I hadn’t told Lilah that Jon had succeeded in impregnating me. I was paralyzed by difficult choices. How much would I be involved in the baby’s life? How much would I want to be? What about Lilah and I? Lilah and Jon? Jon and I?
I didn’t want to talk to them before I could resolve these questions myself. I recalled the time I’d found Lilah in the bathtub. Her beauty had incapacitated me. Yet not all desire was sensual. In that moment, I believed I’d always been attracted to her. But did I want her beyond those moments of passion? I didn’t know. I was afraid of anything I couldn’t walk away from. Remembering how the night had turned out, I couldn’t help but nurse a suspicion that I was being used. Did she think that if she had asked me to carry their child before we made love, I might have refused her? I pictured the two of them talking, Lilah telling Jon that I would accept whatever she might ask of me. Perhaps while I was sleeping, she had called Jon and told him not to come to dinner, that she would be able to convince me on her own. I was debating whether her calculations were selfish or an expression of trust. What I didn’t want to and wouldn’t admit to myself was that it felt natural to yield to the role Lilah gave me. I was relieved the same way someone who had been on the run for a long time might feel when he was finally caught. There’s a kind of freedom in letting others make our most significant life choices for us.
On my neighbor’s couch, I put my elbows on my knees and my face into my palms. I wept and wept. I was living my life the only way it made sense to me and I could feel its palpable weight. I was sinking. I was being erased by someone I hadn’t met, but felt I already knew and loved. I tried to stand up to find my phone and call Lilah, but I couldn’t. Beneath my feet was nothing but air.
9
I decided to meet Jon in person to tell him the news. Having sex with him made it easier for us to talk. Deep inside Jon’s skin I’d felt Lilah’s presence. I’d wanted to expel him from me and so be free of her, but while we were having sex I clung onto him. Even afterward. I hadn’t realized how much they resembled each other. I’d focused only on their differences when I first saw Jon, partly out of insecurity, partly out of jealousy. I couldn’t admit to myself that in some ways they were right for each other. Together they formed an enviable feminine and masculine whole. Just as when Lilah was without him, she grew sturdier and more handsome, when he was without her, Jon became softer, more fragile. His skin seemed more alert to caress, his gaze spanned beyond the present moment, full of dreams. The night we were together, he had sat at the foot of the bed, deliberately silent. I could tell he wanted to talk about himself, tell me something private because the moment deserved it. He’d put his fingers to his lips and bit them. I didn’t want to hear him. I was afraid his words would complicate everything.
“I’m a man. I have feelings. I need feelings to make love to someone,” he’d said.
“You didn’t have feelings for me before. If you do now, it will pass,” I’d said.
He nodded and stared at the hangnail on his thumb.
When I finally told him we needed to talk, Jon invited me over to their house for dinner. Lilah was visiting her father in Connecticut for the weekend. Without me asking, he assured me it would be okay with her. She understood that I wasn’t ready to see her yet.
I refused his offer to come to their house and suggested we meet at a coffee shop near his home instead.
When I saw him sitting in the corner of the café, I decided for our next meeting I would let him choose the location. He looked painfully out of place, his limbs too large and strong. His legs shook constantly as though craving movement. He was ready to leap up and go somewhere else when he saw me.
“Thanks for coming here,” I said. “What are you drinking?”
“Not much of a coffee drinker. I’ll take an iced tea. Thanks,” he said.
I ordered and brought back a black iced tea and a small coffee.
“How are you?” He looked at me and then at my stomach, as if I would begin to show immediately. I hadn’t yet said anything, but he might already suspect what I was about to tell him. I’d chosen a café instead of a bar to meet at at eight o’clock at night.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I said.
“So soon? I mean, what am I saying?” He scratched his temple. “That’s great.”
“Are you happy?”
“Lilah will be ecstatic,” he said.
“So should we talk legal stuff?”
“Jesus. It’s all happening so fast.” He leaned back in his chair and wiped his forehead though there was no sweat there.
“Don’t tell me you’re not ready to be a father, Jon.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just that when our daughter was born—all your life, you’ve been told you’ll get this gift. It’s the most precious thing, more beautiful than anything you ever imagine. So you anticipate it, you know, the same way you couldn’t wait to open your Christmas present. When you finally unwrap the box and look inside, it’s not just that it’s empty. It’s much worse than that. You’re staring at yourself, newborn and without breath. She was gone before she could open her eyes to see us, her parents. Our daughter had so much of us in her that seeing her so cold made me feel like I was already dead. There’s not much difference it seems, you know, being dead or alive. Being in a cradle or a casket.” He took the straw in his mouth and drained half the glass. “How can I be a father?”
“You don’t have a choice, now,” I said.
He chuckled, took my hand to his lips and kissed it, “Thank you.”
Over iced tea, the old-fashioned way, the same way my Vietnamese ancestors had invited guests into their homes and talked about their troubles, Jon told me how badly he wanted to surrender to something, anything, to not have to question it. At first, I turned away from his confessions. I didn’t want to integrate his loss and longing into my own; I didn’t want to care about him. It felt as though I was betraying Lilah. He continued talking anyway, maybe because some things were too private to share with people who loved us most. It would change the way Lilah saw him. I, on the other hand, was just close enough, yet still a stranger.
He told me about his family. Jon’s grandfather was a pale-skinned German, so blond his hair looked white, eyes so blue they made him seem blind. His grandmother was Jewish, olive-skinned, with thick, wavy black hair. They spent their lives loving each other and feeling full of guilt. When his grandmother talked about Stockholm syndrome, something she’d read in the newspaper, his grandfather got defensive, angry, sometimes violent. His daughter, Jon’s mother, got the occasional slap, nothing more. But the old man would get depressed every time after he’d touched his wife or daughter, as if each blow carried the weight of a thousand whips, of the inescapable cruelty of their generation. He died, Jon said. His self-hatred was so deep he’d passed it down to Jon’s mother.
“I think I have a lot of my grandfather in me,” he said. When he saw me flinch, he shifted uneasily in his seat. “Don’t worry. I would never act on it. I just get these flares of hate. Why can’t you ever get away from history?”
“Maybe the three of us are writing a new kind of history. An untraceable one.” I put my palms on my stomach. At the same time, I fought the urge to get as far away from him as possible. As Jon talked, I fantasized about going back to Vietnam and raising the baby alone. Then I forced myself to stop this train of thought and said, “Hey, let’s figure out this paperwork. Make sure you two get your baby.”
Jon smiled. This time he looked genuinely happy.
10
On most days, I liked to pretend I had no family, no one to answer to, disappoint, or live for. It was an almost truth, by geographical, social, cultural, psychological distance. It was Christmas Eve, already almost a year since Lilah and I met. Small white flecks fell from an equally white sky. I remembered something I’d once said to the little girl. I made a wish: one day, let me show her the snow. Why did
I remember such a promise?
I was three months pregnant and battling the thought that someone like me shouldn’t have a child. It was one of the few times that I wished I could talk to Mother. Did she not know of her lack of interest in being a parent until after I was born, or did she only realize there were other pursuits, other desires having a child could not fulfill? I was afraid I was using my own life to understand hers. Was I destined to do the same as she had, to bear a child only to send her away?
For the first time in a long time I wanted to see my mother if only to tell her about the baby I was carrying. Would she feel any kinship with it, or would it be so far removed from the drama of her life that she couldn’t conjure up any feeling even if she wanted to? I imagined that was how she thought of me too. Between us, love had become more like a fact, something you knew existed outside of yourself, and less like a feeling.
Lilah and I started to see each other again. I went to her house one day. Unlike before, she didn’t pretend Jon didn’t exist. We were surrounded by his things. She talked about him sarcastically, lovingly, sometimes indifferently. In the span of a few minutes, she showed herself both to be a woman full of desires and one who fell asleep contentedly at bus or train stations and missed her ride. How she fluctuated between complete passion and utter boredom. She would upset me by making jokes about the future of our daughter.
“You and Jon should move in together. I’ll come visit twice a week.” She would laugh. Or if she was feeling cruel she would say, “It’s not too late for you to get an abortion,” or “I don’t know if Jon is ready for this. He’s such a boy, you know? Why don’t you and I just run away together?”
All the scenarios she suggested made my heart throb. It reminded me of the what-if games I used to play as a child. Everything was truly possible and impossible at the same time. I felt as though there was no safe moment, no tangible outcome to my pregnancy. I was in a dream and the baby would stay inside me forever.
“Can you please stop being so horrible?” I said to Lilah.
“I’m only messing with you,” she said, seeming apologetic. “But would it be so awful if it were true?”
“If what were true?” I said.
“I have a headache,” she said, and walked to the bathroom.
I followed and stood behind her while she looked searchingly at her own reflection. She had been doing this a lot lately, staring at mirrors. Once while we were walking, she had stopped abruptly, blocking a line of cars. While people honked their horns and cussed at us, she calmly took out a compact mirror and held it at a strange angle from her chin.
“Come on. Let’s get to the sidewalk,” I’d said, but she didn’t react, not to me and not to all the anger directed at us.
Now in her bathroom, her concentration once again dissolved all the objects around her, including me.
“Come on, Lilah,” I said. “What are you looking at?”
She shook her head.
“What are you looking for?”
“I thought something in me would change. I want a sign.” She pulled her hair from her face and opened the vanity’s drawer. She took out a pair of scissors and started to snip the ends of her hair.
I wanted badly to stop her, but I knew it would only fuel her to be even more determined about the task, so I said nothing.
“Do you not want a child anymore?” I said.
“You still don’t understand that it doesn’t matter what I want. The baby is yours. Not Jon’s, not mine. Yours.”
“That’s ridiculous. I didn’t want this.”
“Are you sure? You agreed after all. You’re going to protect it with everything you’ve got. You will not get rid of it no matter what the circumstance.”
“I agreed because it was what you wanted,” I said weakly.
“Don’t try to tell me you’re doing it for me,” she said. “Look at you. Your cheeks are rosy. God, your hair is thick and full. Do you know what I looked like while I was pregnant? You’re made for it.”
“Is that what you want? For me to get rid of it?” I said.
“It doesn’t matter what I think.” Tiny pieces of hair fell rapidly down the sink.
I put my arms on her shoulders and turned her toward me. I took the scissors from her. I gripped her wrists and looked into her eyes, “You’re going to be a mother.”
“You’re so lonely, you know. There are consequences to that kind of loneliness,” she said. She bent down and kissed my stomach.
11
Three weeks after my neighbor left, his letter from St. Ann Hospital came. I took a picture of it and e-mailed him. I’m sorry, I wrote. He wasn’t a match for his son. A few days later, boxes started to show up every day. I would come home from work to find another package on my neighbor’s front door mat or a paper stuck to his door to let me know when to expect a second delivery. All of the boxes were light except one. I stacked them next to his small shelf of shoes and books by the entrance.
On Christmas morning, I went upstairs to his apartment to open them. I told myself I would take a photo of each item just in case he needed to know what he received. As I began to open the boxes, I realized the sender was the same person. The items were small and seemingly useless. In the first box was a metal hair clip. Next was a piece of wood with a burnt end. I put it to my nose and inhaled. It had an earthy fragrance, a mixture of cinnamon and dirt. Next was a candy with a picture of a mangosteen printed on the wrapper, and then a stick of incense, a square of cloth. I went on to open all of the packages with equal excitement. Each item on its own created confusion if I handled or looked at it for too long, but all together they washed me with the most satisfying pleasure, like all my senses were nourished. I almost got to the heaviest box when my phone alerted me to an incoming e-mail.
I had the feeling I wouldn’t be a match for him, but it didn’t stop me from hoping. I’ll be back in two days. Thanks for watching after everything and sorry about the impolite amount of stuff I sent there. Have the candy if you like. It’s a rare flavor you won’t find anywhere else, not even in a world market like New York.
I put the candy in the pocket of my sweater and took the heavy package downstairs to my apartment. I’d asked my neighbor to look for the little girl and wanted to ask if he’d found her, but refrained. I would wait till he got back to New York.
Outside my window, the plants inside my window box were paralyzed by the cold. The leaves that were still young a few days ago now looked stiff and eternal. My neighbor’s words soothed a loneliness I hadn’t known was there. A thought came to me: maybe he intended for me receive all those boxes. Maybe they weren’t just for my neighbor’s own use. I smiled at this possibility and eagerly cut open the last package.
The moment my hands cupped its cold and serene surface, I knew what it was. I had held a similar object many years ago, my father’s urn. His body was never found after the shipwreck so instead Mother filled the urn with the ashes of objects he had used. I released the brown urn from its wrappings of paper and plastic and held it inches from my face. It was heavy. I could barely hold it up even with both hands. A black and white photograph of a young woman was glazed on the ceramic. Though the picture was faded, her facial features were sharp and clear. She was too beautiful, as if she had pulled all the vitality of living things into herself. Looking at her the light in my room seemed to dim, my own outline diminished. Underneath the picture engraved the date of her birth and death. She had lived twenty-five years.
I traced her face with my fingers. Who was she to my neighbor? There was no doubt he couldn’t forget her. She was the type of girl to whom one yielded all defenses, the type that it would be a tragedy not to love because you would have missed the only experience in life that mattered. But loving her would be even worse because your life would be reduced to nothing afterward. With such a girl, you always saw the end moving toward you like an incoming train
as you stood on the tracks and waited for it to crash into you so that your body ceased to be whole, splattered into smithereens. You gave up your right to a physical form so everything you felt would never betray you, would last forever.
I lifted the top of the urn. The leg of an insect-like creature stuck out from under the powdery ash. I picked it up and shook it. An origami praying mantis. Puffs of dust scattered and dissolved into the air. I breathed in slowly, aware that the ash of her burnt body was binding to my lungs. I closed my eyes and saw a field of charred lumps, what was left of the sugarcane field. The little girl’s face smoldering. I turned the mantis around, trying to make out the script on its head, its under belly, and wings. Broken up into parts of the paper insect, the words didn’t make much sense. I hadn’t seen Vietnamese written longhand in over ten years, since after my first five years in the United States, Mother stopped writing. Holding these familiar words in my hand, fear stopped me from breathing. Flashes of the soldier who committed suicide inside the camp’s common hall many years ago suddenly hit me. Those who were left behind always expected an explanation from the departed. I thought that death neither scorned nor praised and preferred silence, yet no matter how overdue an explanation, it always came.
I began to pull the praying mantis apart, starting at the wings. Two, three, four words unfolded, a sentence. Soon I had a square piece of paper flat in front of me. I read the note, surprised by how easily understanding came to me, as if the written symbols awoke a portion of my brain that had been asleep. The paper gave spirits detailed direction on how to cross the river of forgetting in order to move on to the other side of the world.
If I Had Two Lives Page 16