So, this was how ladies lunched here. Hilary and I wore yoga outfits and brushed off our stains with our pastry napkins, laughing at the bags under our eyes as our pregnancy weight rested against the table. I watched the helper and considered how all over the world these migrant women had to look after other people’s children, while their own children went without their mothers. I wondered how many people I had put in that position in Canada, how many people I had helped get their temporary residence to work as a nanny. I felt conflicted about my role in facilitating the global exchange of women taking care of foreign children to earn money to take care of their own, in their faraway homes. I pledged to do more advocacy work to change the system so that caregivers could come to Canada with permanent immigration status and with their families on arrival. As I caught the helper’s eye, she quickly turned away, nervous that she had attracted my attention. I suddenly became conscious of the fact that part of her job was to be invisible and ignored.

I turned back to the table, and Veronica pointed at my uneaten food. “No good?”

“Wo sukat! I love this!” I exclaimed.

Veronica snickered and elbowed Winston. “You need to tell your cousin that she is speaking Malay.”

I felt heat rise in my face.

“Lily,” Winston chortled as he poked me in the arm, “‘sukat’ is not Hokkien.” My faux pas became a source of amusement at the table, and I felt foolish for trying to speak the local language.

“She did not learn that from me, lah,” Auntie Choo Neo said.

Winston talked about our cousins and their excitement to see us, updating Auntie with all the juiciest gossip. “Ma, do you remember Ah Hoon?” He leaned in dramatically.

I let mother and son catch up while I searched on my phone one more time for any Swee Huas in Ipoh. None.

“Si beh siao! So crazy!” Auntie crowed. “Wa kah lu gong, I told you.” She nudged me to get my reaction.

“Yeah, that is unbelievable!” I said, not following the story.

Winston seemed to know exactly who his mother wanted news about and provided just enough information for her to yelp in judgmental glee or laugh uproariously.

At no point during our meal did anyone mention Mother or her family. Even here, across the ocean, she was a taboo topic. But even though nobody would utter her name, Mother was on the tip of my tongue.

厶Private

A FEW DAYS INTO OUR VISIT, I was still jet-lagged, and Leo was both wired and exhausted. I threw her sleep schedule out the window and we took a midday nap. John and Leo were still sleeping when I emerged from the guest room at Winston’s house to find no one else was home. I ventured outside and found my cousin’s driver sweeping the driveway.

“Hello, miss. Do you need to go somewhere?”