Ma and I had been waiting for the decisions from the colleges to come, so we weren’t surprised when Aunt Paula called us into her office again. Her face was still and white underneath the foundation and powder. On the table in front of her were two fat envelopes from Yale. I stopped breathing for a moment. A rejection letter would be thin. One white business envelope was stuffed with documents and it was accompanied by a large yellow manila envelope, also from Yale.
“How is this possible?” Aunt Paula asked quietly.
“What?” Ma and I asked together.
“That Kimberly applied to Yeah-loo without my knowledge and permission.” “Yeah-loo” is the Cantonese pronunciation of “Yale.”
“Your permission?” I echoed, incredulous.
“I signed a legal document guaranteeing the both of you when I brought you here. I am responsible for you, and you are living in one of my apartments and working at my factory. You are not supposed to take one step without telling me.”
Despite my resolve to stay calm, my voice sounded furious. “Are you saying that you would have helped me if you’d known? Like you would have helped me with Harrison?”
“Of course! Everything I do is in your best interest.”
Ma tried to calm us both down. “Older sister, we don’t even know if Kimberly got in or not. Let’s not get overwrought.”
“Open that letter,” Aunt Paula said.
I would have defied her but I was desperate to know what was in it as well. I slit open the white business envelope. It contained a few forms and a cover letter. I read the letter aloud, simultaneously translating it into Chinese for Ma. My voice had a quaver in it. “ ‘Congratulations. You have been accepted…’ ”
Ma sat down abruptly in the chair across from Aunt Paula.
“You cannot go to Yeah-loo! I do not allow it!” Aunt Paula burst out.
I ignored her and opened the other envelope as well. It contained the financial aid documents. They’d given me a full financial aid package.
I clutched both envelopes to me, my cheeks burning like I had a fever. “Ma.”
She had her hands across her mouth, trying to contain both laughter and tears of joy. She got up and took me in her arms. I couldn’t stop hopping up and down, I was so excited.
Ma squeezed me tightly. “You did it. I always said you were special.”
“If people saw this display of sentimentality, their flesh would feel as if it’d been anesthetized.” Aunt Paula’s voice brought us back to reality. She meant it was embarrassing to see us acting this way.
Ma released me and turned to face her. “Ah-Kim has the right to go to whichever school she wants to. She’s earned it.”
Aunt Paula looked stunned; then she said, “Your hearts have no roots.” She meant we were ungrateful. To my astonishment, she started to sob. “I made myself an abandoned animal to open up the route to America for us.”
Ma walked around the desk to Aunt Paula and laid a hand on her shoulder. Aunt Paula shook Ma off. Her face, although still wet, was livid. “You always did whatever made you happy. Happy! How much rice can you earn with happiness? Marrying your principal, shirking your responsibilities. I took up your burden for you! I married Bob!”
“I would never have asked you to do that.” Ma’s low voice was gentle. “I thought you cared for him.”
“What did I know? I was just a young girl.” Tears began to run down Aunt Paula’s face again. “You don’t know how many hardships I’ve suffered to get to where we are now.”
“But that doesn’t give you the right to treat us the way you have,” I said quietly. I felt compassion for Aunt Paula too, but a calm anger had grown in me the entire time she was speaking and pitying herself.
Ma gasped, but I was no longer under her control. I was still drawn along in the wake of emotion of having been accepted by Yale. I had found a new apartment and all of the paperwork had been finalized, except for the character reference for Ma. I knew we could break our ties with Aunt Paula now, and that knowledge allowed me to speak the truth.
Aunt Paula wiped her face with her sleeve, smearing her eyeliner. “Your teeth are sharp and your mouth is keen.”
“Fake kindness, fake etiquette is all you’ve shown us.”
“How dare you give me so little face?”
I stared at her. “Face or no face doesn’t matter in America. What matters is who you really are.”
“America! If I hadn’t brought you here, you’d still be in Hong Kong. I even gave you another address so you could go to a better school.”
“You did that because it’s illegal for us to be living where we are.”
Aunt Paula clenched her jaw. She hadn’t realized how much I now knew about the way things worked.
Ma tried to intervene. “Older sister, you’ve helped us a great deal, but maybe it’s time we stopped depending on you so much.”
I continued as if Ma hadn’t spoken. “Just like it’s illegal for you to pay us by the piece here at the factory.”
“After everything I’ve done for you, you speak to me like this. You treat the human heart like a dog’s lung.” But her manner was more regretful than angry, which meant she was getting scared.
I rose to my full height. I wasn’t quite as tall as Aunt Paula but I was much taller than Ma by then. “You should be ashamed of yourself for putting us in that apartment all these years. And for making us work here, under these conditions. After we fell down a well, you dropped a boulder on top of us.”
Ma had kept her eyes down, but now she looked up and slowly nodded in agreement. “Older sister, I cannot understand why you have treated us like this.”
Aunt Paula was sputtering. “I gave you work and shelter! And this is how you repay my human currency.” The currency of humanity is kindness. “I brought you here! That is a life debt, one you can never repay.”
“You should think about your own life debt, to the gods,” I retorted.
Aunt Paula had had enough and she pulled out her final card. “I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you. If you think I’ve treated you badly, you can leave. Leave the factory and move out of the apartment.” She said the words with gravity, then waited for us to beg her to reconsider.
Ma’s hands were trembling but she managed to smile. “In fact, ah-Kim has found us an apartment, in Queens.”
Aunt Paula’s eyes popped.
“We’ve already repaid our debts to you,” Ma said. When I heard her words, I knew we were freed of Aunt Paula forever. I met Ma’s eyes, and saw she was ready to leave.
I spoke to Aunt Paula. “If you do anything to hinder us in any way, I will report you to the authorities.”
And we walked out of there, leaving Aunt Paula gaping in her little office at the factory.
I had a blurred impression of the other workers staring at our departure as we got our things from the finishing area and then started for the exit. Matt caught my arm as I passed by and I paused for a moment to whisper, “It’s all right, come find me later,” and then Ma and I were out of the factory and on the street, hurrying toward the subway. A cool breeze blew against my hair.
“Are you all right, Ma?” I had been ready for this step long before. This was what I’d been working toward. I just didn’t know how Ma felt about losing her only family except for me.
She sighed. “Yes. I am afraid but I feel light too. Even if Aunt Paula bathed in grapefruit water, she wouldn’t be able to wash the guilt off. It is time for us to make our own way.”
I squeezed her arm. “Mother and cub.”
As soon as we got back to the apartment, I phoned Mrs. Avery and told her we’d had a disagreement with my aunt after I’d been accepted to Yale with a full financial aid package, and we therefore needed to move out of our current apartment as soon as possible.
There was a silence. Then Mrs. Avery spoke. “First of all, a huge congratulations to you, Kimberly! I am sure that the owners will have no problems accepting a tenant who has such a bright future, and I will give you both the character recommendation myself.”
Now our greatest worry was how we would manage to earn the rice until I graduated and had more free time to work for us. If we couldn’t find a new source of income quickly, we would lose the apartment.
Later that day, the doorbell rang.
“Who could that be?” Ma asked as I flew downstairs to open the door.
When I walked into our apartment with Matt, Ma’s mouth went from a surprised “O” to a calm smile of acceptance.
Matt could look around our apartment more carefully this time. There was no pity on his face, just understanding. He put his arm around me and said, “I could help you put some new glass into the window frames here.”
I leaned against him. “We may be leaving soon, but I’ll tell you the story later.”
He chatted with Ma over a cup of tea. Aside from keeping as far as possible from any places insects could crawl on him, he seemed perfectly at home. I felt I had to be dreaming to have Matt here in our apartment, lighting up the bare kitchen with his beauty.
After chatting for a few minutes with Ma, he asked, “Would it be all right if I took Kimberly to Chinatown for a bowl of a wonton soup? I promise I’ll take care of her.”
I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t need anyone’s care but Ma was already smiling.
“You two go out and get a moon tan,” she said teasingly, meaning a stroll under the moonlight.
“Ma,” I said, not daring to look at Matt.
“I trust the two of you not to do anything stupid. Don’t come back too late.”
I couldn’t believe I was actually on a date with Matt and that I hadn’t had to lie to Ma about it. The moment we got outside, Matt kissed me. Some of the guys on the street hooted.
When Matt pulled back, his eyes were dark. “You have such an effect on me, I’m riding the dizzying waves.”
I sighed and laid my cheek against his shoulder.
On the way to Chinatown, I filled him in on most of what had happened with Aunt Paula and the new apartment. I deliberately avoided telling him about Yale, deciding to wait until we were seated somewhere quieter.
The café was packed. Everyone there was Chinese. In those days, the cafés with the best food hadn’t been discovered by tourists yet, and if a white person did somehow venture in, the waiter called “Red beard, blue eyes” along with the order so that the cook could adapt the dish for Western tastes.
We stood in a long line of people waiting to be served. A counter ran along the length of the wall beside us, crowded with people who wanted to place take-out orders. Several waitresses behind the counter were packing food in plastic cartons into bags.
“Ah-Matt, what are you doing, hiding here?” A short balding waiter was at Matt’s elbow, beaming at us. “Get out of there, follow me.”
Despite the glares of the other patrons, we were pulled out of line and led to a small table at the end of the restaurant. Another waiter greeted Matt by name, then hurried over to clear off the dishes from our table.
Matt grinned and said, “Thanks, ah-Ho. Hey, ah-Gong, don’t break any plates now.”
Our waiter glanced at me, recognizing that I wasn’t Vivian, but was too polite to say anything. Our bowls of wonton soup were large and filled with homemade noodles and tender pastry wrapped around meat.
I used my spoon to skim off a few scallions floating on top and poured them into my mouth. “It has been so long since I’ve had this.”
“They’re the best in Chinatown,” Matt said.
“Do you come here a lot?” I couldn’t stop myself from picturing him here with Vivian every night.
“No, I almost never get to eat here. I know these guys because I used to wash dishes here, in the back.”
“When was that?”
“A while ago, just to earn a few extra cents when I wasn’t at the factory.”
“Why didn’t you stand by tables?”
“I still looked too young. And then I got the Italian delivery job.”
I caught sight of my reflection in the gold-flecked mirror behind him. I was glowing with happiness. I couldn’t believe I was sitting with Matt, hearing about his life, and that he belonged to me. I looked down at his hand resting on the tabletop: a square hand with reddened knuckles, a workman’s hand, the most special thing I’d ever seen. I took it in both of mine and laid it against my cheek.
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Sometimes, I was out with… not with you, and I’d suddenly see your face in front of me or remember something you’d said. But I thought you didn’t like me in that way. You were so distant and you went to that fancy private school. I knew you were going places, you weren’t just a dumb factory kid like me.”
“Is that why you picked Vivian over me?”
“I didn’t know you were a choice or I would have picked you for sure. Viv, she really depended on me. I couldn’t imagine you needing anyone.”
My heart contracted. I forced myself to say the words. “I need you too.”
His eyes, shadowed from all his recent grief, lit up. “Really?”
“When I’m with you, I could drink water and I’d be full. So why did you finally come to me?”
“When we kissed in the bathroom at the factory, it gave me hope for the first time. But then you just ignored me again and I couldn’t figure it out. I told myself it’d been a one-time thing, that your heart was somewhere else. But when…” He paused, not wanting to say the words about his mother’s death. “… I didn’t care if you liked me or not anymore. I feel terrible about it but I didn’t care about Vivian either. I just had to see you.”
“You told me your climbing couldn’t reach my heights.”
He stared at his soup. “It’s true. I can’t compare to you.”
“I took that to mean you didn’t want to be with me, that you wanted to stay with Vivian instead.”
“You thought it was an excuse?”
“Yes.”
“I just needed more time to figure it out. When I’m with you, I can’t think, especially after I’ve been kissing you. But I did feel guilty about Vivian too. I don’t want to be like my pa. And you are too good for me.”
I couldn’t bear it any longer. “I’ve just been accepted to Yeah-loo.”
He took a sharp breath. “Wow. Really? Congratulations.” He looked genuinely happy for me, but confused as well. “What does this mean? Are you going to move out of New York?”
The words came out in a rush. “If you want, you and Park can come with me. It may take me some time, but someday I’ll take you away from all of this.”
He was quiet, looking at me. “How about if I don’t want to be rescued?”
I leaned on one elbow and stared at him. “You want to live out the rest of your life in Chinatown?”
“Why not? I like it here-great food, low rent…”
“Great roaches…”
“Ugh. But look, you don’t need money to love someone, and you don’t need success to have kids and make a life together. Isn’t that what counts?”
“I’m only eighteen! How can I even think about having kids now?”
“You’d be a great mother.”
“I’d be a great surgeon.”
“Okay.” He sat back. “That too. But see, that’s what I mean. Like now, I’m wondering when you’re going to leave me for bigger and better things.”
“Never,” I said, and I leaned across the table, pulled him toward me and kissed him.
His golden eyes were warm again. “I’d go anywhere with you, Kimberly. But I want to be the one taking care of you.”
The weeks that followed formed the happiest period of my life. Within a few days, Mrs. Avery had arranged for us to move into the new apartment by the beginning of the next month, May. Ma went to the jewelry factory in Chinatown that Matt had told us about years before, and came home with a large sack of beads and wires and tools. We were paid very little for the work, but until the end of the school year, we had the extra hours I worked at the library to supplement our income. I knew, though, that it would be difficult to live on this jewelry-making alone.
“Thank goodness we’re moving,” Ma said. “Our hands would get much too cold to be able to do this kind of handwork in the winter.”
“As soon as I graduate, I’ll be free to work much more for us, Ma,” I said. I could type very quickly by then and I thought I would be able to get some office work at least.
“You just worry about your studies. Now that we don’t have those debts to Aunt Paula anymore, we’ll manage.”
The college admissions news created quite a stir at Harrison. I was a part of the blessed circle of kids who’d gotten into the best schools. Dr. Copeland congratulated me in the hallway when she passed me. Other kids turned to look when I walked by. Annette had been accepted to Wesleyan and Curt was going to RISD.
“I’ll be in Connecticut too!” Annette said, nearly choking me with her arms around my neck. “We’ll be able to see each other all the time!”
After Curt had seen Matt at Harrison, I’d only had to tell him I couldn’t meet him that week for tutoring.
“I told you I understood,” he said, avoiding my gaze. His clothes were disheveled and his eyes were shadowed. We didn’t meet again after that.
Matt fit into every aspect of my life. Some Sundays, he came over and helped us finish our new jewelry work. It was funny to see such a large man bent over feminine jewelry, especially with his clumsy hands. He still did his best and Ma appreciated his help. Whenever Matt and I could, we snuck away to his apartment, where we could have some privacy. It was hard to imagine how he, Park and his ma had lived in such a small space. The studio apartment was so tiny that they had to put their mattresses and bedding in the closet every day so they had enough room to eat and walk around. Matt and I were so frantic for each other we could hardly wait to get the mattresses out of the closet before we started touching each other.
Matt quit his job at the factory and soon started working for a moving company. He always liked jobs that got him into even better shape than he was already in. The money was good and he knew exactly what he’d be earning each month.
“You didn’t have to leave the factory for me,” I said.
“I’ve wanted to go for a long time anyway. I only stayed so I could help my ma sometimes and to keep an eye on Park.”
Park withdrew almost completely into himself after his mother’s death. He became so regressive, I feared for our ability ever to reach him again. He started peeing in his pants like a baby. He didn’t react at all to anything, not to speech, not to gestures. Matt practically had to feed him to get him to eat and Park became alarmingly thin. He stayed alone in their apartment or with their elderly neighbor who had always taken care of him when Matt and his ma needed to be somewhere else. Sometimes Park hung around the garage of the moving company where Matt worked.
“The guys there are all right,” Matt said. “They don’t mind Park being there. They know he’s okay.”
I knew that meant Matt was popular there, as he had been at the factory, and that the guys put up with Park because he was Matt’s brother.
I had learned Matt was friends with everyone in Chinatown. We never had to wait in line anywhere. Once, we needed to buy some groceries for Ma. The fishmonger saw Matt and asked us for our order immediately, despite all the customers who’d been waiting before us.
I whispered to Matt, “So you used to scale fish here too?”
He looked embarrassed and said, “Nah. I’ve lived in Chinatown a long time, you get to know everyone.”
Ma commented later that she had never gotten such fresh sea bass, and so much of it too.
When we passed the guy at the newspaper stand, Matt would call out, “Hey, you need a break? I’ll take the stand for you while you take a leak.”
“No, Matt, but thanks.”
“How about I get you a cup of coffee, then?” Matt would look at me and say, “You mind? Poor man’s cooped up in there all day.”
I never minded. It only made me love him more.
I wanted Annette to meet him and she came to Chinatown to join us for a cup of tea. She was the only white person in the café and she insisted on having the most Chinese drink we could think of, which was red bean ice. It was also one of my favorites: cooked red beans and shaved ice mixed together with sweetened condensed milk.
“Are they going to give it to me the Chinese way?” she asked. “Did the waiter tell the cook it’s for a white person?”
Ever since I’d mentioned how some Chinese restaurants did that, Annette had worried about not getting authentic food.
“I already asked the waiter to give us everything without change,” Matt said. It was strange for me to hear him speak English, with a slight Chinese accent. A lock of his hair fell over his eyes and he smoothed it back with his hand.
“Thanks.” Annette grinned at me. “Now I see why you never fell in love with any of those guys at Harrison.”
I stepped on her foot under the table but it was already too late. “Which guys?” Matt asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
Annette giggled. “Kimberly, promise me we’ll see each other all the time next year.”
“I don’t know if I want to see a person who is so indiscreet.” I wrinkled my nose at her to show her I was kidding.
“I want to know about the guys,” Matt said.
“Oh look, the drinks are here,” I said.
One time, when Matt and I were walking down the street, I caught sight of Vivian in a flower shop we passed. If possible, she was even more beautiful than ever in her sorrow, with limpid eyes that looked as if the world had drowned in them. She happened to look up. When she saw us, she seemed heartbroken, her grief so complete that it left no room for anger. I thought, I never want to love someone like that, not even Matt, so much that there would be no room left for myself, so much that I wouldn’t be able to survive if he left me.
We were lying on his mattress in their apartment when Matt said to me, “Let’s just stay in Chinatown together.”
“What? You mean, not go to Yeah-loo?”
“School’s not that important anyway. Everything’s perfect now. We’re so happy. Stay with me. I’m earning enough. Step by step, we could build up a whole life together.”
There was no question: I wanted to be with Matt every day of the rest of my life. My heart ached for him whenever he wasn’t by my side. But it wasn’t that simple. Annette had given me her Yale catalog after I was accepted and I’d lingered on the photographs of their laboratories for a long time. They even had an astronomy observatory that any student could operate, simply by showing a Yale ID. Their professors were some of the most brilliant thinkers of our time. What would I be capable of after I had access to a place like this?
“Matt, I can’t give Yale up. Come with me. We could get an apartment close to school. You could get a job there, I’m sure. And later, I’ll become a professor or a doctor, and we can do the most exciting things together. Travel. Have adventures. It’ll take time but eventually maybe you wouldn’t even have to work.”
His face fell and I knew I’d said too much. He shook his head slowly, looking at his rough hands. “I want to take care of you, Kimberly, not the other way around. That’s how it should be.”
“In the old days!” I tried to keep my voice light. “Why does it matter who earns more or less? It’s like you said, what’s important is that we build up a good life together.”
“I guess what I really hate is the idea that you’ll be in your classes next to those wave-players like that one you had, and they’ll all be chasing you.”
“What?” This had never occurred to me and I had to laugh. “We’ll be studying. No one is going to notice me in that way.”
“You have no idea. I know what men are like, trust me.”
“You sound worse than Ma. Even if they did try anything, I wouldn’t care because I already have you.”
He took me in his arms and kissed me hard. “I can’t help being jealous of any guy who gets to be near you for any reason. I’ve never been this bad before. It’s new for me to feel like this about someone.”
In those days, I wanted to believe our love was something tangible and permanent, like a good luck charm I could always wear around my neck. Now I know that it was more like the wisp of smoke trailing off a stick of incense: most of what I could hold on to was the memory of the burning, the aftermath of its scent.
In a way, I had known from the moment I saw the broken condoms. And strangely enough, the first person I told was Curt. He must have known something was wrong when I asked to meet him again. He was waiting for me at our old spot under the bleachers, but he didn’t try to touch me when I sat down.
“You okay?” he asked.
We sat there in silence a moment and then I started to cry. Curt wrapped his arm around me and held me against his shoulder. We sat like that for some time, with his cheek against the top of my head while I sobbed. Finally, I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.
“Is it that dickhead?” he asked gently.
I nodded. “He’s not a-”
“Okay, okay.” There was another silence and then Curt said, “Three choices. One, he dumped you. Two, you dumped him. Three, you’re knocked up.”
At this, my eyes filled with tears again.
He bent his head forward so he could see my face. “Kimberly, you’ve got to be kidding.”
I buried my head in my hands. “I feel so lost. I’ve never felt like this before. All my hopes, everything I wanted. Gone.”
There was a pause, then Curt asked helpfully, “You want me to marry you?”
Despite my tears, I choked out a laugh.
“No, really,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind too much. And we know we’re compatible.” He twitched his eyebrows suggestively.
I was more surprised at the thought of carefree Curt getting married than the fact that he’d want to get married to me. “You? What about your fear of the suburbs and a stable life?”
“We wouldn’t have to do all that. I could be free with you, Kimberly.” He looked away. “I missed you, when you were… occupied.”
Now I looked at his lowered eyelashes, which were the same sandy gold as his hair. He was serious, more than he sounded. He continued. “We could start again, completely fresh.”
“Curt, I love you.” I paused. “But not like that. And you don’t love me that way either. Actually, we’re friends. Friends who fool around.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah. You want me to give you some money?”
“You’re the sweetest guy there is.” I put my hand against his unshaven face. “It’s not that I don’t need it, but I can’t take it from you.”
“C’mon, Kimberly. If you want, you can borrow it and pay me back whenever you can. Baby costs lots of dough, you know.”
At this, the panic reared in me and threatened to take over. I struggled to stay in control. I managed to smile. “I’ve already used you for your body. I draw the line at using you for your money.”
He whistled. “How can you be so ethical at a time like this?”
I frowned. “Ethical. If you knew the things that were going through my head… Oh, Curt, what am I going to do?”
“Have you told the dickhead yet?”
“He’s not a… No.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.”
When it was time for me to go, Curt bent over to kiss me on the lips. I held his face in my hands, then turned so that his kiss landed on my cheek, to the side of my mouth.
With my eyes closed, I said, “Thanks for listening.”
“Lucky dickhead.”
In between classes, I met Annette in the bathroom. Since I’d just cried so much with Curt, I managed to keep my composure when I told her.
For once, Annette didn’t say anything. She just held me in an incredibly tight grip.
Then she spoke. “I’m here for you.”
I took a deep breath. “What do you think?”
“You need to tell him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? He has the right to know.”
I rubbed my eyes. “He does. But if I tell him, he’ll never let me… you know. He’ll want to keep it and get married. He’ll want us to stay in Chinatown.”
“I guess there are worse things than being an incredibly young mother and living with a hunk the rest of your life.”
“I don’t want to force him to be with me. I don’t even know if I can make him happy in the long run. What kind of wife would I be for him? Poor, stressed, frustrated, with all my potential unfulfilled.” I started to yank at my hair.
“Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself. You know what the easiest thing to do is. It’s to get rid of it and be with him and just never tell him. But you can’t do that. Probably the most likely thing is that you break up.”
I must have looked devastated, because she quickly added, “I’m sorry. And if you have the baby, it will mean your life will be harder, much harder, but it won’t mean it’s over.”
“If I’m lucky.”
“You’ve got something better than luck, you’re brilliant.”
“I wish I were so sure.”
Like a small child, I waited for Ma to come home from dropping work off at the jewelry factory. Now that I’d told Curt and Annette, the dam holding back my emotions had dissolved and I was overrun. When the apartment door finally opened, I ran to her as I’d done when I was a little girl.
“Ma!”
“Ah-Kim! What is it? What is it, my daughter?” She held me close, even though her head reached only to just above my shoulders, and then led me to a chair in the kitchen.
I couldn’t stop heaving, as if I were having convulsions. I had no tears left.
She waited for me to stop and then she said, “You have the big stomach.” She knew I was pregnant.
I couldn’t answer.
Her eyes were squeezed tight as she held me. Her head must have been spinning. Finally, in a low voice, she asked, “What did he say?”
“I can’t tell him.”
Now she lifted her head and stared at me. “You’re not thinking about dropping the fetus.” Having an abortion.
I could hear how dead my voice sounded. “What else can I do? How could I ever take care of you and Park and Matt and the baby?”
She laid a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll manage.”
With some anger, I brushed it off. “Like we’ve managed so far?” I let my gaze run through the dirty apartment. I thought about the woman and baby who used to live next door to us, in Mr. Al’s building. “I promised I would make a better life for you, Ma. I’m sorry I was so stupid.”
Ma’s voice broke. “My little girl, you’ve had to do everything for us. I am the one who is sorry, sorry I couldn’t do more to help you.” She held my head in her arms.
“Ma? Did you ever wonder about marrying Pa?”
“When I chose your pa over Bob, I never imagined Aunt Paula would still bring us to America. She told me when she left Hong Kong that I would die there. I thought I was giving up my future for him. But if I’d married Bob instead, I would have regretted it the rest of my life. I’ve never stopped loving your pa, even now that he’s been gone for so many years.”
“But Pa made the decision to be with you forever of his own free will. I dreamed of Matt and me choosing a life together step by step. Tying him to me with a baby isn’t a part of that.”
“You may need to change your dreams. My little heart, listen.” Ma took me by the shoulders. “When you and Matt finally got together, it was something no one could fight. I’ve seen you love each other for years. When you were younger, I told you not to get too close to the other kids. I was afraid he would lead you down the wrong path. I understood later, however, that no one could lead you astray. I’m so proud of you. But sometimes our fate is different from the one we imagined for ourselves.”