If shedoescome to work with me, what will she do all day?
What will Ana think?
What about Rafe and our postponed date? Can I do that with Mom there?
How long is this visit going to last?
On the plus side, all these concerns have sidelined the reason why she’s coming, which is to test my moli. That’s a whole other list of problems that would take a flight to Auckland to resolve and that I currently do not have the capacity to deal with. It’s easier to agonize over how many towels I have and why I didn’t wash them before I left.
The plane lands, and everyone too cheap to buy in-flight Wi-Fi immediately turns to their phones to see what they’ve missed over the last four and a half hours. I’m no exception, and see a few texts from Ana wanting to know if things were okay. I tell her my mom is staying over and they’ll probably meet at the store.
Ana:I’ll be on my best behavior.
Me:She’ll love you.
This is true, because despite my mother’s many failings and what I view as her painful traditionalism, she’ll respect Ana in the same way she’s able to enjoy all people who aren’t me. Ana can be admired for what she currently has, not her potential. Her is-now rather than her could-be.
There’s also a text from Mom, directing me to wait for her when I get off the plane and designating an exact location (to the left at the first corner out of the sky bridge). I push aside my juvenile desire to wait about ten meters away, and watch as she comes up the ramp. Have her shoulders narrowed? Are they more slumped? She might be tired from the flight. She already has on huge sunglasses that cover half her face, and I wonder how long it will be until she succumbs to the inevitable visor I also see in my future. Suncare is self-care, after all.
“Did you pop your ears?” she says as she comes up. “You’ll get a headache otherwise. Did you bring gum?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” Her voice is muffled, but I don’t want to tell her that.
“It’s so easy to do, Luling. I taught you when we went to Shanghai. Do you remember all those flights? I think it took us a full day.” She laughs. “You and Eric fell asleep in the customs line and nearly fell over. You were both holding those big Toblerones your father bought you.”
That had been one of our only family trips, taken when I was ten and Eric twelve, so Dad could see his family. I remember asking Mom if we were going to see the old Hua compound or the Nanjing store, but she said we couldn’t manage it.
“I remember,” I say, tugging my ear.
“Here.” She hands me some gum and I take it. “Now, yawn.”
“Mom, I am fine. Let’s go.” When she turns away, I stretch open my jaw and feel the pressure lift.
We wait for her luggage—although I went carry-on, Mom has a large rollie—and head home. This time we take a cab, because I’m paying and it’s already past six in the evening.
“It’s been a long time since I was here,” Mom says as we drive along the highway, the city shadowed in the distance as we come around the swooping curve of the overpass. “At least twenty years.”
“I wonder if it’s changed much.”
“All places change and are the same.”
When I was younger, these kinds of gnomic pronouncements would leave me puzzling for days. Now they’ve started to make more sense as long as I don’t think about them too deeply. Perhaps this is one of the benefits of age.
She’s quiet as we edge our way to my neighborhood, the cab swerving around the parked cars and oblivious pedestrians on their phones. I look out my window, preparing myself for the upcoming barrage of criticism about my living arrangements. When we arrive, I’m happy the setting sun gives the street a honeyed glow that’s usually reserved for a late-summer afternoon. The yellow brick of my building looks like a design choice instead of merely being dingy, and when I open the door, the light glints off brown tile floors that would be right at home in a 1970s shopping mall to reflect pretty patterns on the wall.
I hope Mom doesn’t comment on the elevators. On a good day, they make a worrying creaking noise that gives the impression they’re being hand-cranked by a pod of gnomes in the basement who couldget tuckered out and let go at any moment. I consider it atmosphere but accept she might see it as a health hazard.
We make it upstairs without incident, and I drag Mom’s suitcase to my apartment. Mom walks in, her nose twitching, but even unburned, my candles have negated the stale smells that could have accumulated in the dead space while I was away.
She takes off her shoes and explores, mumbling the room names to herself as if marking them off a mental tally sheet. “Bedroom, good size. Luling, you have socks on the floor. Bathroom, fine. How often do you wash your towels? Use bleach. Kitchen. Gas or electric? Gas.”
Meanwhile, I stand in the middle of the living room, wondering if there’s food for dinner. Thank God I changed my sheets in a fit of nervous energy while waiting for my flight to leave. I pull in Mom’s suitcase while she’s checking the refrigerator and take the opportunity to discreetly spray some lavender scent on the pillows.
A knock on the door brings us out like curious mice. I check the peephole before unlocking the door. “Rafe?”
Rafe stands in the hall, but before he can greet me, Mom comes up. “Rafe Jin.” She says it with a satisfaction I don’t think I’ve ever heard her use with my name.
“I came over to see if you wanted to join me for dinner,” he says. “I thought you’d be tired after the flight.”
