On the other end of the line, she heard the sound of a lighter clicking, then her mother’s sharp inhale.
“We haven’t found an apartment yet,” she said. “Jasper has a friend there, Kenji—he’s going to help us look—he graduated a couple years ago. I want to work for a couple years then apply to law school. I already talked to my professors about it, for letters of recommendation. I still need time to study for LSATs. I—” Fiona broke off her rambling. Her mother still hadn’t replied. “Mom? Aren’t you going to say something?”
“What should I say?”
“Are you mad?”
“You love this boy?” her mother said. “You want to marry him?”
“I—Mom—yes,” Fiona stammered. “I think so. Maybe. Not right now. In the future—”
“You told him?”
Fiona was silent.
Her mother sighed. Or maybe she was only exhaling her cigarette smoke. “Remember your ballet classes in Taiwan?”
Fiona pressed the phone against her ear.
“Remember that big earthquake? You had a friend—she lived downstairs?”
“Shulin.”
“Shulin. That’s right.” Her mother paused a moment. “We didn’t have anything back then, did we?” Another pause. Fiona imagined her mother lifting the cigarette to her mouth, the ember glowing orange between her mother’s fingers. “We had each other.”
“You wouldn’t let me go to her funeral,” said Fiona.
“The money for ballet—your slippers and costumes—I just couldn’t afford them.”
Fiona said aloud what she’d long ago figured out. “My grandparents paid.” She recalled suddenly the neat little bedroom in her grandparents’ apartment, the smell of mothballs, her grandmother’s gentle voice inviting her to test the bed. She’d passed away six years ago—another funeral Fiona had missed.
A long silence.
“Mom?”
“Did you eat dinner yet?” her mother asked, as if Fiona had just walked into her house.
“You were so young, Mom.”
“I told you a long time ago,” her mother said. “Your father—he wasn’t someone who could take care of us.”
“I remember,” said Fiona. Her chest felt tight.
“You never asked about him again.” Fiona heard her mother clicking the lighter again. She didn’t know where this conversation was headed. She felt nervous, her hands suddenly ice-cold. Her stomach rumbled; she hadn’t eaten since lunch, a turkey sandwich on white bread she ate standing up in the kitchen, before going down to the bank.
“He was your grandfather’s student,” her mother said. “Your grandfather adored him. He was often invited to our house for dinner.” Then her mother explained that Fiona’s grandfather opposed the relationship because of the age difference—the boy was in college, after all, when her mother was still in her secondary-school uniform, her hair cut short in the compulsory style, just below the ears.
“So we ran away together,” her mother said.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Fiona protested. “Jasper and me—”
“Your grandfather tracked us down. I had to come back home. The boy was expelled from the university.”
“We have a plan. I’m not going to— Just because you—”
“He never knew about you,” her mother said quietly. “Your grandfather decided that was for the best. I never saw him again.”
Fiona sat down at her desk, one hand touching the laminate surface, the other holding the phone up to her left ear. Her gaze moved across the apartment. It didn’t have very far to go.
“I’m not sorry it happened that way, Ona,” her mother said. “I’m sorry for your father. He missed out—he didn’t get the chance to see you grow up.”
“Mommy—”
“I’m not mad, okay? I understand.” She paused for a moment. “Ona,” she said. “Are you happy?”
Tears sprang to Fiona’s eyelids. She hesitated before answering. “I am,” she said. Then she heard herself saying that she wanted to give half the inheritance money to her mother. “A graduation gift from me—”
“No, no,” her mother said. “I’m supposed to give you a gift—that’s backwards.”
Fiona laughed, growing more certain as she insisted that her mother accept this gift. “I’m the one graduating college,” she said. “But, Mom, it’s all—it’s only possible—because of you.”