have spoken up—these wrongs, in no way inconsequential, were impossible to scale against the great wrong her body had dealt her. The end to their fight was abrupt, unnatural, but he couldn’t blame her. He deserved this small unfairness. He didn’t know why, but he was certain he did.
“I should leave,” he said. “Gary will probably be here any moment.”
“He will,” she said. “But I don’t want you to go. Not after everything we said.”
“I wish I had known how to make you happy,” he said.
“You know that you did,” she said. “I’m the one who didn’t make you happy. That was Nan. That was her job.”
“Nan is a great friend,” he admitted, and his heart filled up and collapsed with its own heaved sigh. “But she’s not my wife. You are. It was you in the past life, and it’s you in this life.” He didn’t know where he was lying and where he was telling the truth and where he was simply confused. He only knew that this reality was the safest one to believe in. He was learning how to protect himself.
“Thank you for saying that.” Michelle sniffed, and the cords in her neck stood out sharply. Her eyes brightened with tears. “But whatever you end up doing with Nan, just treat her well. She likes to look after other people and ignore herself.”
“I’ve been taking advantage of that.” He bowed his head and studied his callused hands. “I make other people’s lives heavier, lightening my own load.”
“No, Jack.” She turned his hands over and patted them with surprising vitality. “You are lightness itself.”
She pulled him back onto the bed. He cradled her head against the crook of his neck and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He rocked her slowly and sang an old song that had been popular when
they were classmates. The words and the melody evoked the right time, back when she was his shadow and he was her guide. Her fists clenched his work shirt, until eventually they loosened, and small, gurgling snores escaped from her nose. He gave her cheeks a small squeeze—he could pick them out of any lineup—and gathered his blazer. He took the usual roads home, not to Nan’s place, but to his old house. Without embarrassment, he climbed the stairs hunched on all fours, like a child, and after washing his face in their bathroom, he shed his clothes in the guest room. She’d kept the room clean, but she hadn’t stripped the sheets, so the room still smelled like him. She’d left his pajamas, neatly folded, at the foot of the bed.
Sliding under the sheets, lying flat on his back, he allowed himself to cry his old-man tears. His open-throated moans, unmuffled by any pillow, shot out toward the dimpled ceiling. The tears slid hot around his ears and down his neck. When he finally quieted down, hiccups dancing away with his breath, he fell asleep unaware of the time, of the position of the sun in the sky. All he knew was that his wife was secure in a place he could visit, and his home was his own again.
26
Some people could split their voice and sing out entire chords on their own; Jimmy’s mother had this power in her face, which could turn out the most colorful combinations of feeling. Rising from the waiting-room seats, she appeared most pleased by her utter disappointment in her son, as if she’d been told she’d broken a world record in despair. Johnny, on the other hand, held his face as still as a mirrored lake. His entire face might as well be wearing reflective glass. Jimmy wanted to punch his brother in the nose. He shook his hand instead.
“Thanks for picking me up,” he said. “And putting down for bail.”
“Only you would go crazy and harass a woman.” His mother dove in. “I must have angered someone powerful to be stuck with a son like you. Your birth alone, that melon head of yours.”
“Not here, Ma.” Johnny herded them out of the police station. He nodded to an officer behind the bulletproof glass. “We don’t want to get you both locked up.”
“Who is going to lock up an old lady!” She shouted the question as a challenge.
“No one, no one. Let’s just get Jimmy home.”
“Have you no shame?” She got her face close to Jimmy’s. “Throwing a tantrum in front of that country girl. You won’t be happy until you’ve destroyed our family name.”
“I can still get rid of your house,” Jimmy said. His drunken haze had lifted about an hour ago, and his tranquilizers were fading.
“No one is getting rid of any restaurants or houses,” Johnny said.
“So shut your big mouth, little boss.” His mother settled into her seat.
*
Though the question had been on his mind since he’d woken up in jail, Jimmy waited until they were on the highway to ask Johnny how Pat was doing.
“He seemed a little scared, but he was acting brave for Nan.” Johnny watched his speedometer. “He was the youngest kid in holding. They really should have put him in a juvenile detention center. I guess there was a mix-up. A night of mix-ups.” He sounded, for the first time, angry; then, just as quickly, his voice dropped back down to its baseline.
“You’re the hero once again.” Jimmy flicked his nails at the passenger window, making a sharp, thudding sound. His mother, from the backseat, reached forward and batted his fingers away from the glass.
“If you hadn’t forced me to act so hastily, there would be no need to save anybody,” Johnny shot back.
Jimmy’s own antsy-ness was irritating him. His problems were solved. The insurance would soon be paid, the Glory financed, the Duck House rebuilt. His mother would eventually die in the recesses of their giant house. He would meet a nice girl, get remarried, finally have kids. And no one would remember the fiery summer that threatened to topple their little Han dynasty, just as no one spoke about the years his father had entertained equally distasteful men while planning to build his restaurant. Jimmy twisted his piercing until his ear sang.
“Drop me off at the Glory,” he said to Johnny, who was about to merge onto the interstate. “I want to close up.”
“Your car is impounded,” Johnny said.
“I’ll take a cab home, no biggie.”
“Can’t stand to be in the same car as his family,” his mother grumbled from the back.
“I need to check in on Annie anyways,” Johnny said. “Ma, I’ll drop you off after Jimmy.”
“Fine, get rid of your mother,” she continued in the same tone. “I didn’t need to get up in the middle of the evening to make sure my delinquent sons were behaving, that Jimmy wasn’t being abused by the police, and that you weren’t going to abandon your brother to go fix your employee’s problems.” She grouched herself into a daze and then summarily dropped off into a droning sleep.
“Crazy how we never figured that out.” Johnny adjusted his rearview mirror to look at their dozing mother. “She’ll just talk herself to sleep.”
“Dad figured it out,” Jimmy said. “That’s why he always ignored her.”
“Smart man,” Johnny said. He input the Glory’s address into his GPS and signaled to get off the Beltway. A sunny yellow sign beseeched them to KEEP MARYLAND BEAUTIFUL. “You can have the insurance money.” He blurted the words out, tongue tripping from haste. Jimmy hadn’t heard him speak like that since they were children. “Pay me my year’s salary, and use the rest for the Glory. Call it an investment.”
“No Duck House?”
“All this mess, this craziness.” He signaled for the exit. “It reminded me of what I was signing myself up for. Besides, I have a buddy who needs a partner on his farm. He caters to high-class restaurants. Maybe the Glory will be a client.”
“We’re a Chinese restaurant,” Jimmy said. “We buy what’s cheapest.”
“American soil isn’t too bad for Chinese broccoli,” Johnny continued, as he always did when Jimmy acted out. “You could get that sweet spot between local and authentic.”
“Not right now.” Jimmy waved him off.
“I’ll come back to you when you’re ready to listen.” Johnny merged into the slow lane.
“You’re the fucking worst,” Jimmy said, but he knew he hadn’t sounded convincing. He would have to try again, when he got his strength back.
*
His phone told him it was half past ten when he walked into the Glory, but the gaping emptiness of the restaurant made him second-guess the time. The dinner service had not recovered from the earlier outburst.
Most of the waiters had escaped somewhere; either that or they were all on their cigarette break. Tom, whom he’d put in charge, was nowhere to be seen. In the kitchen, the cooks leaned against their stations, in clear view, picking at their teeth. The busboys were roughhousing in the hallway outside the restrooms. In his exasperation, Jimmy almost didn’t see the lone person sitting at the bar. He shaped his face into a friendly expression and swung around the back to say hello.
“Quiet night?” Uncle Pang swirled the liquid in his drink.
“We had an incident earlier.” Jimmy wiped down the bar for lack of anything better to do with his hands.
“So I saw,” Uncle Pang said, though he didn’t elaborate on how.
Jimmy realized—how obvious—that the police arriving tonight had been Uncle Pang’s doing.
“Well, looks like everything has settled down,” Uncle Pang said, for once cracking a smile. His teeth were a spectrum of shades, some crooked, and others the meticulous square of veneers. “Someone’s looking out for you.”
Jimmy sucked at his own teeth. Someone indeed.
“I’m sorry no one’s helping you.” Jimmy gestured at Uncle Pang’s glass. “Can I get you another?”
“Why not.” Pang relinquished his empty drink. “Something on the rocks. Dealer’s choice.”
Jimmy looked at the bar shelf, his eyes scanning from the lowest well liquors to the highest. It was just as well that Uncle Pang was the
only one here. How long would this restaurant hold its head above water without him as a flotation device? Where would Jimmy work when his money ran out? In all their plans to sabotage his success, his mother and Uncle Pang had never once told him he was hopeless without them. It was a double-edged kindness to let him believe he wasn’t, even for a short while. He put his hand on the top-shelf vodka. He sincerely hoped it was up to Uncle Pang’s standards.
“Gan bei,” he said, filling the glass.
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
Nan and Ah-Jack’s favorite hotpot restaurant was so packed that the windows had steamed over, but Ah-Jack was sitting pretty across from Nan, his bad foot propped regally on an old cushion.
“Don’t you have customers to serve?” She playfully batted his foot. “I bet they regret hiring this old racehorse now.”
“I’m on my lunch break. Besides, I’m top of the tips charts,” he bragged. He gestured at their finished meal. “I don’t see you complaining about the VIP treatment. Look at the size of these deluxe fish balls. We didn’t know these existed!”
“Can’t say I taste the difference.” She dipped the ends of her chopsticks into the shacha sauce and savored the salty flavor. “What time is it?”
He glanced back at the register’s clock. “Almost one.”
“I have to go.” She heaved herself up and brushed imaginary crumbs off her civilian clothing. She hadn’t gotten used to thinking of these clothes as her ordinary outfit, though once she touched down in San Francisco, she’d go right back to wearing an apron or whatever the uniform was at Ray’s dim sum place. He promised the joint was relaxed, no tips, and no “crazy owner.” She told herself she wouldn’t be disappointed if she ended up in the same situation as before. Just like she told herself that she was making the right choice in moving in with Ray, if not for her, then for her son. Hope teased her insides—she and Pat were going to get their second chance.