辛Bitter

THE PHONE RANG WHILE FATHER WAS SLEEPING after finishing a night shift. I heard him get up from his nap and swear before he answered. Mother had forgotten to switch the ringer off before leaving with Bea to get some groceries. I was left at home, sick with a fever. The tone of Father’s voice changed from loud irritation to quiet concern as he listened to the person on the phone. I could only hear muffled Hokkien. He hung up and didn’t go back to bed. From the number of cigarettes that flowed through his hands, I could tell it was bad news. Still, he didn’t say anything as he helped Mother put the groceries away. I promptly forgot about the call when Bea gave me some sour keys she’d brought from the store.

A month later, Bea and I were doing homework when the phone rang. Mother picked it up and spoke in her loud overseas-call voice in Hokkien she used when she was talking to someone in Brunei. She repeated something over and over, and then she started to yell, cry, and stomp her feet. After several minutes, she slammed the phone down and collapsed onto the floor. Father came home at that moment, and when Mother looked up, she had hatred for him in her eyes.

“Chee hong gia, bastard! Lu chao kang, nasty man!” she shouted.

He stood at the door, frozen like the icicles forming on the eaves-trough. Mother rose, grabbed her tea mug, and threw it, tea and all, at Father. He ducked and the mug hit the front door, leaving a dark liquid and ceramic mess behind him.

“E see liao, she died!”

Father did not look surprised. He bent down to gently put his metal lunch box on the ground and slowly rose, showing his hands as if he were a hostage negotiator. Bea and I were paralyzed. We didn’t know whether we should comfort Mother, or if she would lash out at us, too. Father moved carefully towards Mother in the kitchen.

She held her palm up. “Mai chin chiah kin! Don’t come closer!”

Father obeyed. “She was already gone when they called,” he whispered.

“She was not!”

“Her brain was not functioning. There was nothing you could do.”

“She was alive.”

“Not in the way you want her to be.”

“I could have gone to say goodbye.”

“She would not have heard you.”

“How do you know?”

“It would not have changed anything.”

“Not for you, but maybe for me. Maybe she could have heard me one last time. Now I will never have that chance. Now I will never know. You are so selfish. You didn’t want me to go back. Why? She is my mother.”

“She was already gone. You are a mother, and you are needed here.”

“Were you so afraid that if I went, I would not come back?”

Father said nothing.

Mother spit in his face and retreated to her bedroom. We didn’t see her for the rest of the day.