by Roselle Lim
How can I be so happy yet so afraid at the same time?
These emotions didn’t comingle like a pair of chopsticks.
They were separate and one came with great shame. So it must be hidden in a box and brought out when you weren’t here.
The call finally came this evening. A job opportunity. An audition with an international traveling symphony. Your dream. Our dream. The once intangible was now yours.
You would be gone for a few days. Only a few days. To me, it would feel like years.
You wanted me to come with you.
I wanted to, but I was terrified.
I couldn’t leave the apartment.
Ma-ma left the apartment and she died.
No, I couldn’t leave. Bad things happened. Too dangerous. The world out there wasn’t safe. This was why I stayed. I was safe here, protected, alive.
I didn’t want you to leave.
But your dream, which became mine, was too precious. I couldn’t deny you this.
The voice of your erhu needed to be heard.
Your seat and the audience were waiting.
But I don’t want you to leave.
Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t . . .
Thus confirmed my mother’s transformation into a recluse. The neighbors mentioned that my mother hadn’t always been this way. Like her beloved birds, the loss of my grandmother had trapped and caged Ma-ma until she’d been a prisoner of her anxiety.
Oh, Ma-ma. How I missed you. Reading your words lulled me into believing you were still with me. Was this when my father left you? When he went to this audition and never returned?
I searched for the end of the diary, keeping a finger in my place so I could pinch the number of pages left to read. My papery version of a countdown clock. The precious time with my mother was drawing to a close. Thus, I held on, clinging to her final written words and hoping she would provide answers about my father.
Where are you, my love?
It has been two weeks and you fail to return or call . . .
Did you finally realize I am a broken woman with too many flaws to reconcile?
Did I scare you away and into the arms of another woman?
I know I’m strange. I don’t leave the house, I can’t. My demons will never leave me.
The neighborhood whispers. I know you must have heard it, my love, yet you show me no signs that the horrible rumors about me exist. But I know. Strange girl. Never comes out. Full of ill luck. Not normal. Broken ever since her mother died. Strange, oh so strange. Not right in the head.
They’re right. I am broken, but when I’m with you, I feel whole. I feel loved and worthy of love. You don’t judge me. You accept me and understand.
Has this changed?
Have you had enough?
Where are you? Are you coming back?
You can’t leave me . . . us.
Not now.
This morning, I found out I’m carrying your child.
We’re supposed to see your family in a month so they can meet me.
Your daughter, Thomas.
You have to come back to meet your daughter!
Come back . . .
I wiped my tears away. He hadn’t known I was his daughter because he’d already left us. My mother. My poor Ma-ma. How could he have done this to her? How could he have left her when she’d needed him the most?
Tears streamed down my cheeks, unrelenting, soaking the pages of the diary on my lap and down my bare legs onto the floor. I welcomed the dampness. We’d been abandoned. Nothing he could say could change this.
One entry left and my heart bled ocean blue.
What have I done?
Our child can never know. She would hate me . . .
I received a call this morning from a stranger.
Do you know Thomas Kuk Wah?
Yes.
Are you his wife?
Why?
I’m sorry, but he has been in a terrible motor vehicle accident. If you are his wife, you need to come down to the morgue and identify the body.
I’m not his wife. You are mistaken.
I’m so sorry to bother you then, ma’am. We will notify his next of kin. I apologize again for having taken your time.
I denied you, Thomas.
I can’t leave the house.
You’re dead because you left.
You shouldn’t have left. I was right.
And now, you’re dead. Like Ma-ma.
I won’t leave the house. I don’t want to endanger our baby.
Can’t leave. No, my baby or I could die.
My love, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I love you. Always.
Forgive me, Thomas.
Please forgive me.
Forgive me because I can never forgive myself.
My father was dead?
Why didn’t Ma-ma ever tell me? She had never said a word. Didn’t she think I had a right to know? Ma-ma led me to believe that we had been abandoned. She must have chosen not to tell me he died because perhaps, after all these years, she couldn’t accept the truth herself. Ma-ma also grappled with guilt, and if I had been in her situation, could I have told my daughter the truth about how my father’s body was robbed of the rituals he needed to enter the afterlife? That she couldn’t claim his body in fear of leaving the apartment? Why he still wandered this world as a ghost?
Ma-ma had no one left to help her. She was alone with a baby to care for and crippling agoraphobia. As angry as I felt for having been lied to, I couldn’t hold on to that pain. My mother did what she thought was best for me. She could not explain her mental illness to those who would not understand. Her fear and her shame were heartbreaking.
Oh, Ma-ma.
How could my father be dead? I’d spoken to Mr. Kuk Wah most of my life. I had heard him play, just like Ma-ma had described in her journals. But according to this journal entry, he died a long time ago.
Baba. Father. All these years, had I been communing with a ghost? Baba’s ghost.
I had thought he had abandoned me.
He must not remember me because he died before I was born. Someone told me once that ghosts can be forgetful. They also choose only to appear to those they want to be seen by. My father had been with me for a large part of my life. He must have loved me, even if he didn’t know what our true relationship was.
I closed the final book and hugged it to my chest.
I had to talk to Ma-ma.
I knelt before the shrine.
“If you were afraid that I wouldn’t love you after I read your words, Ma-ma, you were wrong. I didn’t think it was possible, but I love you even more. You were strong. I wish I was even half as strong as you.
“You fought your demons and won. How else could I be standing here? Your wish came true. I turned out exactly as you hoped, and all because of everything you taught me: to love, to be kind, to be strong. Your strength inspires me, pushes me to be better, and to seek out my dreams.
“I want to thank you for your journals. I now know who my father is. I love him, Ma-ma. I wish he could have come home safely that day. Our lives would have been so different.
“You and Baba convince me to open myself to the possibility of love, that I am deserving of love. I think it could have worked with Daniel if I had been brave enough to try. I think you would like him, Ma-ma.
“I miss you. I will always miss you.”
I rose to my feet and placed a hand over my heart.
My parents, Celia, my neighbors, and even Daniel, even though I had pushed him away. I was so fortunate to be loved. Everything I had done to this point had been to fulfill my mother’s last request. Now, I had one desire of my own, one I wanted so desperately.
&nbs
p; I wished I could speak to my father again.
He came and went without warning—or did he? He seemed to appear when I needed him the most, and I needed him now. I closed my eyes and walked to the windows, sending out my heart’s wishes to my ghost father. I envisioned invisible homing pigeons carrying my request in tiny scrolls attached to their legs.
Baba.
I need you.
Please come and see me.
My fingers pressed against the windowsill. My face soaked up the warm sunlight streaming in from the glass of the windows. Wishes were powerful, and I needed that power now. Again and again, I called to my father. If a mother’s love could transcend space and time, surely a daughter calling to her father could do the same.
Baba.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Baba.
I opened my eyes. He was here!
Through the windows, my father, with erhu in hand, strolled past the tea shop and was looking both ways before he crossed the street. This made me smile. He was a ghost: a speeding car or the 38AX Geary A Express bus could not have harmed him.
He was here!
Ghosts are strange creatures in that they live in the limbo plane, and while they abide by a main set of rules, they also can create their own. None of the neighbors had ever mentioned him, so it didn’t surprise me that he had chosen to appear only to those he wanted to see him—me.
I don’t think he knew I was his daughter. He’d died before he even knew of my existence.
I had to tell him. This could be what he needed to hear the most.
As I ran down the staircase, my feet made no sound: I floated down, cushioned by the lightness of my being. My father was waiting for me. Baba.
I had a father. He hadn’t abandoned me. He had returned and visited often, enough for me to consider him a dear friend before I’d discovered his true identity.
While Ma-ma and I had shared a love of opera, my father and I worshipped music in all of its notes, chords, arrangements, instruments, and science. I imagined that in a different life, my father and I would be found draped over sofas listening to records, eyes closed, intoxicated by the melodies or tapping on surfaces, dancing to the swing of the up-tempo beat.
If he’d lived, the sound of the erhu would have been a constant presence in our apartment, as natural as the bells of the streetcars, the air brakes of the tour buses, and the vinyl on the Victrola. Even if he’d accepted the job at the traveling symphony, he would have been home in between his journeys, and the three of us would have been a family.
He stood, waiting before the closed glass door, dark cap in one hand and erhu case in the other. The two tattooed dragons on his forearms constricted, undulated, always moving in concert with each other. Dust and errant loose threads adorned his usual gray attire.
I let him inside.
“Xiao Niao,” he said with a smile. “I came back as soon as I could.”
Tiny bird. My heart clenched as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand.
He walked to the counter and ran his hand across it. He leaned his erhu case against one of the stools as he took a seat. “My wife told me to tell you that everything will be all right,” he said. “Hard times always pass. She and I both know you’re strong.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I knew now that he and Ma-ma were together, and I had helped with that.
Returning to my place behind the counter, I busied myself by arranging and rearranging the stack of dishes and cutlery. “You speak of her a lot now. It’s only until recently you said she started speaking to you again. Why is that?”
He squinted and stroked the rough, graying stubble on his chin. “For years, she ignored me. It was like I didn’t exist. I suppose it’s my fault for not coming back sooner from an audition. It was too easy for her to jump to the worst conclusions.”
“What’s her name? I realize you never told me.” I couldn’t resist. I needed to hear him say Ma-ma’s name, to acknowledge what I already knew.
“Miranda,” he replied with a sheepish smile. “The same name as Prospero’s daughter in The Tempest. It’s a beautiful name, isn’t it? I’m embarrassed that I didn’t say it earlier.”
“What is she like?”
“She’s beautiful. The kind of beauty I keep rediscovering every morning I awaken beside her. She is an amazing cook like her mother, and her capacity for kindness is boundless. It was one of those lightning-struck loves for me. Remember when we talked about songs and how each person has their own? I played her song for her: ‘Sono andati?’”
“She sounds like your soul mate.”
“If I can find mine, you will find yours, but I think you know who it is already.”
I blushed.
“Daniel is your match.” He chuckled. “The one dressed in wires and blinking lights. The one who keeps dropping by.”
“Yes, but I don’t know if I can win him back.”
“Oh, I’d bet my erhu on it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He laughed, then winked at me. “Trust me, I know.”
I giggled. “Do I get to keep your erhu if not?”
“You can, but I know I’m right,” he said with a laugh. He placed the case on his lap and stroked the hard shell as one would pet a lover.
The urge to hear my father play struck me. The voice of the erhu was his. It was as if he spoke with two voices. I yearned to hear him play now.
“Can you play something for me, please?” I asked, resting my chin on my hands.
“As you wish.” He withdrew his erhu from its case.
I listened, enraptured. The rest of the world gave way to the auditory, the beauty of unseen vibrations enchanting the cochleae. Like the song of a siren. There was nowhere else I wanted to be in this moment than in the company of my father.
I sighed when the music ended. The legend of my father’s erhu was a gift I would cherish forever. I leaned over. “I want to ask you for some advice about Daniel.”
“Well,” he said, returning his erhu into its case. “I would suggest that you should trust your heart and realize that love grows while infatuation fades. Do you remember when you asked me about my wife speaking to me again after all these years?”
“Yes, it seemed strange that she would speak to you after years of silence.”
“A few weeks ago, something changed. I had tried many times before, but she refused to see me, but that morning was different. As usual, I stood across the street so she could see me from the windows. I waited for her. Though Miranda never ventured outside of her tower, she paced the windows and occasionally watched the world go by.”
Until the day she died, the vision of Ma-ma through the second-floor windows was a constant sight in the neighborhood. My mother viewed the rest of the world like a fish tank—one she was glad not to be a part of.
“I waved to her, and for the first time since I left, she saw me. Her eyes met mine. I thought she would be afraid and run away, but she stayed, with her fingertips to the glass and she spoke one word. Even from a distance, I knew she said my name. That was when Miranda ran outside to join me.”
Ma-ma. I closed my eyes as tears sprang from them, spilling down onto the countertop.
“Why are you crying, Xiao Niao?” he asked.
“Because I finally know how my mother died, and she was happy.”
He stumbled back. “Your mother?”
“Yes. My mother, Miranda.” I wanted him to realize it, to acknowledge me first as his daughter, then claim me. I had been waiting too long, all my life, to hear him say the word.
My father narrowed his eyes and stared at me, the type of visual examination I often employed when poring over old photographs or film reels. Was he discovering the truth? Could he see the resemblance? And what if he didn’t? Twenty-eight seconds ticked by, one for every year of my life.
“Nu-er.”
Daughter.
My tears turned into crystals, sliding off my skin and singing as they fell onto the countertop. I muffled a sob with a cupped hand. My father reached for my cheek. His fingers hovered over my skin, for the gift of touch was impossible.
“You look like your mother,” he said. His dark eyes softened, glistening with tears. “How did I not know?”
“Ma-ma never had a chance to tell you,” I confessed. “I love you, Baba. Tell her I love her too.”
Then Thomas Kuk Wah smiled. It was an expression of joy mixed with paternal pride. This was my father. I snapped a photograph of the moment in my mind, one to place alongside my mother’s. And thus, the thread holding him tethered to the Middle Kingdom was cut. Before my eyes, my beloved father dissipated into fog, much like the heavy earthbound clouds of the bay burned off in the heat of the rising sun.
Baba.
* * *
I collected the teardrop crystals off the countertop and counted them. Eight. The luckiest number in my culture. Yes, I was lucky. Though I had lost my father once more, I didn’t mourn him, for he was with Ma-ma now.
My elbow brushed against the base of the goddess. Bringing her out into the light had not changed her condition. The pits and scars continued to mar her skin. I had hoped she would be restored to her full glory, since my mother’s last request would be fulfilled and the restaurant was set to succeed.
“Will I ever see you smile again?” I asked.
I examined the crack running down the center of her face. Though the fire had spared her, her physical corruption caused me pain. As I ran my hands over her crevices, my fingernails caught the edge of a deep pit near her shoulder. The piece came off, peeling, and its lack of sharpness surprised me, for I had been cut before. With a gentle tug, the small piece came off in my hands, revealing something shimmering underneath. Gold.
Hope coursed through me. The goddess might be transformed. I continued to pick at the exposed edges, stripping away the old skin, excavating the treasure long buried. Soon the discarded pile of peelings rivaled the size of my cat, and the goddess was revealed in her true form: golden, regal, and restored.