Dandelion

Jamie Chai Yun Liew

dandelion

DANDELION

Copyright © 2022 by Jamie Chai Yun Liew

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

Suite 202 – 211 East Georgia St.

Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6

Canada

arsenalpulp.com

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program), for its publishing activities.

Arsenal Pulp Press acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, custodians of the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories where our office is located. We pay respect to their histories, traditions, and continuous living cultures and commit to accountability, respectful relations, and friendship.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons either living or deceased is purely coincidental.

Cover and text design by Jazmin Welch

Cover and interior art by Ophelia Liew

Edited by Catharine Chen and Shirarose Wilensky

Printed and bound in Canada

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Title: Dandelion / Jamie Chai Yun Liew.

Names: Liew, Jamie Chai Yun, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210390808 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210390816 | ISBN 9781551528816 (softcover) | ISBN 9781551528823 (HTML)

Classification: LCC PS8623.I37 D36 2022 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

For my mother and migrant mothers everywhere

小Small

WHEN I WAS ELEVEN, my mother walked away from her family. She didn’t say goodbye. She didn’t leave a note. She didn’t call. I never saw her again. I have no idea where she is or what happened to her.

Every Mother’s Day, I have the same ritual. I stay at home to avoid seeing mothers and daughters brunching. I don’t look at my phone, evading the pictures, the tributes, and the new memories.

It’s been twenty years since my mother left. This Mother’s Day, I am rubbing my ankles, swollen from bearing the weight of my pregnant belly, and thinking about how my mother used to rub her left ankle the same way when she was tired, stressed, or anxious. I look out the window and see a woman pushing a stroller, her mother walking beside her. I look down at my belly and worry about what kind of mother I will be. I am scared of doing this without my mother. Most of all, I am afraid of bringing a child into this world.

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