“You’re welcome.” Mom looks pleased with herself. “My storytelling abilities must really be something for you to believe it—no, embody it—all these years later. You know what? I’m glad you’re not settling. That’s something I can get behind. You’d be hard-pressed to find me someone worth settling for.”
“Does the word ‘compromise’ fall within your definition of settling?” I ask with a laugh.
Mom lets out a huff and looks away. “Compromising is what people tell themselves they’re supposed to do to feel better.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. Mom’s always had a fierce and strong façade with a self-attested lioness heart, but I like to imagine there’s something soft and squishy deep down in there. It couldn’t have been easy with me being an accident, but it’s not like I would know because she doesn’t talk about it.
I cross my arms, unintentionally wrinkling a Fate Note in the crook of my elbow. “There hasn’t been anyone serious yet, but oneday.” I narrow my eyes at her. “How about this? I’ll reveal myself as Red String Girl when you admit that you’re actually a romantic.”
“Ha!” Mom barks.
I double down. “You don’t tell your daughter the Red Thread of Fate myth if you don’t want her to believe that their stringmate, that their person on the other end of their red string, is out there somewhere. And if you wanted me to believe it, then you must’ve believed it, too.”
Mom shakes her head. “I told you about it because it was research for a show. That’s it.”
“Sure, Mom. Whatever you need to tell yourself. Did you know Talia is also a Red Threader?” I say. “Do you think her belief in it is silly?”
Mom smirks. “As usual, we’ll agree to disagree, Roo,” she says, throwing my words back at me. She lifts a Fate Note from the pile and focuses in on the red loopy word. “So, this lophole. What’s it supposed to mean?”
“Oh! Yes!” I say, clapping my hands together. “This installation is my interpretation of something scientific to show how fate has more influence than we think. When visitors come by, they’re supposed to grab a Fate Note and write on it,” I explain, uncapping my red pen to write something onto the wrinkled note as an example. “Here, I’ll show you how it works. People can write a joke, a wish, whatever they want. They slip the note between the web of string and grab one in return. By doing this, they’ll become linked with the person who wrote the note. They’ll be influenced no matter how far apart they are.”
“Influenced by… the words?” Mom asks suspiciously.
I stand from my crouched position, my five-feet-five stature towering over Mom’s five-feet height. “The words, the very action of writing a note and taking one, by fate,” I rattle off. “There are a lotof variables at play. There’s some string theory sprinkled in—Hey, don’t look at me like that.”
“I know, I know. Fate,” she says with a dramatic whisper. “It’s very on-brand.”
I shrug. “It’s not like I’m famous or anything. Literally no one knows who I am. They just can’t see me making the art, because then they will know.”
“And what’s so wrong with people knowing who you are?” Mom asks.
I think of how to phrase it. That if people know who I am, they’ll put the pieces together that I’m Wren Gao’s daughter. The infamous baby who was born in a museum. It was such a sensation that it had become my entire identity until enough time had passed and I was no longer a child.
I also don’t need the literal beginning of my life on display for everyone to see. It’s why I want to buyBaby Being Bornback so no one can own something that is private and personal to me. So that a museum can’t play the moment I entered the world on repeat for days on end against a large white wall for strangers to watch and comment on. Is that so much to ask?
I don’t know how to explain it to her. Instead, I just ask one question. “Do you regret it? Filming my birth?”
Mom shakes her head firmly. “I don’t believe in looking backwards. It gave us financial security, that video. It gave me the career of my wildest dreams. Long-lasting art imitates life.”
I flip the edge of the crinkled Fate Note back and forth. “Well, I’m on a mission to get it back.”
I pick up the box of Fate Notes and lead Mom to a wavy portion of the installation. With my free hand, I remove fast-food wrappers and empty cans of soda from between a stretch of string, trying not to let the misuse of my art rattle me too much. I slip my FateNote into a clean section. “That’s how it works,” I say. “It’s meant to bring people together. Feel free to add one, too. Just keep it relatively PG.”
“That’s no fun. I’m trying to find my X-rated match,” Mom says.
I watch as park visitors bundled in thick coats slow their steps to look up and around at my creation. “Do you think people are liking it?” I whisper to her.
Mom scoffs. “Who cares what they’re thinking? You’re Red String Girl and you’re showcasing in Washington Square Park. Chin up!” She slides her hands into her pockets, puffing out the sides of her oversize, paint-splattered parka.
“Okay, easy!” I look around to make sure no one heard. “You’re going to scare people away, or worse, give me away. Unless this was your plan all along, and this is one of your performance art pieces. You can call itDaughter Being Sabotaged.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Mom says with a glimmer in her eyes. “Ah, I almost forgot. I brought this back for you.”
From her coat pocket, she reveals a miniature snow globe of Tokyo. Anytime we’d travel together, our souvenir of choice was snow globes to remind us of where we’d been. Mom knows I love winter, and in snow globes, cities exist in that glorious season all year round.
I shake the globe and watch as fake snow lands in the indents of the Tokyo Skytree. Yep. There’s definitely a romantic bone in her somewhere. “Thank you. Maybe one day you’ll be going on tour with me.”
She gives me a single nod. “I would love that.”
