“Your music? How is that?” my mom asks. “How is Je je’s violin working for you?”
I avert my eyes and shake my head.
“So stubborn, Anna,” she says in a tired voice. “Here, I want to buy you this one.”
She takes her phone out of her purse and shows me an email that Priscilla forwarded from an instrument dealer. In the body of the email, there’s a picture of an elegant Guarneri violin. Guarneri was an Italian luthier during the 1700s who rivaled Stradivari, the creator of the famous Stradivarius violins. The most expensive violin in the world is a Guarneri. This is not that Guarneri, of course. According to the dealer, this Guarneri sustained serious damage on multiple occasions and has undergone extensive repairs, so its price reflects that. But it still costs as much as a house.
“Ma, it’s too nice. I can’t—”
She makes a scoffing sound. “It’s not too nice for my daughter. Priscilla said the sound is very good. You’ll like it.”
An uncomfortable sensation crawls over my skin, and I hand the phone back to my mom. Speaking in a soft, measured tone and keeping my demeanor the way I’ve learned to around her, I say, “I love that you want to get me this. It means a lot to me. Thank you. But—”
“You won’t play it if she picked it out for you,” my mom observes, seeing me in a way I didn’t think she could. “I was there, I heard what she said, it was not kind. But just forgive her already. Let it go. Let things go back to the way they used to be. She told me she’s sad that she’s losing you and Ba at the same time.”
I recoil as a sense of injustice engulfs me. “How do you forgive someone when they won’t say sorry? It’s been months. She could have called me at any time, messaged, or stopped by. But she hasn’t. She won’t.”
My mom makes a dismissive waving motion with her hand. “You know Je je.”
“I do. She thinks it’s okay to treat me that way. Based on how she’s acting, she’ll keep on doing it. That’s not fair to me,” I say, and I don’t even try to hide how angry this makes me. I let my mask completely drop away.
I expect my mom to chide me for having an “attitude” around her, for not listening, but instead, she says, “You have to see it from her perspective.”
“What about mine? I’m not being unreasonable. It’s not like I’m asking her to cut off one of her arms.” I’m asking for her to treat me as an equal.
“You’re breaking our family apart, and there are only three of us now,” my mom says, her eyes pleading with me to give in because Priscilla won’t. “I want us together. This Christmas, I want us to go on a nice vacation. You could bring your Quan. It’s what Ba would have wanted.”
“I don’t think he’d want that if he knew how hard it is for me to be what Priscilla wants, what you all want,” I say in a quiet voice. “I’ve tried to be different, to change for you, but it doesn’t work. It just hurts me. I—I—” I consider telling her about my diagnosis and the hell I’ve been going through, but I remember how Priscilla reacted and I know it’s hopeless.
“You’re autistic,” my mom says.
Surprise makes me freeze in place. I can’t speak. I can’t even blink.
“Faith told me. It’s probably from your father’s side. Like Uncle Tony,” she grumbles, and for whatever reason that makes a laugh crack out of me. “I’ve been reading about it. I think I see it now.”
She rests her hands on top of mine, but then hesitates, like she’s not sure if she can touch me now. I turn my hands around and hold hers tightly, telling her without words that this is okay.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she confesses. “I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”
“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do either,” I say. “But maybe we can start over.”
She squeezes my hands and nods. “You were difficult when you were little, very difficult, and I’m sorry I didn’t know how to—what to—I thought I was doing the right thing for you.”
“It’s okay, Ma,” I hear myself say. Part of me doubts this conversation is actually happening, but her hands feel very real in mine.
She gives me a searching look before saying, “Long before I came here to marry your dad, during the Cultural Revolution in China, I was sent to reeducation camps, where I worked and starved in the fields. Did you know this?” When I shake my head numbly, she con tinues. “Our family wasn’t safe because Gung gung was a wealthy landowner. I wasn’t safe. That’s what I learned from them—it’s not safe to be different.” Speaking through her tears, clinging to me like I’m a lifeline, she says, “I pushed you to change because I wanted you to be safe. Do you understand?”