“I want to talk to you about Lee,” he said. We were on the other side of the street now.
“Tell me more about you and Mah,” I said. “You never—”
“She’s a part of this story.”
“Lee had a problem with me,” I said. “He was trying to pick a fight.”
“Twenty years ago, we were inseparable,” Baba said. “Best friends, like brothers. But we lost touch after I moved overseas.” He paused a moment before continuing. “When I came back here, I asked around. I found him, through old friends.”
“I thought you said— The badminton court—”
“I went looking for him,” Baba said. “When I saw him again”—he stopped, as if to catch his breath—“I realized something about myself.”
His words hung in the air between us. I looked at him carefully. Baba wore his hair longer than he used to, or maybe it was that he was overdue for a cut. He’d gained back the weight he lost before, the year he stayed in bed. I studied his golden-brown skin, his dark amber eyes.
We’d reached the entrance to the subway station. Under the fluorescent bulbs, my father looked exhausted, as if all the talking had worn him out.
“What did you realize?” I asked. A block of ice had settled in my stomach. I knew what my father was trying to tell me but I couldn’t hear it. There was no room for it inside of me.
“Jane,” he said. “My daughter. My dear daughter.”
“You’re staying here for good,” I said. “That’s what you’re saying to me.”
“I didn’t know this would happen,” he said. “Lee and I—”
“Does Mah know you’re not coming back?”
“We’ll always be a family,” he said. “Nothing can change that.” Then he said, haltingly: “I’m in love—with . . .”
“No.” I met his gaze and held it for a long time. “No,” I said again. “You’re supposed to— You can’t just—”
“I care for him. Very much.” He was quiet for a moment, before adding, “And he cares for me.”
“What about Mah?” I said. “What about me?” I shook my head. “So you don’t care about us, then? You haven’t been thinking about anyone except yourself.” The words left my mouth before I knew what I was saying. “You’re selfish—”
“I wanted to tell you the truth,” he said. “You’re eighteen years old.”
“We don’t need you,” I said. “I don’t need you.”
“You’re angry,” he said. “Let’s talk when we get home.”
“You’re right, Baba. I’m not a little kid anymore,” I said.
“Jane.”
I fumbled for my subway card and held it out against the sensor. The gate glided open with a pneumatic hiss. I walked ahead. He kept his distance, five or six paces between us. I rode the escalator down and stood on the platform, my eyes on the white line painted on the ground. A gust of wind announced the train’s arrival, followed by two short whistles as the leading car thundered toward the station.
The train’s door opened, and I stepped inside. From the corner of my eye I saw Baba follow me in. He didn’t try to sit next to me. The AC blasted cold air. I clutched my stomach. The ice cube was melting, ice water draining down my legs, into my shoes, but I didn’t feel any warmth replace it. The train’s movement hid my trembling.
* * *
? ? ?
That night, trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep in Baba’s bed—he’d insisted on taking the sofa while I was visiting—I thought about Ping.
It happened four piano lessons ago.
I’d kissed a few guys before, spin the bottle in junior high, seven minutes in heaven at some dim basement party, a date to the movies where we made out the whole time in the back row. The only girl I’d ever kissed was Fiona, and that was just for practice, we’d said. What friends did to help each other prepare for the real thing.
Ping and I were in the middle of a lesson, me on the bench and her in the chair next to me. We had just started a new piece, Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor. The first step was sight-reading. I was doing terribly.
“Your fingering here,” she said, pointing to a bar on the sheet. “Try this.” She slid onto the bench. Our thighs were touching. I didn’t move my leg away.
She showed me the correct finger passage, and I wrote down notes on the sheet. At the end of our forty-five minutes, she made me promise I would practice every night that week.