I smiled at Yoshimoto. “Nice to see you again.”
He looked at me and squeaked something unintelligible while Cai stood up from his chair. “I’m so sorry. Japanese Father was hungry, so we just ate some congee. I’ll heat yours up now.”
“No worries. I’m going to change my clothes.” I took Jake and headed upstairs. This is going to be a long week if the man barely speaks to me.
I placed Jake on my bedroom floor while I changed into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. When we returned to the kitchen, Yoshimoto and Cai were headed toward the dining room.
“Japanese Father is very tired. I’m going to show him to his room now. I’ll heat your dinner up in a couple minutes.”
Mama and Baba remained seated at the kitchen table, Mama clapping her hands twice and extending them toward me, which was Chinese sign language for “I want to hold your baby.” I heated some congee and ate it with salty sardines and black bean sauce, pickled Sichuan radishes, and a dish of leftover ground beef and frozen vegetables.
“Your parents are coming tomorrow?” Mama asked.
“Yes, in the afternoon. Cai’s going to pick them up at the airport around two.” I had been counting down the days to their arrival and was thrilled it was less than twenty-four hours away. It was a busy time at work, so I couldn’t take vacation days while my parents were in town. Still, it would be a treat to spend time at night and on the weekends with people who would neither pester me about Jake’s eating habits nor ignore me.
The next morning when I stepped into the upstairs hallway to take Jake downstairs, I noticed the light in Yoshimoto’s room peeping under the bottom of his door. By the time I left the house, he had yet to emerge.
When I returned home after work, my parents greeted me as I walked in. “We waited to eat with you,” my mom said as we walked into the kitchen.
“Japanese Father was hungry, so I cooked him dinner first,” Cai said apologetically.
On Yoshimoto’s fourth morning, my phone rang at work. I was surprised to hear Cai’s voice, since he didn’t normally phone me at work. I usually snuck in a call to check on Jake during my morning breast-milk-pumping break. Although I used to call home from my desk when my boss left for lunch, I now would use my lunch hour to get out of the office for a while, too, to walk or window-shop with coworkers. These outside jaunts became the only time when I felt like I lived a normal life in San Francisco. For an hour I could leave behind both an unsatisfying job and a stressful family life.
“You’ll never guess where we are!” Cai shouted on his cell phone above what sounded like gusty wind.
“Where?”
“Calistoga! Japanese Father wanted to enjoy the hot springs. It’s beautiful here.” Something muffled in the background, but then Cai came back. “Don’t wait up for us tonight. We’ll be back late.”
Before I could reply, the call dropped. Cai and I had never spent a weekend away, had never gone on a day trip, just the two of us, and had never visited a resort area. How dare he jaunt off to Calistoga with that man!
When Yoshimoto left San Francisco a few days later, he had spoken a total of two sentences to me. A couple years later, I would relay my thoughts to a friend back in Hong Kong. Via email we would discuss Yoshimoto’s bizarre behavior. My friend reminded me that people in Japan do not touch one another in public. They would bow instead of shaking hands. So when Yoshimoto rested his head on Cai’s shoulder at the Wuhan airport, my friend thought that crossed a boundary. Too afraid to learn the truth, and confident that Cai wouldn’t tell me anyway, I never asked him what went on between the two of them in China, Hong Kong, or Calistoga.
Chapter 36
“Why Do You Need Mother’s Day?”
Families in China didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day for that matter. When I told Mama about the holiday, she seemed baffled by the concept. “What do you do for Mother’s Day?” she asked, her eyes bright and curious.
“Most families go to a restaurant. Kids buy their mothers gifts like candy or flowers or make something for them at school.”
Cai understood the importance of this celebration and planned a special outing for my first Mother’s Day. He thought it would be nice for the five of us to drive down to Palo Alto. We would walk around the gardenlike Stanford campus and have an early dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Mama and Baba preferred to cook their own meals and couldn’t believe the exorbitant prices in San Francisco for simple Chinese barbecue. So we rarely went out to eat. But when Cai described the sprawling Stanford campus, Mama’s eyes lit up in delight. She wanted to go.
Before we left in the early afternoon, Mama and Cai put together a light lunch. Jake sat in his high chair between Mama and me. I alternated between feeding baby food to Jake and digging into my own lunch of dried tofu and green onion, a chicken-based noodle soup, and the ubiquitous canned sardines. Mama fished a noodle from her rice bowl and cut it into inch-long pieces with her chopsticks. Just then, she picked up one piece and held it close to Jake’s face. I put my hand up to stop her from placing the noodle in his mouth.
“No.” My hand met the chopsticks in midair. “He’s too young to eat noodles.”
Ever since Jake was several months old, Mama had wanted to feed him table food. I had read too many articles about food allergies and how babies shouldn’t eat table food until their first birthday. Thanks to my experience with Mama in Hidden River, I knew that I needed to set strict boundaries with her when it came to Jake’s feeding. If I acquiesced to soft foods like rice or ground beef, I feared Mama and Baba and even Cai would stretch that to prohibited foods like eggs, tofu, and noodles. Even Dr. Kwok had recommended that we wait on table food until Jake turned one. With noodles came the added worry that Jake might choke.
Mama scrunched her eyes and nose. “Yan ate noodles when he was three months old.”
“But Jake’s doctor wants him to wait until he can chew better.” And Yan was a baby during the Great Leap Forward, when forty-five million died of starvation. If we were living under those conditions, I would have done anything to feed my baby, too. But we were fortunate in the United States to have enough age-appropriate food for Jake.
Something else bothered me while we sat at the table eating lunch. While I processed acknowledgment letters and toiled in the filing room at work, I wondered if Mama and Baba were secretly exposing Jake to allergens. Or was today the first time they had tried to feed him table food?
I hated being separated from Jake during the day, and now I had an added worry. If Jake had an allergic reaction when I was at work and Cai was out, would Mama and Baba know what to do about it? The food on the table suddenly seemed unappetizing, so I placed my chopsticks next to my rice bowl and leaned back in my chair.
Cai slammed his fist on the table. “What are you doing?” he shouted in English to spare his parents from our argument, but his meaning was decipherable in any language.
I cringed at his violent outburst, but for once felt relieved we had an audience. Now Mama and Baba could see their son’s despicable behavior. In response to Cai, I shrugged and said, “I’m not hungry anymore.”
“You always want your way, Susan.” He then placed his chopsticks next to his bowl. “My mom raised four kids in China. We were poor and had little to eat, but she did a great job.”
“I know. I’m not saying she didn’t. I just don’t want Jake to develop food allergies. Dr. Kwok said—”
“I don’t care what Dr. Kwok said.” Cai pushed his chair back and stood up. “We’re not going to Stanford today.” He stormed out of the kitchen.
Mama and Baba continued eating, as if it were a normal meal and a friendly conversation. When Mama finished her rice, she looked at me like a child anxious to open her birthday presents. “What time are we going to Stanford?”
“We’re not,” I whispered in Mandarin, trying to hold back my tears as I ha
nded Jake his sippy cup of water. I could tell that neither of them would go after Cai to reprimand him for his unacceptable outburst. They didn’t need to understand English to comprehend what had just happened. Their way of coping was to dish out more soup and slurp it from their grease-coated rice bowls. If my child had just acted that way toward the mother of my grandson, I would have run after him and put him in his place, no matter what his age. For some reason, Mama and Baba didn’t parent that way. I wondered if they had ever disciplined their precious son.
Cai came downstairs an hour later and told his parents that he had a meeting to attend in Union City. He didn’t look at me. Neither parent questioned why he was going to a meeting when we had planned to spend the afternoon at Stanford. I held Jake tightly, willing Cai to leave the house. Part of me wished he would never come back.
The next day, I spent an hour emailing my parents about my dreadful Mother’s Day. I relayed the argument over what to feed Jake and how Cai had stormed out of the kitchen, calling off our trip to Stanford. I told them how Mama and Baba just sat there without chiding Cai, and how they had a couple of chances to speak with him but never did. It was the first time I had complained about Cai since the time my hormones were out of whack after Jake was born.
With this Mother’s Day account, I started a habit of emailing my parents first thing in the morning from my office. Between Cai and his mother, I always had something to gripe about: Jake’s feeding and clothing, Cai’s despair over not working, and his regular late nights out. Many times when I wrote these emails, I would look up at the clock on my screen and see that I’d spent more than an hour writing to my parents. My problems at home were starting to affect my job and my family’s livelihood.
Chapter 37
Peace at Last
My parents drove out from Chicago to help us for another summer, relieving Mama and Baba after they left San Francisco to return to Hidden River. Although I had dreaded Mama’s daily barrages about Jake’s eating habits, when faced with their departure, I felt sad to see them leave. I realized, perhaps too late to enjoy it, that I appreciated Mama and Baba’s company.
We’d spent all those evenings bickering about our differences over Jake’s diet, sleep habits, and how many layers of clothes to dress him in, but I’d also grown to appreciate their companionship when Cai went out at night and on weekend mornings when he slept in. Baba was a quiet ally and Mama spoke to me more than anyone else in our house except when my parents visited.
I knew I’d miss our nightly routine of watching the news from Beijing, followed by a nighttime soap before I took Jake upstairs. Mama and Baba could have applied for green cards to stay longer, but they preferred to return to their friends and family in Hidden River.
My mom drove all seven of us to the airport the morning of Mama and Baba’s departure. It was a good thing my parents had a minivan that could fit us all. Once Cai had checked his parents’ bags and received their boarding passes, he smiled and joked around with his father about the long flight and ensuing jet lag. Mama dabbed her eyes with a gray handkerchief she kept up her sleeve.
“It’s okay, Mama,” I said to her gently. “We’ll send you photos of Jake.” I made no mention of visiting Baba and her in Hidden River. She also didn’t say anything about it, nor did she bring up her earlier offers to care for Jake in Hidden River. I figured (admittedly with some relief) that perhaps we had finished that chapter of our lives and she had realized Jake’s future was with us in San Francisco. Hopefully her silence was an acknowledgment of that. And to my knowledge, she and Baba had never tried to persuade Cai to return to China. Mama sniffled and blinked her eyes energetically to whisk away the tears forming in them.
“Mama, thank you for all your help. Cai and I are so happy you could stay with us and take care of Jake.”
“Mo shi, mo shi,” Mama said in her local dialect. It’s nothing, think nothing of it.
“Of course it’s something. Thank you.” I wasn’t used to hugging or kissing Mama and Baba and didn’t know if I should start now, but seeing Mama this upset made me want to embrace her and comfort her. My parents stood awkwardly off to the side, my mom holding on to the handle of Jake’s stroller, the same stroller Mama and Baba had pushed Jake in for almost a year.
It was as if this simple gesture of holding onto Jake’s stroller signified a change in regime, with my parents taking over Jake’s care while I was at work. Although I was grateful my parents were able to help us with Jake for the whole summer, I felt a tear in my heart thinking about what Mama and Baba must be going through at that moment.
Cai looked at his watch. “You should probably go to your gate now,” he told his parents in Mandarin. He then turned toward mine and repeated it in English.
My mom hugged Cai’s mom good-bye and said a few thank- yous and good-byes in Mandarin. Xièxiè, zàijiàn. Since my mom hugged Mama, I followed suit, grasping her padded shoulders in my arms. I felt a tight squeeze and held back my tears. Although I didn’t regret standing up for what I thought was best for Jake, in the end I wished our evenings hadn’t been defined by those differences. Was Mama feeling the same?
My mother then hugged Baba good-bye, so I let go of Mama and embraced him, too. We’d never so much as shaken hands. Baba smiled when I let go, but I could tell from his sad eyes that this good-bye was not easy for them. I didn’t know it then, but this farewell was the last time I would see them.
For the first few days after Mama and Baba had left, the house seemed empty, even though it contained four adults and an energetic one-year-old. Cai went on with his evening meetings and daytime shopping trips to the Chinese grocery in the Richmond district. He had resumed his porn viewing in San Francisco, so sometimes he would stop at a South of Market adult video store before heading home after his nighttime meetings. Before I knew it, my parents, who had been with us for more than two months, headed back to Chicago. Suddenly we found ourselves alone, just the three of us.
Chapter 38
To Day Care or Not to Day Care?
My employer kept a list of licensed home day cares in the Bay Area, so after Mama and Baba returned to China, I requested names of caregivers near our house and near my office. Before my parents returned to Chicago, my mom thought it would make for a smooth transition if we secured a day-care provider while they were still in town. They could take Jake there for a week before starting on their drive back to Chicago. One Sunday I asked Cai if he wanted to join us on our first home day-care visit.
“No, you and Mom can go.” Although I wanted this decision to be a joint one, I figured Cai trusted my judgment to find a suitable caregiver for Jake.
At the first day care, located in the basement of a house several blocks from our place, I spotted a long stream of ants marching single file from one side of the room to the other. My mom and I looked at each other and politely told the woman in charge that we had just started our search and would get back to her if we were interested.
The following weekend my mom, Jake, and I visited another day care near our house, on a quiet side street off Bayshore Boulevard. A porch with high walls was attached to the back of the basement facility. Laura, the owner, was a thirtysomething woman who had started the day care after being unable to find satisfactory care for her daughter. I was drawn to Laura’s kind and bubbly personality, but thought we should still look at other day cares.
“The place is kind of small and a little dark,” I told my mom as we started on our walk home.
“But the back porch lets in sunlight, unlike that first place. And it’s a secure area for the kids to play in,” my mom replied.
I still wanted to see other places, so one day after work, my mom met me near my office to check out a Russian-run home day care. The facility was spread out over three colorful rooms, each with bins overflowing with toys and musical instruments. Four providers cared for a group of twenty kids.
“We bring in
a music teacher once a week,” Katya, the owner, told us. “Then we have a gymnastics teacher another day each week.”
“I’ll talk to my husband, but I’m sure we’ll get back to you soon.” I imagined Jake learning to walk in this facility, surrounded by stimulating colors and nurturing caregivers. Although I had liked Laura, I was more drawn to the Russian day care for its planned activities and spacious rooms.
When we arrived home, Cai was finishing the last preparations for a four-course dinner. He still cooked most evenings when he was home. I couldn’t wait to tell him that I’d found the perfect day care for Jake. But before I could finish describing the weekly music class, he interrupted me.
“I just talked to the neighbors. They know a Chinese day care near San Bruno Avenue.” He sounded as if he had made a final decision and my input was cosmetic.
“Is it licensed?” I knew the Changs, who Cai still referred to as “the neighbors,” sent their daughter to an unlicensed place. Unlicensed facilities, they explained, were cheaper. These day cares didn’t receive government-funded food stipends and the teachers didn’t need to pass CPR or other first-aid classes every year. They weren’t inspected by the city, and there was no restriction on the teacher-to-student ratio. I would never consider sending Jake to an unlicensed day care.
“Yes, it’s licensed.” He spit out the last word.
“Does the woman speak Mandarin?”
“I think so.” Cai reached for a newspaper; he was finished with this conversation. Even though I wasn’t thrilled with the way Cai had told me about this day care, I did like the idea of Jake continuing to hear Mandarin during the day. If it were really licensed, it could be a good fit for him.
Good Chinese Wife Page 23