Her lips curl and her nostrils flare with disgust as she looks sideways at me. “You would say that. You don’t interact with Dad either, and you’ve been so sloppy lately that you might as well not be here.”
The sharpness of her words takes my breath away, but it’s the look on her face that stabs straight into me, damaging me in ways I can’t describe. I’m the one she’s looking at that way, I’m the one she finds revolting, and I’ve been giving all I have. I’m struggling not to break into pieces.
She just doesn’t know.
“It’s hard to do those things when he doesn’t want to talk or watch videos or FaceTime people. He wants all of this to end,” I say, trying to make her understand.
The wrinkles of disgust on her face deepen. “Does he want that? Or do you?”
“I want it if he wants it,” I confess in the barest whisper. I’m so tired of him hurting, so tired of making things worse for him. So tired.
Her eyes widen into round saucers, and I know I’ve shocked her, horrified her.
Without a word, she grabs the bag of diapers from me and sails into the room, aiming a broad smile at Uncle Tony as she thanks him for the chocolates. He nods at her, pleased, and returns to his book.
I hang around the doorway awhile, waiting for her to issue commands like she always does. Everything should still be okay if she orders me around. But she doesn’t.
She’s acting like I’m not even here.
I turn around and walk away from the room. I need to be alone and figure out what to do, how to fix this. She’s my sister. I need her to love me. I need that.
I shouldn’t have said anything, I know that. But I’ve been doing that for so long that it feels like the words are piling up, pushing to get out, demanding to be heard. Please, please, I want to scream, please understand me.
Stop judging me.
Accept me.
Down the hall, my mom opens the front door and lets a whole troop of people inside—out-of-town relatives and their families and a handful of her friends from church. They’re smiling, exchanging greetings, and handing her red envelopes, which she tucks into her pocket for safekeeping. Everyone wants to help take care of my dad in some way, and money is the easiest way to do it.
I try to slip into a bathroom and hide, but it’s too late. I’ve been seen.
“Anna, come say hi,” my mom says, beckoning me toward her with her hands.
My face is hot and I’m on the verge of tears, but I put on a smile. I remember to wrinkle the corners of my eyes. I fumble through greeting them all. I’m horrible at remembering faces, and there are different ways to say aunt and uncle in Cantonese depending on if they’re on my mom’s side or my dad’s side, their age relative to my parents, and whether or not they married into the family. In the end, my mom has to reintroduce me to everyone, and I parrot back the titles that she gives me, only with abominable pronunciation that makes people laugh. My mom laughs along with them, but there’s a hard edge to her face that tells me she finds my failure humiliating.
By the time that’s over, my heart is hammering and my head hurts. I need a quiet place. I need time. As I’m closing the front door, Julian and his mom walk up the front steps. I didn’t invite them, so Priscilla and my mom must have done it. I really wish they hadn’t. It takes energy to be with him, and I feel like I’m scraping the bottom of my resources.
Numbly, I note that he looks good today. Well, he always looks good, but today he looks exceptionally good. He’s dressed in well-fitting khakis, a white button-down shirt with no tie, and a navy blue sports coat, and he’s having a great hair day. His chin-length locks look like they’ve been professionally styled with a round brush and a hair dryer and then flat-ironed, but I know he rolls out of bed like that. Julian is lucky in many ways.
My facial muscles don’t want to respond, but I make them cooperate through a force of will. I say the right things with the right amount of enthusiasm. I hug Julian and his mom and show them to the backyard, where caterers have set up a big white tent and a dozen round dining tables on the grass. The sun’s only begun its descent, so the sky is still bright and the illumination from the Christmas lights suspended overhead is subtle. The flower arrangements are beautiful—fresh hydrangeas in shades of magnetic blue and magenta—and there’s a long buffet table filled with food from my dad’s favorite restaurant. In the back corner, a bartender is setting up a wet bar.
This is what happens when Priscilla organizes an event. Everything’s perfect.