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- Herausgeber: Knights Of
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
From the bestselling author of the Waterstones Prize shortlisted Front Desk series. A gripping middle-grade novel about Lina, who leaves China to live with her parents and sister in the US, after five years apart. She's been waiting for this moment but it's not exactly like the postcards… As Lina reckons with the big change and feeling left out, she learns about family, friendship, and the power of belonging. And when her teacher starts facing challenges for her latest book selection, a book that deeply resonates with Lina, it will take all of Lina's courage and resilience to get over her fear in order to choose a future where she's finally seen.
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To the teachers and librarians all over this country working so hard to make sure every child feels seen.
I see you. I love you. I thank you.
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Contents
Chapter 1
I listen to the quiet hum of the plane and the not-so-quiet flutter of my heart in my chest. This is it. Another six hours and I will finally see my parents and my sister again! I try to picture Mum’s and Dad’s faces when I land. Except I keep picturing Marge and Homer Simpson. Only Asian. With shorter hair. And a less smart Lisa. (Hopefully.)
I guess that’s what happens when you haven’t seen your family in five years (and you’ve watched a lot of subtitled Simpsons). I was starting to give up on the whole going-to-America thing, until my Mum called six weeks ago.
“Lao Lao told me you’re doing your middle school applications,” Mum said. “And you’re writing an essay on your parents being in America?”2
I nodded, coiling the phone cord around my fingers.
“Is that not a good topic?” I asked.
“No …” she said, “it’s just … what are you going to say?”
I shrugged. I like writing, but not as much as I like drawing pictures. But art’s a sure way to get kicked out of any school in Beijing, let alone Beijing Normal Middle School #3, where I was applying. It was my aunt Jing’s middle school. She now has a fancy tech job in Shenzhen. She says there’s no future for artists in China. Beijing Normal would get the art out of me … and turn me into a steady workhorse. Just like her.
“Well?” Mum asked.
I felt a rush of heat spread across my forehead. Here was my chance to tell her how I really felt about being left behind all these years. I was only five years old when she left. I thought she was going on a work trip. I didn’t even understand. Most of all, how could she take Millie, my baby sister, and not me? My sister got to grow up with my parents. Me? I grew up with postcards from my parents.
But as usual, my voice was locked in the chamber 3of my throat.
There are things I don’t want to tell anyone, well, except Lao Lao.
My grandmother, Lao Lao, is my moon and my Wilson. Like the volleyball in Cast Away (another movie I binged), she is my companion in my waiting city. That’s what Beijing feels like, just me and Lao Lao waiting. It used to be me, Lao Lao, and Lao Ye. But last year, when Lao Ye passed away … our trio of tea leaves went down to two. Now I am Lao Lao’s human alarm clock (I wake her up every day at 6 a.m.), dumpling steamer, pu’er brewer, flower waterer, and medicine fetcher.
I know how much she needs me. I’m all she’s got left. Which is why some feelings are too hard to even tell her.
Instead, I catch them and tuck them behind my cheek.
Lao Lao says that’s the way to succeed in China.
Every morning, Lao Lao reminds me: go to school, make your parents proud, and watch your words, lest they label you a bad apple. She grew up in the era of the Cultural Revolution, and her father was thrown in jail for being a “bad apple.” Even though 4that was a long time ago, the memory of it never really left. She’s always telling me to sew up half my mouth. I imagine an invisible thread running along my mouth, my lips stitched like a sock.
But the thing about some feelings is … they just won’t go away. Instead, they form a tight ball at the base of my throat. Where they sit and they wait, planning their escape from the thread. And one day, just when you least expect it, they shoot out like a rocket.
That’s exactly what happened that rainy Beijing spring day when Mum called.
“Do you really want to go to Beijing Normal #3?” Mum asked.
I looked over at my lao lao, craning her head eagerly to catch snippets of our conversation. She put her knitting needles down, massaging her hand. Her arthritis had gotten so much worse since Lao Ye passed, she could hardly keep knitting. The doctors in China had warned her that this day would come. They told her to do more acupuncture, to get out and exercise. But Lao Lao was born in the Year of the Ox. She does not like anyone telling her what to do.
I turned away from Lao Lao, held the phone close 5to my face, and cupped a hand around my mouth.
“No,” I whispered. “I want to go to school in America. Please, Mama. I want to come.”
And with that, I chose my future over my past.
*
A hand on my arm pushes me awake.
“Lina Gao?” the flight attendant asks. I rub my eyes awake. She smiles and says to me in Chinese, “We’re moving you up to first class. So you can get out first when we land!”
I blink in confusion. I reach for my sketch pad. I was in the middle of working on a sketch of Lao Lao gardening, but as I look up, my eyes nearly pop when I see the flight tracker on the screen. We’re almost there!
“Your escort will be waiting as soon as we get to LAX to take you to your parents.”
I leap up from my seat. Let’s gooooo!!!
I follow the flight attendant up the long aisle to first class, staring at all the people stretched out in beds with their noise-canceling headphones and candyfloss slippers. These are airplane apartments.
I take a seat in one of the cabins and reach for the 6fancy first-class cotton slippers. I’m so saving these for Lao Lao. I wonder if she likes her new nursing home.
I feel a tug of guilt thinking about it, but Aunt Jing said it was necessary. She and Uncle Hu both live in Shenzhen, which is about twelve hundred miles away from Beijing, and they both have 9-9-6 tech jobs. A 9-9-6 job means you work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. They’re the envy of the country, because they make the most money. But it also means there’s no way my aunt can be a tea brewer for my lao lao.
So they took me and Lao Lao to visit the nursing home. I remember the floors were very shiny, almost like you could go roller skating on them. I pictured a bunch of elderly folks roller skating, and then had to bite on my cheeks to stop myself from giggling. Because it wasn’t funny.
The rooms were bright, with big windows that allowed the team of nurses to look in at all times. Aunt Jing said she got Lao Lao the biggest room of all – a private room. It was the nicest room in the entire nursing home. But to Lao Lao, it was like living inside a fishbowl. She didn’t like the idea at all. 7
“No way!” she said, stomping her walking cane down on the ground. “Not happening! I am a free spirit – I need to be able to roam around the park and go to see my friends!”
“They can come see you!” Aunt Jing insisted. “That’s why we’re putting you into a retirement home in Beijing – so your friends can come visit. Anytime!”
Lao Lao has two good park friends: Chen Nai Nai, a grandma who loves to dance, and Wang Nai Nai, whose daughter is also in America. I’ve never seen either of them come to our house, though.
“Why can’t I just stay by myself?” Lao Lao asked, peeking at my aunt.
“Because, Ma, your arthritis and osteoporosis, it’s all getting worse. And now that Dad’s gone … Frankly, you should have gone into a retirement community a long time ago,” Aunt Jing said. “But you had Lina –”
“And I loved every minute of it, sweet child,” Lao Lao said, patting my hand.
I felt a tear escape. This was all my fault.
“No, don’t you cry,” Lao Lao told me. She nodded to my aunt, and with a shaking hand, she signed the papers.
I put my hand to the airplane window and whisper 8with all my heart:
“I’m so sorry, Lao Lao. I promise I will find a way to bring you over. I will find a way to get you out of the waiting city, too.”
“Fifteen minutes to landing!” the captain announces on the speaker.
I immediately grab the stash of free goodies next to the candyfloss slippers. I stuff as many as I can into my backpack. Socks, sleeping masks, you name it. I add the stash to my collection of Chinese snacks I’ve brought over for my (almost) new family. I’ve packed wheat flour cake, hawthorn flakes, pumpkin chips, and White Rabbit sweets for them, hoping the sweets will fill them with sweet guilt for leaving me behind.
I gaze out the window at the wispy clouds. The Los Angeles houses sprawl across the land, stretching all the way to the shimmering blue sea! I’ve never seen the ocean before. Before Lao Ye passed, we talked about going to Beidaihe, the closest beach to Beijing. But it was always too hard, with Lao Ye’s work and health. He was a magazine editor. Even after he “retired” he kept going into the office. He said working was the best way to stay young, 9but Lao Lao secretly suspected it was so he could keep eating lunch at his favourite fried dumpling place next to his office.
My lao ye had heart disease and diabetes. He used to joke that at his age, heart disease and diabetes were like stamps in a passport – signs of a life well lived.
I wish Lao Ye had had actual stamps in his passport, though, and more time to get them. But at seventy-two, he had a stroke in the taxi on his way home from work.
We didn’t believe it even when we were sitting in the hospital waiting area. Lao Lao and I were still talking about going to the beach and pushing Lao Ye to actually retire after this. When the doctor delivered the news, all I remember is my grandma falling to the ground, pounding the cold stone floor, crying, “You get back here, you old goat! Don’t you dare leave me!”
But her beloved goat was already gone.
Lao Lao’s voice comes burrowing into my head as the plane starts to descend.
This is different. Remember, we may be six thousand miles apart, but I’m right there in your10heart. Anytime you want to talk to me, just put your hand over your chest and I’ll feel it, sweet child.
As the turbulence jiggles my butt, I open my mouth, like I’m about to eat a gigantic baozi, the tears running down my cheeks. This is it, Lao Lao! I made it!!!
We touch down at 9:58 a.m. As the plane taxis, a flight attendant comes up to me. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready!” I announce.
Chapter 2
I scamper after my escort, who kindly helps me with my carry-on suitcase. She’s a fast-walking Chinese lady named Miss Chen, with a walkie-talkie and a giant stack of documents, leading me through immigration. The immigration officer takes one look at my passport and stamps it with his big rubber stamp.
As we wait for my bags, Miss Chen chats with me in Mandarin.
“You excited? I hope your parents are here already, we got in an hour early.”
“I’m sure they’ll be here!” I say to her, rising to my tippy toes with excitement. I can hardly wait to walk out those double doors to see them.
I scan the conveyer belt for my luggage. Lao Lao 12made me bring over three full suitcases of stuff. One of them is an entire suitcase of sweaters she knitted for me and Millie – even though Mum kept telling her it’s warm in LA.
“Did you go on a trip to visit your relatives?” Miss Chen asks.
I open my mouth to say No, this IS the trip – but I nod instead. Probably easier.
“You have any brothers or sisters?” she asks.
“I have one sister,” I tell her. “She’s seven.”
“Oh, that must be fun! You two love playing together?”
I cross my fingers behind my back. Sure hope so!
As I wait, I tell Miss Chen all the things I know about my family by heart, from reading their many letters. I tell her my dad is a scientist. A microbiologist, to be exact. My mother works at a big fancy salon. We live in a beautiful pale blue two-story house with a white fence in Los Ramos, California. A house that’s taken my parents some time to finally find. It’s just forty miles from Los Angeles.
I talk of my family’s accomplishments, as if they’re mine. 13
“Wow,” she says. “Sounds like they’ve really achieved the American dream.” I smile.
Every movie and TV show I watch is always talking about the American dream. I’m still not sure exactly what it means, but I think it means something like this:
To be able to buy any kind of Frappuccino you want.To have a nice home and fill your bed with a lot of pillows, like you have a thousand heads.To say I love you, all the time, to your family. And not be embarrassed.I like number three the most. I don’t remember when Mum and I stopped saying it on the phone. Maybe Mum didn’t want my little sister Millie to be jealous. Or she didn’t think I needed to hear it.
But I did.
The truth is, my time in the waiting city wasn’t just all dumplings and tea. It was hard, too. I’m not going to tell Mum now that I’m back because what’s the point? But I hope I hear Mum say I love you again. All the time. And not just because it’s the American thing to say.
Chapter 3
Lina? Is that you? Lina?” a voice calls out in Mandarin when Miss Chen and I finally push through the double doors with my luggage.
I see a Chinese woman with long, wavy hair. A man standing next to her is snapping pictures. She runs up to me, crying and sobbing so uncontrollably, I take a step back. The little girl standing next to her looks just as confused as I am.
It’s only when the man says, “It is you, sunflower!” that it hits me. This is them. My parents!
I recognise them from the pictures!
I stand there, emotion choking me as I replay Dad’s nickname for me on my tongue.
Mum kneels in front of me on the stone airport floor and wraps me in a warm hug. I close my eyes 15and breathe her in. She smells like warm congee on a rainy day.
“Mama!” I cry.
Dad adds his arms around us and Millie jumps in too, and we’re a wet sandwich. We stay like this, cocooned in our little world. And I know I made the right choice. The future is infinitely better than the past.
When we finally pull away, I smile at my little sister. She looks just like me. But cuter. I try not to think about how much cuter. (Like, a lot.) She still has all her baby fat and her eyes shine brightly above her dimpled cheeks. She looks like some sort of perfect Pixar character.
“Is China enormous? Do you like my earrings? Mum let me get my ears pierced for my birthday and I have to keep these in for six weeks, but then I can change them! Do you have a TikTok account?” she asks in Chinese.
I am relieved she knows Chinese, and I shake my head. My new sister’s mind is like a space cruiser from Star Wars– traveling at light speed. Her rapid tongue shifts between Chinese and English words whenever she gets stuck. At my old school, I studied 16English too. But hearing herspeak English … my tongue shrinks in intimidation.
“No, we don’t have TikTok,” I reply in Chinese. “We have something called Douyin, though.”
Millie repeats it. “Well, do you have that?”
I shake my head. Lao Lao had very specific rules against social media. Especially after some kids in my class started calling me Lina,Linaleftbehind.Out ofsight,outofmind!She’ssuchabore,evenher parentsdon’twantheranymore!My ears turn bright red at the memory.
Luckily, Millie is too busy dancing to notice. She prances around my luggage cart as we push it toward the exit. Mum suddenly stops.
“Are you hungry?” Mum asks. “Thirsty?”
“I could use some water,” I say.
Mum looks to Dad, who says regretfully, “I forgot the water bottles at Pete’s.”
Mum fumbles through her purse and pulls out a five-dollar bill. She hands it to me and tells me to go and buy something from the café in the airport. “Millie, why don’t you go with her?” Mum says.
My sister dances ahead toward the café. I get in line and stare at the enormous menu of drink options. 17There are so many words I don’t understand, like Blendsand Smoothiesand Kombucha. They all sound so delicious, and terrifying at the same time. I turn to my sister, but I’m too embarrassed to ask.
When it’s my turn, the server asks me what I want.
“Water,” I say, with as much confidence as I can.
“Sparkling or still?” she asks.
Uh-oh. Is she asking me if I still want it?
“Yes, I do,” I tell her.
“Nooooo.” Millie jumps in and says in Chinese, “She wants to know what kind of water.”
There are kinds?
“Water kind!” I tell her. Obviously. I look at my sister. She smacks her forehead, like there’s a huge fly on her brow. I squirm, embarrassed. I should never have opened my mouth and said I was thirsty.
“She means still,” Millie says. “How much is that?”
“We only have Fiji. That’ll be four seventy-five plus tax,” the server says.
“Do you have Dasani? Or Arrowhead, maybe?” Millie rattles off brands I’ve never heard of. The server shakes her head. Millie peers down at the five dollars in my hand. “You know what, can she just have a cup with ice?” 18
Before I know it, the server hands me an empty cup with ice. I stare at it, confused. That’sit? Am I just supposed to eat this ice?
But Millie’s already bounced back to my parents, who praise her for her quick thinking.
“Good call. They’re always overcharging at these airport places! We can fill the cup up with water when we pass a water fountain!” Mum reaches out a hand and smooths Millie’s hair.
I follow my family, chewing nervously on the ice cubes.
To think that in Beijing I was able to converse effortlessly with Lao Lao’s doctors on the phone and take down complex medicine combinations. Here, I can’t even order a water without my little sister.
I wonder how I’m ever going to be the big sister.
Chapter 4
Dad plays tour guide, chatting away in Chinese as he drives. I’m so glad we speak Chinese as a family, aside from the occasional English word Millie sprinkles in. I’m in the back of our Honda Civic, with Millie, trying not to spill my cup of ice water.
Mum found a fountain for me to fill it, and I drink hungrily from it. I glance down at the duct tape holding together the backseat of the Honda Civic.
“To your left is the Westside,” Dad explains on the freeway. “It’s where the beach is. And actually, if you take the beach motorway all the way up, you’ll end up in Ventura County, where we live!”
“Can we go there sometime?” I ask, putting my ice water down on the hot seat. I sit up. “Oh, please! 20I love the beach! I saw the ocean from the plane – it looks so blue!”
Mum and Dad exchange a glance. “We’ll see. Your dad usually has to work,” Mum says.
“Even on the weekends?” I ask, picking at the duct tape on the seat with my finger.
Millie gawks at my hand, like What are you doing? I instantly stop tugging at the tape. Note to self: Don’t destroy our car.
“Weeds and insects don’t understand weekends, unfortunately,” Dad sighs.
I furrow my eyebrows. Insects?
“Dad works on an organic farm!” Millie says, bouncing in her seat.
Millie seems to always be moving. If she were in China, the teachers would definitely label her a zuo bu zhu, or can’t-sit-still kid. Definitely not the best kind of apple, but still redeemable with a little work and discipline. First, the teachers would try to scare the bouncing bean out of her. And if that didn’t work, they’d call up her parents and demand she be taken off all sugar.
But Millie reaches into her pocket and gleefully tosses orange Tic Tacs in her mouth, bouncing so 21hard I can hear the duct tape go squish-squish-squish.I look at my parents, but they don’t seem to mind. It really is a totally different country. “Yes, an organic farm! It’s pretty amazing. Actually, it’s also a regenerative farm,” Dad says proudly.
“Wait, I thought you were a scientist,” I say, looking at my parents, puzzled. “That’s what you wrote in all your letters. A microbiologist!”
“I am,” Dad says. “That’s what I studied in graduate school, when I first came to America. Now I work on a farm for Pete Burton. He’s one of the first organic regenerative farmers in Winfield.”
“What kind of stuff do you grow?” I ask.
“Carrots, tomatoes, beans, you name it.”
So Dad’s a legit farmer. Why didn’t he just say so in his letters?
I think of the farmers Lao Lao and I met in Bei Gao Li Village. It’s out in the countryside, about three hours from Beijing. Twice a year, Lao Lao and I used to go and volunteer there. It was the only time she left Lao Ye at home. And even after he passed, when walking started getting painful for her, she insisted we go.
We had some of our best memories in Bei Gao 22Li Village. It used to be a farming village. But over the years, as the locusts ravaged the land and the droughts sucked the soil dry, folks went in search of new opportunities in Shenzhen and Shanghai, leaving behind young children with grandparents.
Bei Gao Li became a waiting village.
I think that’s why Lao Lao always took me there. I smile a bit, thinking of little Tao, a five-year-old boy with a teddy bear he carried around everywhere. Little Tao would run around, helping Lao Lao pass out her homemade pork buns.
At the thought of pork buns, my tummy rumbles. Mum must have heard it because she turns and asks, “You hungry?”
This time, I shake my head. I don’t dare risk going into a restaurant and making a fool of myself ordering again, just to come out with a bowl of napkins.
“I’ll make us some lunch when we get home,” Mum says. “Just as soon as the bombs harden.”
Did she say bombs?! My heart lurches. Who are my parents??
“Maybe you can help!” Mum says. “The more hands, the faster it’ll be.”
“Yeah, it’s fun!” Millie adds. 23
She’s making bombs too??
I put a hand to my forehead, horrified that I left my lao lao in a nursing home to join a family of carrot-chomping criminals.
“Uhhhhh … I don’t know,” I say, chewing on my lip. “I’m not really good with explosives.”
“Explosives, what are you talking about? We’re making bath bombs,” Mum says.
I stare at her.
“It’s like a soap, for the bath,” Millie says. “And they smell really nice! You’ll see when you get home.”
“Oooooooohhhh,” I say, sighing in relief. How did I forget? American homes have bathtubs! I imagine myself soaking in a warm, soothing bath, surrounded by candles, in our beautiful American home.
I close my eyes for just a second, the word home tickling at my lashes. It feels almost too good to be true.
Chapter 5
I drift asleep in the car, dreaming of Lao Lao. If Beijing is a waiting place, my dreams are like meeting places.
In my dream, the two of us are running around the fields of Bei Gao Li Village. We’re playing the Eagle and the Chicks, my favourite Chinese playground game. In my dream, Lao Ye’s still alive and Lao Lao’s chasing me, her arms stretched as she laughs and tries to catch me. Lao Lao’s the eagle, trying to chase us “chicks.”
There’s a long trail of village children behind me. We make a giddy, squealing dragon as we run around the field, dodging Lao Lao.
Every time a kid runs near Lao Lao, she tries to hug them in her arms, her silvery hair glistening in 25the wind. But she’s too slow. Finally, she sits down on the green field to catch her breath, and I sit down next to her.
I put my head on her shoulder and twirl a blade of grass around my finger.
“I’m getting too old for this game,” she says, patting my head. “You guys keep playing without me.”
“No you’re not,” I insist. I try to pull her up to standing but she won’t budge.
The other village kids are waving me over, shouting, “C’mon, c’mon! Lina jie jie, we want to keep playing!”
I look at them and gaze back at my lao lao, torn between joining them in their screaming, giggling fun and staying here with my grandmother.
“Go on,” Lao Lao urges. “Have fun! Your friends are all playing!”
In my dream, I do not choose my friends. I sit right by Lao Lao, shoulder to shoulder until the sun sets. It feels like the right choice.
Until I wake up and I realise, it’s not the one I actually made.
Chapter 6
Two big eyeballs blink down at me from the top bunk. I scream, which prompts Millie to scream back.
“She’s awake!!!” Millie shouts.
I look around, disoriented for a minute. My parents must have carried me in while I was sleeping. Millie jumps off the bunk and tries to pull me to standing.
“Do you like our room?” she asks. She pounces from one corner to the next, like a proud tiger cub showing me her cave. The room is bare and small, but the sun reflecting off the apartment wall next door tints the space light pink.
“I do,” I tell my sister.
Millie walks over to my suitcases and examines them curiously.
“Here,” I say to her, reaching over and unzipping 27one of them. I pull out the big bag of Chinese sweets and hand it to her.
“YESSSSSS!” she squeals. “I love sweets.”
She grabs hawthorn flakes, Meiji biscuits, and rabbit sweets and rips them all open. I laugh at her enthusiasm. She takes five rabbit sweets and stuffs them all in her mouth.
“What is this?” she mumbles, chewing.
“Rabbit sweet!” I tell her.
She immediately spits it out into the trash can. “These are made from rabbits?” she asks, making a face.
“No! They’re just called rabbit sweets because they’re creamy.”
“But rabbits aren’t creamy,” she says, confused.
“You know what – never mind. Just try it. They’re really good.”
I get out another piece, urging her to try it. I unwrap it for her. Lao Lao and I went around to five different stores, which was not easy with Lao Lao’s arthritis. Millie has to give the sweet chewy vanilla sweet a chance – it’ll melt her mind!
“No thanks, I’m good,” she says.
I frown at Millie, trying to brush off her rejection. 28Whatever.
Millie walks over to the closet and opens the mirrored doors. “This is our closet. You can unpack and put your stuff in here!”
I stare at “our” closet. The whole space is packed with Millie’s clothes, crinkled-up posters, and stuffed animals. I don’t know where I’m supposed to put my clothes – tape them up to the back of the door?
Mum walks in.
“Are you settling in all right?” she asks.
“Uh, where do I put my clothes?” I ask her, pointing to my three stuffed suitcases.
Mum glances at the packed closet and then scolds Millie. “I thought we talked about this. You were supposed to put all your stuffies in a bag and gift them to the little kids in the apartment building, to make more space!”
“But Unicorny and Deery will be so sad to leave,” Millie protests. “And so will Liony and Piggy, and Mousy. And don’t forget Rabbity!”
Rabbity? Okay, we have got to come up with some better names. Millie grabs each stuffed animal from the closet and holds them tight in her arms.
Mum sighs. “We’ll talk about this later. Let’s eat 29first! I made some lunch while you napped.” At the mention of lunch, Millie drops her animals and bolts out of our room.
I follow her down a long corridor. There are framed family pictures hanging in the hallway, and I peek curiously at them.
I see baby Millie trying to walk at the park. My parents holding her at the zoo. My dad in a Texas cowboy hat holding hands with my Mum. Mum and Millie jumping on a sandcastle at the beach.
They look like the perfect family … but I’m not in any of them. I plunge my eyes to the ground.
I feel the temperature rise as I try to shake the feeling of being completely left out. Why am I not in any of the pictures? Lao Lao and I sent them so many over the years. There was the one of me at the Bird’s Nest and at the Beijing Zoo, when my grandfather was still alive. I even remember Mum writing back, Wow! Lina’s so tall now!
So what happened? Did she run out of frames? She could have just used tape! As my mind runs through millions of other possible adhesives, a powerful scent wafts up my nose – lavender. I look up. There are bath bombs everywhere in the living room – on every 30corner, every surface, every square inch of the carpet.
“Whoa!” I exclaim. Mum and Millie weren’t kidding about their fizzy hobby. “You guys must take a lot of baths!”
“Oh, they’re not for us,” Mum says, picking one up and carefully wrapping it in paper. I notice that Dad’s not home. It’s just Mum and Millie.
“We don’t even have a bathtub!” Millie adds.
I knit my eyebrows. Then …?
“We’re selling them!” Mum announces. “Twenty dollars a box on Etsy!”
I’ve heard before of people selling things on the internet in China. One of my classmates’ moms sold pencil pouches on Alibaba, but she had tons of employees working for her. Is Mum doing this all out of our home? And wait, whatever happened to the spacious two-story home with a garden they wrote about in their letters? I look around.
This apartment, crammed full of plastic buckets of Epsom salts, is decidedly single story. Was anything they said in the letters true?
Mum quickly moves aside the blankets and pillows on top of a thin yoga mat on the floor. I stare at the mat – is that where my parents sleep? Mum sees the 31shock on my face. “I know this isn’t what you imagined … but your dad and I … we’re working hard.”
My face heats in embarrassment. “No, it’s fine!” I quickly say. I’ve been here two seconds and I’m already making my Mum feel bad. I leap past the buckets of Epsom salts toward the bath bomb moulds on the kitchen table. “How can I help?”
Mum gives me a smile.
“You can help by moving those bombs outside so I can get lunch on the table. We’re having stir-fried aubergine!”
The name of one of my favourite dishes puts a big old grin on my face. How I’ve missed stir-fries! Lao Lao used to make the best ones, my favourite being chicken and mushrooms. But with her arthritis, she hasn’t been able to cook as much as before. We’ve been living on steamed dumplings that I’d defrost from the grocery store. My heart leaps at the prospect of stir-fried aubergine.
Home may not look the same as I imagined – or even smell the same – but I’m glad it’ll still taste the same in my belly.
I think.
Chapter 7
“How long have you guys been doing this?” I ask Millie as we set down the last of the bath bombs in the courtyard.
The sparkles from the powdery balls sit on my fingers They look pretty under the sun.
“Ever since they announced the rent Morse code’s due.” Millie says “rent Morse code” in English.
“Rent what?” I ask, confused.
A Black man watering his hanging flowers at the apartment next door chimes in. “Y’all talking about the rent moratorium?” he asks.
Doors open and a couple of other neighbours gather.
“What have you heard, Joe?” a Latinx woman walking a small terrier asks. 33
Millie and I both bend down to pet her adorable dog.
“State says it expires in six weeks. After that, landlords be coming around here, demanding their back rent. And if you can’t pay up, they gonna evict you,” Joe says.
Mum steps out of our apartment.
“It ain’t fair! So many of us lost our jobs during the pandemic,” a worker in blue overalls says. “We’re just getting back on our feet. Now we gotta come up with six months of back rent?”
“Down at the dry cleaners, we’re still not at the same volume as before,” a woman adds.
Mum shakes her head.
Joe gestures with his hands to stay calm.
“So long as we applied for rent relief, should be all right,” he says.
“But that takes forever and a day!” the overalls man says. The neighbours jointly sigh. “I applied back when I lost my truck. Still waiting for my relief cheque.”
“Should have known better than to count on the US government,” the lady with the dog says. “Been in this country nine years, never asked the government 34for a cent. And the one time I do, we waiting like grass for rain. And now with groceries up thirty dollars a week …”
Are groceries more expensive here, too? Lao Lao was complaining about the price of cooking oil right before I left. (The only thing she appreciated about moving into the nursing home is she wouldn’t have to worry about groceries anymore.)
“The cheque will be here. They may be slow as molasses, but it’ll be here, and so long as we apply before the deadline, the landlords can’t evict us,” Joe says. “Come six weeks from now, mark my words, they’ll be here swarming like flies!”
I look over at Mum, who looks like she’s about to pass out. She quickly takes my hand and Millie’s and tells us to come on home.
My mind is full of questions as I walk into the apartment. What’s back rent? And do we owe that too, I wonder as I slide into the plastic kitchen chair. Is that why we can’t buy more frames for my photo in the hallway? But I’m temporarily distracted by the sweet, tangy aroma of stir-fried aubergine.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask, picking up my chopsticks. The aubergine melts in my mouth. It tastes just like 35my lao lao’s – soft and sweet, with just enough kick. It’d be even better without the tiny bits of parsley.
“He had to go back to work,” Mum says, handing me a spoon and a bowl of egg drop soup. I sip the soup. “It’s farmers’ market day. We’re lucky he could come with us to the airport.”
Lucky to come pick up his daughter, after five years apart? Whoa.
“Dad’s always working,” Millie says, reaching for the aubergine. I watch her expertly pick up the delicate vegetables with her steel fork. She doesn’t even bother with chopsticks. She really is an American.
“True, but he also brings us lots of vegetables,” Mum says, pointing at the heads of fresh lettuce and little bunches of radishes on the counter. “And that’s important, at a time like this.”
Millie nods as she eats. Mum picks out all the little bits of parsley from the aubergine dish for my sister. I wonder if I should tell Mum I don’t like parsley either. I decide I haven’t earned the right to change her dishes. Not yet.
“Because of the back rent?” I study Mum’s eyes. “What were they talking about out there?” 36
Mum hesitates. I wish she’d just tell me, now that I’m here. I want to know every detail of our life. The real details, not just the version she writes in letters.
“During the pandemic, times were hard,” Mum says. “A lot of people lost their jobs, including me.”
“Mum used to paint nails!” Millie declares.
At least that part about Mum working in a salon was true from the letters. But I’m sad to hear Mum lost her job.
“I was lucky enough to get a job at the only Chinese nail salon in Winfield. The owner hired me even though I’m only on your dad’s student visa,” Mum says. Her face falls. “But during the pandemic, the salon went out of business.”
“Can’t you get another job?” I ask her.
“Not without a green card,” Mum says with a sigh. “Which is how I started selling bath bombs online. To pay for the back rent …”
I swallow hard. So we do owe back rent.
“But also to launch my new career,” Mum says emphatically. “As an entrepreneur! Being in charge of my own destiny! And the great thing is, this is something we can do together.”
“I’m Mum’s head of product design,” Millie brags. 37
I feel a twinge of jealousy that my sister’s beat me to that role. “What about me?” I ask.
“You can be … in charge of issuing receipts or something.”
I make a face. Do I look like a fifty-year-old accountant? “We’ll figure it out, we only started a few weeks ago! But look!” Mum says, whipping out her phone to show me the Etsy app. “Got ten more orders, just today!”
“But what about what Joe said about the rent relief program?” I ask. I didn’t understand every word, but I distinctly remember hearing the word relief. It made me think of an episode in The Simpsons when Marge Simpson gushed, “What a relief!” when the doctors saved Homer after a cart of bobbleheads fell on top of his head.
“Yeah, Mum, maybe we should apply too!” Millie says encouragingly.
