by Simon Han
“Are you awake?” Annabel asked her, giggling and tapping Māma’s cheek. Clunk. Clunk. “Your makeup’s all dirty.” When Māma did not giggle back, Annabel folded into the bed, wishing to take back the comment about her makeup. A dream tape of the night before played in her mind. She had been walking outside and Jack had refused to release her arm. Or was it Elsie? Annabel pulled and pulled and after she pulled free of whoever it was, she found herself in bed, with Māma beside her. No, Annabel was in bed the whole time. She was dreaming about walking outside. She tried to rewind the dream tape, but the pictures were fuzzy.
She picked up Māma’s left hand and turned it around in the light. The Thighmasters and Pasta Pro cookers on TV revolved on their own by some kind of magic, but after Māma’s hand turned to a certain point, Annabel had to turn it back. Māma watched her do this as if the hand Annabel was turning did not belong to her. The ring on her ring finger seemed to suck in the skin around it. Annabel leaned toward Māma’s palm and licked it.
“Háizi,” Māma said, her hand recoiling. She would not look at Annabel, focusing instead on the open door. Annabel’s saliva on Māma’s palm gleamed in the light, and as Māma got off the bed, she wiped the palm over her shirt.
Then, like that, Māma had left the room. Annabel pictured the hallway outside the door, the open room that Daddy called his office. Māma disappearing past the plastic table with the crayon stains. It was easier to imagine a space where Māma wasn’t. Her footsteps faded down the stairs. Annabel was ready to resign herself to another breakfast without Māma, but all of a sudden, her voice returned. She was much louder than usual, even in Chinese. Her voice rose over the grinding noise in the kitchen.
“We’re awake! Awake! Are you happy?”
The grinding stopped.
“Annabel is already late for school. I am not sure you realize.”
“So you wake us up, just now. With a blender.”
“I only wanted to—”
“Help? So helpful you are.”
In the absence of the grinding noise, Māma’s voice took on another timbre, as if it were not Māma but the house itself scolding Daddy for his thoughtlessness, treating the house as if it were only his when it was Māma who had made it possible to have this house and the industrial blender that had scared them both awake. And did she also need to mention this so-called friend of Annabel’s, who haunted their daughter during the day and night? No wonder Annabel sleeps terribly these days, Māma said. What was Liang going to do about Elsie? What did he really do when Patty wasn’t home?
“Qīng-Qīng. What do you mean by this?”
“I mean, I cannot know what happens when I’m not here.”
“Then maybe you should be here.”
Annabel readied herself for Māma’s retort, but the grinding had resumed. Over the noise, they yelled and yelled, and the house rasped and moaned. Annabel wanted to burrow underneath the comforter, but it was too hot. Was this what being in China felt like? She did not see Māma storming off to put on clean clothes for work, nor did she see Daddy spooning his daughter’s comfort snack out of the blender. She hurried out of her room and into Jack’s. She climbed over the rumpled sheets and hugged a pillow that was propped against the headboard. Her brother was gone. He had to go to school today, but for some reason she didn’t. Annabel made a phone with her hand and brought it to her ear. On the other side, Jack’s steady voice.
Lucky you, he said.
* * *
• • •
Before Annabel could make her own luck, Māma had made it for her. During Annabel’s mǎnyuè, Māma had gathered the Chengs in the dining room—newly reconfigured into a playroom—in order to begin the one-month ritual. Kneeling into the foam puzzle mats, she teased out a finger from the baby’s puffy hand, guided it to the baby’s heart, and pronounced “Ann-nuh-bell.” Then her Chinese name, “Xiǎo Qiàn,” for a modern beauty. To Annabel, the familiar woman’s voice acquired an edge, and she cried.
“Oh, no,” Māma said. “I am here.” She lightly rocked the sleeper chair, then guided Annabel’s hand to her own heart, to the breast that Annabel periodically hunted down. “Māma,” she said, no longer to teach Annabel something. She said it as if to convince herself that the word meant her.
Then she brought Annabel’s finger over to Liang’s open hand and said “Daddy.” The air around Annabel was charged with a new, alien feeling. “Daddy,” Māma repeated for the girl, tracing the lines of her husband’s palm with their daughter’s stubby finger.
Annabel watched the two shapes above her. They smiled and basked in a happy haze of their own uttered names, and didn’t notice at first Jack coming in through the swinging kitchen door, bearing an electric hair clipper across both palms, as if it were at once fragile and heavy.
“Thank you for getting it,” Daddy said, drawing the object into his hands, where it transformed into something smaller. He rarely said Annabel’s brother’s name out loud. When he did, Jack sliced through the air, like an act of aggression. Jack had picked the name for himself, after plugging Titanic into the VHS player during one of the afternoons when he was left alone in the apartment. Now Māma guided her finger toward him.
“Gēge,” she said. It was easier for Māma to say big brother than it was to say Jack. Māma had three big brothers in China, three of Annabel’s jiùjius. China, baby Annabel had heard from time to time. China, which to her was a sound that her mouth couldn’t make, rather than a place she had never been to. In China, you shave your baby’s head after one month so the hair will grow out thick with fortune for life.
“Gēge,” Māma said, gathering Annabel out of the sleeper and into her arms, closer to her big brother, to the hair clipper in Daddy’s hands. Gēge made Annabel giggle, but the buzzing that now came from Daddy’s hands made her scared. It was a Bad Thing.
Jack crouched behind Daddy, while Māma sat cross-legged and firmed her hand under Annabel’s neck. “Qīng yīdiǎn’r,” Jack said. “Màn yīdiǎn’r,” Māma said. The two spoke in hushed tones so as not to upset the Bad Thing. Their skin tingled as the clippers met the first wisps of Annabel’s hair, and though her luck was growing, she let out a whimper.
“Stop,” Māma said in Mandarin. “Something is wrong.” Māma swayed Annabel in her arms, letting a sprinkling of hair fall to her knees. Jack stepped out from behind their father and sat on the mat beside Māma. Annabel’s brother had not cried at his own mǎnyuè six years ago. He had not known that in another month, his mother would depart for the States, or that his father, half a year later, would surprise everyone by going there, too. Now he brought his eyes so close to the hairless spot on Annabel’s head he could sniff her.
“You’re so brave, Mèimei,” he whispered to the top of her head.
Annabel stopped whimpering; seeing this, Daddy loosened his grip on the clipper. He had not shaved his own son’s hair on the boy’s mǎnyuè. His parents-in-law had delegated the task to one of Māma’s brothers, whom they trusted more. With Annabel, though, Daddy would not relinquish the clippers. He found his grip again and choked it, and his hands remained steady.
The buzzing returned, and another patch of hair came off. When Annabel leaned away from the razor and into Māma, Daddy did not slow down. The clipper stopped just short of the scalp. He worked over Annabel’s crown down to her hairline and around her ears. Thin piles of hair formed on the mat. Jack brushed a few strands off Annabel’s face. To calm her own nerves, Māma hummed a slow, flat tune that her mother had made up when there was nothing but revolutionary songs to sing. Everyone looked at Annabel. What was she thinking?
She wrinkled her nose, and her mouth shot open.
Before Daddy could press on, Māma reached for his arm—and Jack did, too. Together they held Daddy back, anticipating a sneeze. It could arrive at any moment. All it would take was one jerk of the neck to send Annabel’s head into the razor—and then
what? Anything, everything. Daddy sat stunned, perhaps as much by the two people holding him back as by the impending sneeze, and the three waited.
They waited like that for a while.
* * *
• • •
Annabel got to skip school the one time, and only one time. The next week, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving break, Māma left for work and Daddy dropped Annabel off at Plano Star Care as usual. It was when her parents were both in the house that something changed. The atmosphere became meaner, sharper. Māma staggered through the garage door with groceries that no one had asked her to get. Before even setting down the bags, she’d strain to pick up trash from the TV stand or plod off to the laundry room to turn off the light that Daddy had left on. Or on the nights that she was running late, Daddy now insisted that they wait on Māma before eating, even though the sauce for the Coke chicken would turn to jelly and the steamed eggs would lose their steam and Māma would come home mad that they had waited.
Pay the school bill? Daddy would ask.
Remember the teacher conference? Māma would ask.
Too busy with work? Daddy would ask.
Too busy to take care of our daughter? Māma would ask.
Their questions cut like accusations, even when directed at Annabel: Bǎobèi, any trouble at school today?
Because if there was trouble, Māma said during one dinner, Annabel should tell them, and Daddy should take care of it. And if Daddy still doesn’t want to take care of it, Māma will.
“But I didn’t get in trouble,” Annabel whined, and Māma smiled and shook her head, and Daddy frowned and shook his head, and Jack kept eating, as if he was the one who’d gotten in trouble and didn’t want anyone to know.
By the third dinner that week, a silence had fallen between Māma and Daddy. A louder silence, as if they were screaming through the house, HEAR HOW SILENT WE ARE! As the three got ready for bed that night, the silence turned solid, as if a stranger had squeezed onto the mattress with them.
At least Annabel now got to sleep with her parents downstairs again. As she lay between them, relishing their sweet skin smell, she thought how maybe the silence was not because Māma and Daddy were angry at each other but because they were scared. Daddy was scared of everything, Māma kept saying. Customer service, waiters, homeless people, not to mention Annabel’s teachers. But he had asked to meet with Elsie’s parents, Daddy reminded Māma, he had done what she’d wanted him to do. And what do you know? The teachers had told him—and quite frankly, he agreed with them—that he was overreacting. Meanwhile, Māma was scared to let the matter go, scared to talk about anything other than Elsie or Plano Star Care or how she’d blown most of her savings sending Annabel to a school with incompetent teachers who did things teachers in China would never do. Scared to the point of forgetting everything else. Like trying to make Annabel sleep upstairs.
Not that they needed to revisit that idea, thought Annabel. She slipped under the comforter and crumpled her eyes shut. Never mind if she didn’t get to give either of them her one hundred kisses. The important thing was to have sweet dreams, to not wake up kicking her parents and give them something besides Elsie to fill the silence. Annabel had missed the cool sheets, all that space for her to stretch and grow. Here there were no other rooms other beds other countries other planets for Māma and Daddy to go when her eyes were closed. She would take it. And there was Jack, above her. As her parents nodded off, Annabel stared up at the ceiling and imagined his feet walking there. She imagined so hard she heard actual steps.
* * *
• • •
But Jack had come not from above, but from below. He had dug himself out of China. If you stabbed the earth with a shovel, you could peek down into China. At five years old Annabel believed this, though she knew she shouldn’t. However deep China lay, she was both relieved that she had never been there and envious that others had. She had a vague memory of dunking her face into a supermarket lobster tank and Daddy hauling her home, straight into the closet in the guest room. There were no clothes there to keep her company. She sat in the dark for what felt like her whole life, until she realized she could cry her way out of it. The closet had been frightening enough, but the closet had been no China.
Jack, however—Jack had gone to China. Which was to say, Jack was full of experience, of dark wisdom. His stories Annabel believed without question. Vampires can’t go into your house unless you invite them in. Ghosts won’t go away unless you learn how they died. Bad guys with guns can’t see you if you’re under a table. China was the land of bad guys, and Jack had been one of them. Over the phone, Annabel’s faceless grandparents always ordered her to watch out for her dǎodànguǐ brother, the one who’d made life difficult since he was in Māma’s stomach. They’d told her how Māma had been forced to be cut open, so Jack could enter the world. Not to mention that, before Māma went to America, he’d bite down on her nipples until they gushed with blood. It was around then that Māma would snatch the phone away.
One night almost a week after she returned to her parents’ room, Annabel got out of bed while they were sleeping and headed upstairs. She needed to seek out Jack’s wisdom. As much as she liked being in Māma and Daddy’s bed again, the silence there was making it harder for her to fall asleep. Annabel wanted to ask her brother if that silence had come from somewhere. Was it China? If she could figure out where the silence belonged, maybe she could figure out how to send it back.
Before she got to Jack’s room, she ran into him.
“Annabel?” Jack stood in his pajamas in the narrow upstairs hallway. In the dark, he was a floating head, his big, all-hearing ears glowing in the light from his room behind him. “Are you . . . awake?”
Why did everyone keep asking her that? “Are you?”
Jack moved closer, and his tired face uncreased, came into focus. “I heard you on the stairs,” he said, sounding less curious than disappointed. “I thought . . . I thought you were asleep.”
What a strange thing for him to say. If Jack had heard her on the stairs, why would he think she was asleep? She wanted to knock-knock on her brother’s head, but she was still too short to reach. “You’re being in-comp-uh-tent,” she said.
She wasn’t sure if she was using the word right, but she liked the way it sounded. Whatever Bad Thing incompetent meant, Jack did not look impressed. “You don’t get it,” he said, and moved away from the light. She realized her brother was evaluating her—like Māma, whenever she asked Annabel about Elsie. “Why’re you here, anyway? Go back to sleep.”
“I tried. I can’t.”
“You get to sleep in Mom and Dad’s bed, and you can’t?”
“The bed . . . it’s different now.”
Jack glanced back toward his room. For a second, she thought he was going to ask her if she wanted to sleep with him. Most days Annabel could barge into his room, but something about Jack now made her feel like a vampire, like she needed an invitation. If only he knew that she would follow him anywhere. Then her brother turned around, and the creases on his face returned, more pronounced. “You really don’t remember walking outside?”
“But Gēge. I’m always walking.”
“I mean, at night.” Jack placed a hand on her shoulder, which felt like another thing he’d picked up from the adults. “Late at night. Last week. Don’t you remember?”
Now Annabel was wondering if they were still on the same team. She shook her head, but Jack kept asking. “You got all the way to the bridge. Why can’t you remember?” Annabel shook her head harder, feeling the contents inside swish around like the car passing by their house—she could hear the swish, swoosh—as Jack continued talking.
“Maybe you do remember. Maybe you’re pretending.”
Sometimes Annabel would pretend to be invisible, or dead. Daddy would tiptoe like a T. rex into a room, and she would hold her breath under the bed, watching t
he hair on his toes. Monster Daddy could sniff out the fear that little girls sweat, but Annabel was so good at not being afraid that sometimes their games took forever and she gave herself up. She’d cough, and Daddy would pull her out from under the bed and throw her over the bed, and his fingers would scurry under her arms and over her belly as she wheezed through laughter for him to stop, and then he would stop, though she did not really want him to.
Now she wanted Jack to stop. “I don’t like this. You’re mean.”
“I’m mean?”
“I’m just a little girl.”
Jack smiled, though he did not look pleased. Maybe his smile had gotten older, too. “You love being the little girl, don’t you? Pretending to sleepwalk so Mom and Dad can wake up and think, where’s our little girl? Where’s our bǎobèi? Well, too bad. Guess I was the only one who noticed.”
The more Jack pressed on, talking more to himself than to her, the more Annabel wanted to cry. Only she didn’t want to do it here, so she laughed.
Jack frowned. “You think this is a joke?”
“Gēge,” she said. In that dark hallway, flanked by framed shadowy photographs, Annabel had trouble standing. “I want to go home.”
“What?” Jack inspected her like a puzzle.
“Home. Home. Homehomehome—”
“Okay—okay.”
They were finally agreeing on something, but on what? And why didn’t it feel like agreement? As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Annabel took stock of her brother. She was just a little girl, and Jack—Jack was not yet an adult. A child like her, even if he’d dug himself up from China. Whatever it was he’d accused her of, she could get back on his side by saying she had done it. He knew more about the world than her, anyway. Mummies in Egypt have hearts, not brains. Zombies in China don’t walk, they hop. Little girls in America don’t always get what’s real. “I’m sorry,” she said.