The door opens and my mother calls a greeting. Rafe stops talking and stands as Mom comes in the room. “I’ll leave you to get some rest,” he says.
He and my mother exchange pleasantries before he leaves and my mother pulls out a pan. “You ate?”
“Rafe brought congee. He said you asked him to.”
“I only said you were sick and he might want to drop by on the way home.”
“Mom, don’t do that.” I don’t need her shoving us together.
“Why? He’s an old friend. He lives down the hall. It’s not like he traveled to the moon.”
I need distraction so I don’t make this a fight. I go to lie on the couch as she moves around the kitchen. I pull out the register and drape my blanket over my head like a cowl and keep reading. There aren’t many mentions of the men in my ancestors’ lives, I notice. Some didn’t tell their husbands at all, and others told and regretted it because the mentried to take over the business, telling their wives they knew how to do it better. Some were flat-out exploitative or resentful. I hesitate over Mom’s chapter and then avoid it like I usually do. I don’t need to read about Dad’s attitude; I heard it enough growing up.
Surely there has to be one truly supportive man in our history, but even the ones who loved their wives begrudged the time the women spent on their moli or were unhappy moving into the Hua compound instead of bringing their wife home to their own family. I give up after another half hour.
I don’t understand why. Wouldn’t the men in the lives of my ancestors have appreciated the money and power? The register seemed to indicate some husbands resented this too. But if they could take their wealth from their fathers and think it was their right to have it flow between generations, how was it that different from receiving it from their wives? They still didn’t have to work for it.
Mom drops something, and I suddenly remember the question I can’t believe I never asked.
I throw back my blanket wimple. “Mom.”
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
“No.” It doesn’t matter what I say, because a bowl of light-yellow Asian pear slices appears on the coffee table. “How did you tell Dad about your moli?”
She doesn’t look up. “I didn’t until we were married.”
“What? I thought it would have been before that. Like a condition of marriage.”
Mom shakes her head. “He planned to go back to China after school, so there didn’t seem to be a point in telling him while we were dating. Then he got a job here, a good one, and after a while, his family told him to stay. It was more than he could make back in Shanghai.”
“You told him then?”
She sits down and crosses her legs at the ankle, a ladylike posture she tried in vain to have me adopt. “I was going to, but our engagementwas short. He could be in the country because of his work, but it would be better if he was married.”
“Wait, were you in love?”
Mom avoids my eyes. “Of course. We had similar goals.”
That does not sound like a ringing endorsement, and Mom gives me a look.
“Love comes in many ways,” she says.
“He doesn’t believe in our moli,” I say.
Mom’s work-worn hands are flat on the armrests. “He didn’t need to. All I asked was that he let me do my work.”
I’m actually shocked at this. I would have thought Mom would have insisted on more than simple noninterference. “Then when did you tell him?”
“After our honeymoon. We went to Shanghai so I could meet his family, and I told him when we got back.”
“Wow.” That would be a shocking bit of information to lay on a new husband. Poor Dad.
“I didn’t get a chance to do it earlier.”
“Really?”
She stands up. “God, Luling, how can I remember from so long ago? I told him when I told him, he understood, end of story. Ancient history. Now, do you want more pear? An orange? You need vitamin C if you’re sick.”
