Wired

"I need to get into the crawl space. Where's the entrance?”

The goofy “cable guy” said. I thought he was joking. The serious one was already high on the ladder installing the dish while this one loitered around.

“Um, there isn't one.” I replied.

“What's that?” he pointed at the little "windows" at the base of the house and asked.

“Yeah, it looks like there is a crawl space, but you can't get into it.” I assured him.

He looked at me funny, but I put his suspicion to rest firmly: “I've lived here for thirteen years, and I have never seen an entrance to it.”

He went into the house and opened the storage space under the stairs.

"There's the entrance.” He pointed at the floor.

I looked down and, as if appeared solely by magic, a square-shaped dark seam on the floor mocked me with silent cracks.

It's true. You learn something new everyday.

Thank goodness I was small enough to crawl into the storage and pulled most of the stuff out so he could get down there. Then I cleared out the closet so he could climb into the attic and do his job.

I knew that entrance.

All the stuff had to go back to where they belonged and the dust had to be cleaned. These were not in the “cable guys” job descriptions. It would've saved me a lot of grieve had I known what was in store for me.

I was a little tired but excited after cleaning up all the mess. Time to reveal the surprise to mom.

“Look, ma. Now you have nine channels to watch instead of one. Merry Christmas!” I was so proud of myself. Her only activity--watching TV--would be a lot more interesting from now on.

Or so I thought.

I then tried to teach her how to use the new remote, and that was when things went downhill.

There were four buttons with which she needed to get herself familiarize.

On—you turn the TV on with it.

Off—as the name suggested, you turn the TV off with it.

Up—go up a channel.

Down—go down a channel.

Those, and remembering her channels start at 2050.

Simple enough, right?

She tried it a few times and couldn't get it right. She lost her patience promptly and told me she never watched those channels, she wanted her old channel back and to cancel the cable right away.

When will I ever learn? Why did I try to get her a comparable life here when I knew she was not the appreciative type, and would say anything when angry?

Two days later she wanted me to teach her again on the channels. By that time I lost my patience and good wills. I'm paying for the satellite channels, and somebody was going to watch them. She can stick with her one and only channel upstairs.

Unfortunately, She figured out how to switch back to air channels by watching me, and now watches her one channel on the big screen downstairs.

I think she did it just to aggravate me, which probably gave her certain degree of enjoyment, and she was succeeding.

It's amazing how, with the right amount of incentive, whether positive or negative, a person who couldn't do or learn anything can achieve the impossible.

The Long Way Home

“I see lights. That must be San Francisco!” Mom pointed at the window excitedly.


“Ma, it was seven o’clock when we took off, and that was forty minutes ago.” I replied with a finger pointing at my watch. She knew it would be a two-and-half-hour flight.

She looked at me, then the window, then was quiet for a while.

Twenty minutes later, she saw lights again: “That must be San Francisco.”

This is going to be a very long flight, I thought to myself, and it will be the first and last time I am ever going to fly with her.

It was worse than traveling with a kid. At least you could tell the kid to be quiet.

I was a little tired. The day started early, since I woke up at five and couldn’t sleep anymore. There were still a lot to do before we had to leave.

I made five or six garbage runs. Mom’s friends were going to take everything away after we were gone, but I felt bad leaving too much junk, so I wanted to do the best I could to reduce their work.

It didn’t help with mom telling me, as usual, to take a break. I think she said that to make herself feel better, not knowing or caring who was going to finish all the work.

Then I had to cook for her friends who were kind enough to stop by. I cooked the traditional dumplings which, according to mom, was the thing to eat when leaving for a long journey. Thank goodness for frozen food.

It started to snow amid all the actions. I ran to the patio yelling snow, snow!

I was the only one who was so excited. They were probably all sick of the wintry scene.

We had the first unpleasant surprise when we arrived at the airport. The flight was delayed for two hours.

I didn’t buy their reason--weather. I’m from California, okay? We don’t have bad weather there. Find another excuse for your inefficiency.

We did the duty-free shopping. We had coffee. We did the restroom runs. Twice. We had some food. I pushed her wheelchair all over the place. The airline clerk was nowhere to be found, so I decided I didn’t need her. I am my mother’s keeper now.

After we finally sat down in our seats on the plane, but not before we had this near miss roller coaster slide down the tunnel, I heard the flight attendant telling a passenger it was bad weather that caused the long delay.

So much for the great California weather.

Three or four times of proclaiming we were over San Francisco later, mom finally got her wish. We were over the city, only we couldn’t land. There was a thing called air traffic jam and we were in it.

We circled twenty more minutes in the air. Mom complained that the pilot drove too slowly.

To top things off, the traffic on the ground was worse than that in the air. We probably waited half an hour for our ride to drive the two-minute distance from the cell phone area.

It was almost midnight when we reached home. A simple two-hour flight turned into an eleven-hour ordeal.

My little house had never looked nicer, and the licks from my little Yorkie had never felt sweeter before.



(Happy Thanksgiving everyone!)

House of Five Hundred Doors

I know it’s late, but I have some questions that have been bothering me for quite some time, so I figure now is as good as any to ask you a few simple questions.

What‘s that? It’s one o’clock in the morning? Oh, I’m sure you don’t mind. After all, you and your family don’t go to bed that early. Don’t bother to argue. I hear you every night.

First question: why did you spend so much money to install five hundred doors in your unit? Regardless where you originally came from, you have to admit it’s rather peculiar. Every other step one takes in your unit requires a slam of a door. Every night, all night long. It’s obvious nobody in your unit understands how to “close” a door, but only how to shut the door with a bang.

If you don’t know how to properly close a door, I will have to ask you to remove four hundred ninety-nine of them from your unit immediately. You see, there’s only so much door banging one can endure in certain amount of time, and I’m tired of stabbing the ceilings with the mop handle. I will have to fix the ceilings if I damage them, and I won’t like that.

Second question: is everyone in your unit a sumo wrestler? Not only this causes an unpleasant mental image to one’s mind, the echo of your every step ripples through your floors / our ceilings sounds like a kong sounding from afar. And you guys walk a lot. All night, every night. Add this to the banging of the five hundred doors you installed before you moved in, and you have a symphony of beneath-the-penthouse nightmare.

For your own good I suggest you lose weight immediately. If you fall through the ceilings one day from a heart attack, which won’t be far judging from the sound of your steps and the vibration of the walls, I will have to bill you for the repair. I won’t like that either, especially if you’re in a hospital and I‘m risking not having the expenses recovered--if you get my drift.

One more question: is your child half monkey half horse? He/she is obviously very young, judging from the screaming and the little steps he/she takes when running. It may be a lovely sight for you, the parents, to have an undisciplined wild beast racing in the house, screaming while slamming those five hundred doors, but not for your neighbors downstairs. Trust me on this one.

Oh, anoter thing about the kid--going to bed at ten or eleven o’clock is way too late for a child that young. In fact, going to bed at twelve, one, or two o’clock in the morning is way too late for you, too. How you manage to get up in the morning and go to work is beyond me.

I haven’t had a good night sleep in I don’t know how long. My eyes are scratchy dry and my skin is breaking out. The noise coming from above is stressing me to the point that the mop handle feels too weak of a gesture. I’m also getting more wrinkles from lack of sleep and anger. I really don’t like that.

The fact that you live on the top floor may have given you some superiority complex. Here’s a surprise--you still have to be considerate to your neighbors. Paying a little more doesn’t give you the right to forfeit common courtesy. Even a real penthouse dweller like Donald Trump would agree with me. Besides, it’s only a four-story building. You’re not that higher up.

These nuisances may be commonly accepted where you came from. People may not have the right to complain--about anything. It may be the very reason you left that country and sought a better life here. Why else would you uproot your family, travel thousands of miles to a place where nothing is easy and no one is familiar? I get that.

I just have one thing to say to you and all the horn-honking, traffic-cutting mad drivers in this town: don’t make this country a duplicate of that country. There’s a saying (and I’m sure you’re familiar with it) goes something like this: taking off one’s pants to break wind.

It makes your thousand-mile move totally unnecessary if you insist on behaving the old way. You might as well stay where you were in the first place.


(Other than raining one hundred eighty days a year and the few little things mentioned above, it really is a nice little town to live here. No really.)

Skin Deep

The box of glass plates removed from the display rack was heavy. Mr. Wong offered to lug it for Mrs. Liu, who was a tiny woman in her seventy’s. She was so tiny, in fact, that she had to shop her clothes in children’s department, then had them altered to fit her properly.


Mom’s display rack had some knickknacks only she found precious. The rest of us were happy to see it go--especially Mr. Wong, who was also our realtor.

I opened the front door for them. The cold air and grey skies reminded me again this was not California, and how I missed it.

Mr. Wong was supposed to hold the dolly that had the box of glass while Mrs. Liu and I unloaded the plates from the box to the back of her car.

He let go and the box fell, without my knowledge, behind my back, hitting my right heel.

I grabbed my heel and stopped breathing. They were shocked and asking me if I was alright. I couldn’t speak for a few seconds.

When the pain subsided I lifted the pant and found a piece of skin missing. Some blood was dripping and the heel around it already turned blue.

I assured them I was fine, but might need to put a Band Aid on it, and went back upstairs half limping.

Mom was either trying to call someone or playing her handheld toy. She asked me if I remember to take the keys back and I told her what happened.

She said, “You sure know how to pick a fine place to stand.” without once looking up.

I found a Band Aid and went to the bedroom.

Of all the arguments we had over throwing her possessions away, this comment hurt me the most.

It was understandable she was infuriated by my actions in the past two weeks, even though she knew they were the right actions, and she had no idea where to begin if I hadn‘t done it for her. I knew it must be hard to be parted with her worldly possessions and move eight hundred miles away.

She was not trying to be cold. I was expecting too much.

I was silly to think now that she was going to live with me, somehow I would get a loving mother that I never had.

Growing up with a pair of self-centered parents, I should know better. They both were buried in their own miseries that life, and themselves, had brought on. No one had doted on me since I was a child. I should know not to rely on anyone emotionally. I have finally learned to be happy.

So why couldn’t I stop my tears?

Am I still trying to fill that void unconsciously no matter how hard I tried to ignore it consciously? I’m relatively smart and somewhat educated. I know a lost cause when I see one--most of the time.

What stubborn and unexplainable force possessed me to think if I looked hard enough I would find what I was missing?

Sometimes, some people are just skin deep. They are what you see.

Like Thunders to Ducks

She must have been watching me. As soon as I finished the form she gestured “Can you do this for me, too?” while holding up her form.

I guessed it. I didn’t understand a thing uttered from her mouth. Thank goodness hand gestures are mostly universal. The smile didn’t hurt either.

I could see the plot she and her husband secretly came up when I was writing. “Look, she knows English! She can help us!” Two heads nodded eagerly.

I assumed they were a couple. I know her culture. She wouldn’t be traveling with a man who was not her husband. But wait, they had different last names...

Two different passports for a couple. Interesting… Maybe they were brother/sister whose life paths led them half a world apart. I have never met my uncles, aunts, and cousins from either side of my parents, except for the one uncle who fled to the island. The war tore the families apart.

“Do you have meat, poultry, or food with you?” He shook his head. I didn’t think he knew what poultry was.

“Do you have over ten thousand dollars with you?” He showed me his index finger and said slowly: “One thousand.”

That was five times of my cash on hand. No wonder she wore pure gold earrings and ring.

“Do you have any guns?” I formed a gun with my fingers and aimed it at him. He laughed and said no. This question never ceased to amaze me. Do they really expect me to say “yes” if I had a gun in my bag and somehow escaped the baggage screening?

I skipped the question about the farm. It would be too much work to explain a farm. The local agricultural bureau would have to be on guard without my help.

“Sign here.” I pointed the form and handed over my pen. They both signed. She thanked me in her dialect.

It appeared they wanted to stay quiet and subdue. They didn‘t get such luck from me. I opened the booklet and showed them the choices of snacks available for purchase. They smiled and nodded, then shook, their heads.

Our abilities of understanding each other fit the saying “like thunders to ducks” perfectly. We knew something was making a lot of noise, but had very little idea what was really happening.

This must be how my mother used to travel to see me. She always called me after she arrived home, describing the trip to me loudly. The flight was delayed. I met a person on the plane who spoke my language. My friend picked me up. I ate the sandwich you made for me. A woman at the customs questioned me on the jewelries I wore. Etc, etc.

I always thought it was silly to make a less-than-two-hour trip sounded like a big ordeal.

The couple made me see that it was a big deal for my mom. She couldn’t fill the customs form. She couldn’t order anything to eat or drink. Somebody had to help her. With a lot of patience while doing it.

My eyes welled up. I was full of gratitude to those strangers who helped my mom on the numerous flights she took. I now know why she was so excited when she got home safely.

I ordered a box of snacks and forced the couple to eat it with me.

Let them think I was a strange and crazy woman. I don’t care.


(I’m visiting my mom who broke her wrist recently. I will be mostly missing from the blog world for a while since there’s a lot to do.)

The Herder

Tu-er looks at the fading sunlight and increases his pace. The sun is clinging on the silhouette of the mountains and slipping down unwillingly. The town behind him is swallowed up by the evening haze. As far as he could see there’s no smoke to indicate a village is near.

Curse that old man at the noodle stand, he thinks. The old man told him a village was within five miles and could be reached by dark. He was eager to get home after a month away from his family, so he took advantage of the sunlight and his strong legs.

Maybe he missed the turnoff. A fork taunted him a couple of miles ago. He followed the direction given to him to “keep going west” and now he’s not so sure. A sudden scream startles him and he jolts at the noise. A big bird dashes out of an elm tree, its dark wings flap a few times and disappears into the grey horizon. He exhales nervously.

A blister threatens him inside the hemp sole. Perhaps a night under a tree away from the element is the only way to sleep tonight. He surveys the landscape when he notices a vague shape in the dark. He focuses on it and a rush of joy washes all the anxiety away. It’s a small temple. He runs toward it with brave big steps.

He pushes the wooden door slowly. To his further delight it’s closed but not bolted. He calls out timidly, asking if he could spend the night, while crossing the foot-high thresh-hold carefully. A statue sitting behind an altar table greets him with wordless stern warning. The offering room appears endless in the dark air.

The cold incense burner and the empty tabletop tell him its abandoned state. He decides it’s a place safe enough to spend the night. He spreads out the cotton quilt he carries on his back and closes the door.

Few moments after he closes his eyes, it seems, a squeaky noise and a cold breeze on his face chase the slumber away. He sits up under the quilt with his heart pounding in his chest, his eyes searching wildly in the dark. The temple door is ajar. The pre-dawn moonlight casts a blurry streak on the floor. He must have slept through the night without bolting the door first. What a coward, he scolds himself, and stands up to close the door.

His hand freezes on the edge of the door. A group of people, their shapes can’t be made out with the moon hiding in the flowing clouds, are running toward him--toward the temple. The bobbing shadow alerts him he doesn’t have much time.

He had the misfortune of running into the bandits once, and he knows what will happen if they see him. With the fastest speed he wraps up his belongings and rolls under the altar table. The tables are covered with red table cover, a long table in the back and a short one in the front. To be safe he presses himself all the way to the back. The statue and the long altar table are set in an alcove and is the only safe place he could hide.

He stops breathing when they come inside.

Thud, thud, thud. Sounds like they jump in one by one. A man yells tiao, tiao...!

He doesn’t understand. As if the rest of them don’t know there is a thresh-hold and need instruction to jump over it. He listens on. The man chants for a while in words he couldn’t make sense of, with more of the thud, thud in the mix.

To his surprise, the noise quiets down shortly and the door is closed again. He could hear the man standing in front of the table praying to the god for a safe trip home, and the sound of the man putting his bedding down. Soon his snoring rattles the worship room. The rest of the group doesn’t make so much noise as breathing.

He slowly lifts a sliver of the table cover against his own warning. The man on the floor is sound asleep. He looks up slowly and could see a row of man-shaped objects lined up against the wall. They are wrapped in linen from head to toe, their eyes two black holes looking into the lifeless space in front of them.

It feels like a bomb exploded in his head and forced all the blood out. As he slowly slips to the floor and faints, he remembers the tale he once heard from the village elder.

The families of the traveling men died away from home sometimes didn’t have money to have their bodies shipped back home. They would pool their money together and hire a herder--a mysterious man with special and dark power to command the corps. They travel by night and sleep by day, and always by routes seldom traversed. The corps jump, not walk, while they travel. It was imperative, the elder said, not to disturb them if you bumped into them, or bad fortune would be upon you soon.

By the time Tu-er comes to, the herder and the corps are deep in their “sleep,” and the pearly grey outside is promising a good day ahead.

He doesn’t remember how he got out of the temple. Perhaps he crawled out, although his children and acquaintances will never hear that from him. He never risks traveling at night just to get more mileage in anymore.

(Corps Herder was a real profession and a lost art—according to the elders)

Cicada Song

The sea of red petals of the phoenix trees paint every treetop to bright red, and set the heated July sky on fire. They seem to be particularly brazen in color this year. 

Millions of cicadas join the summer march by singing their mating songs with all the force they can squeeze from their tiny bodies. They scream “Look at me--I’m here!” with their bug eyes and bulky dark bodies as if the world is ending tomorrow.

Everywhere she goes she can’t escape the loud reminder: graduation in two weeks. 

Pearl puts her books and pens in the book bag one by one deliberately slow. She hopes she can catch a glance from Toni. In fact, she hopes for more than a glance, but she will be blissfully happy if it’s only a look or a smile from Toni.

Her face dims when she sees Toni’s back leaving the classroom. She does a quick scan just to make sure Leanne is not one of the girls leaving with her. 

She’s not. Pearl feels relieved.

Leanne’s face is pretty and delicate. She attracts attention from everyone--especially Toni’s. Pearl doesn’t want to, but her heart feels as if it's filled with acid each time she sees them walking together, often laughing in a world where Pearl does not exist.

Look at me. I’m not pretty like Leanne, but I don’t ask for much either--Pearl quietly pleads. The day shines much brighter if Toni looks her way once or twice. She can’t tell anybody this secret. She doesn’t know how to explain.

How can she like a girl in that way? They don’t understand Toni. Toni is not just a girl. Her hair is cut to extra short. Her pleated skirt looks like it doesn’t belong, and is such a bother to her. She cuts her nails short and walks in large and square strides. She is something else disguised in a girl’s body. Something so different and dangerous that lures Pearl with an unfamiliar excitement. 

The walk home is quiet and alone, as it is every day for Pearl. She says “baba” to the man sitting in the living room. He is watching TV and grunts an “um” to her, his eyes fixed on the TV. The three of them--her father, her step-mother, and her half brother--look like a happy family that needs no intruder. The woman and the young boy don’t pay any attention to her. They never do. She retreats to her room to finish her homework, her yearning for Toni continues in the small and muggy room.

The school held a sleepover in the gym once. She was assigned a spot next to Toni. She was so nervous and excited she could hardly talk or sleep. Her head was next to Toni’s, but she couldn’t look into Toni’s smiling eyes. To cover her shyness, she turned her back and pretended to be sleeping. What she would do to revise that day! She would talk all night with the one person she adores the most. She would find out all about her, and find a way to let her know how she thinks about her every day.

Her shyness must have looked like cold indifference to Toni. Pearl realizes it now with a permanent stab in her heart. She missed the only chance she had. She watches helplessly when Toni and Leanne get closer each day.

The final days and exams come and gone in the speed of a tropical storm. Everyone is exchanging address and phone number. The yearbooks are signed over and over. Toni writes “wishing you a bright and successful future” on Pearl’s. It’s painfully routine and polite.

The graduation ceremony flashes through before Pearl, or anyone else, is ready. Auld Lang Sine is still ringing in their ears when they find themselves out of the hall. The girls wave good-bye to their classmates with tearful eyes, promising against life’s onslaught to keep in touch, and junior high is over.

The cicadas still sing on every treetop. The moment they stop singing is the moment they die. The phoenix trees still burn up the sky every summer, proclaiming their passion to few who notice. Pearl knows she is the only person in the world who knows the cicadas are calling out to Toni, but she will never see Toni again.

(Phoenix tree is called flame tree here)

Follow

I shortened the leash and said “heel” before crossing the intersection. Coco tightened the leash right on cue as if I just gave her the command to run.


I’ve been walking and training her to heel for about a year and half now. I don’t know what her problem is. She knows to “wait” when I say so, just not “heel.” I can’t say she’s not smart, since she never misunderstands “breakfast” or “dinner.” Or the Chinese version of “come brush your teeth.”

I’m convinced a bilingual dog can’t be a dumb dog.

Yet she acted in complete surprise every time I yanked her back after the command “heel” and her subsequent running. I would tell her she was a little stinker for trying to flee from me. Maybe that’s where I did wrong. Maybe "little stinker" sounds like "good job" in Yorkie lingo.

I saw the couple on the other side before crossing the street. At first glance they looked like strangers who happened to be walking on the same side of the street. He walked a good forty feet ahead of her and seemed not at all concerned that she was about to cross the street by herself. He didn’t stop or look back, just kept on walking.

Coco and I kept our distance behind them. She had dark hair fashioned into a simple bun. It was the only part of her that didn’t say “old.” She was short and walked with a little lopsided stride in her chubby physique. He, on the other hand, was tall and agile. The distance between them made me somehow want to yell at him.

They were from the same mysterious country from the far away land of which I knew very little. Must be arranged marriage--I mused to myself. Suddenly he made a blunt one-eighty and I yelled silently--yay, he did care!

He passed her without a word or even a glance, and turned back a few feet afterward. In the meanwhile she didn’t miss a beat--just kept on walking behind him.

I was getting annoyed, despite the fact that I knew I shouldn’t. I was from the same kind of society where men walked around as if they were sent down here in golden sedan carried by God himself. I had enough of that that I didn’t want to see it here. I sometimes would get stuck in the doorway with another man from my hometown, who clearly was not familiar with the concept of “ladies first,” and I would go out of my way to ignore him and resist the urge to apologize.

They had to learn and I was accelerating their assimilation process by giving them their first lesson.

It was also annoying that “love” did not exist to us. If we were awkward adults with no clue how to show affection, it’s because we were raised where love was a hushed word, a taboo. It’s a shameful emotion that should be ignored at all costs.

Parents showed their love by scolding and putting their children down in front of others. Criticism equates adoration in their minds. They get away with it because parents command complete filial piety, one of the first words I looked up in the dictionary soon after I came here, upon their children; and because there’s no such thing as “therapy.” We had nobody to blame for our problems.

Love is to be assumed, and not expressed, between husband and wife, or lovers. My friend once told me she loved her husband, and her mother said she talked like an idiot. Did she have no shame, she wondered about her daughter.

Having a full stomach, on the other hand, is of utmost concern of ours. We greet each other not with “how are you” but “have you eaten yet,” or the latter follows the prior immediately after. Regardless your answer, we will proceed to force-feed you until your mid section is about to explode. It took me years to forgo the habit of taking food with me when going on car rides with my friend. She shared the peculiar behavior with her other friends, and they had a good laugh. I didn’t understand why it was funny just as they didn’t understand my need to feed her.

Had she known where I was coming from, she would’ve asked “Where are the chicken wings?” instead.

The couple made a turn and parted way with us. He stopped and looked back until she almost caught up before making the turn. They didn’t share a word throughout the walk, and yet there was an air they silently exuded that was so comforting. They stuck together through so many decades, and in all likelihood will be fulfilling “’til death do us part” part of the union. I watched their backs, lanky and nimble versus short and wobbly, trotting away from me for a few seconds. I wasn’t so annoyed anymore.

Coco looked at them and realized that wasn't the path we were taking. Not anytime soon anyway. We continued on our usual route home. It must've started drizzling, as my cheeks were getting misty.

Promise

Collin’s touch jolts me back from the murky abyss. I look into his blue eyes and I could tell he’s a little worried.

“Are you all right, darling?”

“Yes. It’s nice to be relaxed at last.” I put on a smile behind the sun glasses. I have loved this man for so long, and deceived him for so long, that I must keep the act going.

Until I find a way, if the possibility is not as bleak as it seems right now, to show him the truth without hurting him or the family.

“I know what you mean. I should thank you for planning this family vacation. The cruise is perfect so far.” He sits down next to me and looks out the horizon with a satisfied sigh, holding my hand in his. It’s not hard to make him happy, but he said “so far” as if he had some foretelling inkling.

Is he also gentle and loving like Collin? It’s been thirty years and my memory is a bit fuzzy of his face.

I remember kissing Collin good-bye and watching him drive away as if it were yesterday. I ran upstairs and cried behind closed door all night. He was going to college and it was our last day together for a long while.

We will see each other soon, he promised. Christmas will be here before you realize it. You know I love you, Alina. I am doing this for us, for our future. We will get married as soon as I’m done with the school. Wait for me, Alina.

I held Collin close to me that day while silently fighting a war inside me. He was gifted and disciplined. The future for him was bright and the college was the right thing to do. He said he wouldn’t look at other girls, and I trusted him. He never did the entire senior year we were together. I would wait for him for as long as it took. Other boys didn’t exist in my eyes.

He was also leaving early to start working at the college. It would be selfish if I told him I was pregnant. I knew he would’ve stopped his life to be with me. The thought of whether or not to tell him had tormented me for months. I lost weight instead of gaining it. Now it was too late to either tell him or to terminate it. There was only one option left. I had to beg my parents to keep it a secret. They finally caved in to my tears.

They tore my heart apart when they took my baby away. I was not allowed to hold him. They said it was for my own good. I glared at his face through tears for five seconds and tried hard to sear his image in my mind. They said it was better to give him up for adoption than otherwise. They said this as if they had no hearts and could feel no pain. The physical pain was minute comparing to the heartaches, which took years to heal. I learned to harden my heart each time I saw a baby, or heard a lullaby. I even drew up a sketch of a lovely woman holding my baby with a smile on her face in my mind, then pushed the sketch deep into the back and told myself he would be fine.

Collin held my face and said I had changed, but wasn’t sure how, the first time he came back for the holiday break. I hid my face in his collar and just said I missed him so much. He believed the tears were over his absence, and he loved me more. I learned to live with that lie, too.

The only thing I could remember now is he had Collin’s dark hair. Time has buried the little wrinkled face and the nine-month dark period in a place I seldom visited. Just when I started to think my life was perfect, that the darkness had finally left me, I got a letter from the agency.

Your son wanted to contact you, it said; he's waiting for your decision.

His first letter was enclosed. It was short and polite. He’s in the States half a globe away from me and somehow he found me. He talked about his life and work there, but very little about his childhood. The omission spoke louder than words. My heart sank. The promise that he would be with a good family was not kept. The sketch I made up for him was another lie burned up in smoke.

I’d love to meet you, he said. Is he punishing me by not saying he grew up in a loving family, or that he didn’t blame me? How could I tell him I did marry his father and have a great family, only he’s not included? Will he understand I didn't try to find him because I didn't think I had the right to disturb him? How could I tell Collin he had another son he never knew, because I gave him to strangers?

Me, the person he thanked many times for making his life complete, had carried this cancerous secret with me for thirty years. Our lives are built not on rocks, it seems, but in the sands, and now the tides are coming in. How, in trying to do the unselfish thing, did I manage to fail my family and my first born?

The shimmering ocean stays silent, but stares me back with an enticing promise. The promise of peace, at last.

Point Siege

The river shines a million diamonds under the September sun. Donald doesn’t stop like he used to, but walks with his eyes looking straight ahead.

He used to think the river as a big, beautiful woman loving and nurturing her children with her ample bosom and comforting arms. With her soft throaty voice she sings them to sleep at night.

The hurricane changed it into a savage sea monster. It unleashed its claws and swept away houses with people in them. His roof was blown away and his possessions were stewed in muddy water. In one day he lost everything. He can't bear the sight of the river now.

He heard the police had set up an evacuation center at “The Point”--a small town spared by the hurricane and flood. He hopes they have food there. He's getting hungry after walking several hours on foot.

This town makes him uncomfortable. He saw a few glances behind the curtain along the way. Plantation style houses with summer blossoms and wrought iron fences can make a postcard ashamed, yet he feels he is being watched with unwelcoming eyes.

Some trees are lying on the street blocking his way. They are arranged not by wind, but by human hands. He looks around. Going back to bypass it will take too long. He's losing energy under the inferno heat. He bends down to remove the trees.

* * *

Robbie sees him passing his house and gets his shotgun out. He calls the boys and tells them where the guy is heading. The boys say they will be there soon. They are going to get him this time.

We set up the barricades to give you warnings, he says to himself, not my fault if you’re too dumb to get it. This town is special. We take good care of our properties, and we are not going to let some looters ruin it. Hurricane or not, you people are not welcome here. The sheriff told me they didn’t have enough people to maintain order. Do what you have to and leave them by the side walk, he said.

Robbie pats his shotgun proudly. He's grateful he had the smarts to get it at the first sight of the drones of those people flooding in to the center. No low lives like them are going to destroy our town by stealing or looting. We'll show them who’s in charge here.

* * *

The sound of the blast bounces off the water and ripples away slowly. Donald feels the pain in his neck, arms and back before falling to the ground. Two or three guys with guns pointing at him looking from above, their silhouettes big against the blue sky blocking the sunshine. He doesn't feel the heat anymore.

“We got you, nigger. We got you!” Robbie says. Donald sees anger in his eyes, but more than that, he sees fear glittering behind it. I know that fear, he wants to say. He had felt it many times before--every time he passed a man like him.