I hand her the water and she sips at it a few times before setting it down. “Bring me my album.”
This has been her comfort for the last few days as well, so I fetch it. She opens it to Xiao He and her waxy fingers stroke the page. I move to the other side of the bed to tidy her nightstand, and when I check on her after getting out a new box of tissues and rinsing out her water bottle, it’s to find Mom’s fingers still tapping gently on the page. Is this one of the symptoms the doctor told me to watch for? Heart hammering, I walk over to look at the page.
I’ve never looked too closely at the details in the photos, much as you do with anything that’s familiar. The one she’s looking at is of Mom and Xiao He, taken before she came to Canada. The two are standing near a set of stairs, both looking at the camera with passport-serious expressions. But Mom’s fingers aren’t connecting with the face of her brother, as I would expect given the amount she’s been talking about him. Instead they’re touching one specific spot on the page—her abdomen. When her fingers move away, I lean forward, wondering what has Mom’s rapt attention.
She’s wearing a cotton navy dress with a little ruffle around the wide neck, cinched in at the waist and falling to her knees. The wind is pushing the skirt back a bit and giving her stomach a strange, almost rounded shadow.
I want to examine it further but she turns the page. Now the photos change to Canada. Mom in front of the CN Tower. Mom with friends at Niagara Falls. Then Mom with Dad. There’s a series of now-pregnant Mom rocking bangs in front of those same standbys, the CN Tower and Niagara Falls, a page later.
Her fingers fall from the page, and I take the album off her lap to scrutinize the earlier photo.
That’s not a shadow on her stomach. Is she pregnant?
I look so close I almost go cross-eyed. Holy shitballs, she’s definitely pregnant. I suddenly realize the photo’s been trimmed. Xiao He is to Mom’s right and there’s the edge of a shoulder to her left. There was enough space between Mom and whoever it was that it wasn’t obvious at first that there was someone there.
“Mom.” My voice is louder than I intend and her brown eyes fly open.
“Gracie?” She focuses on me and I know she sees me, really me.
“What aren’t you telling me about Xiao He? What happened that you came to Canada?”
“He said to leave the past in the past. To live my future.” She closes her eyes and I nearly shout in frustration. I let it be and look back at the photos. The photo of Sam and Fangli slips out again.
This time, Mom catches it with a quickness I would never have thought her capable of. “She grew so beautiful. I knew she would.” Her voice cracks.
“Her? Don’t you mean Sam?” I thought she kept it because Sam reminded her of her brother.
“Fangli. She didn’t change her name. Nor did he.”
I’m confused but know I’m walking through a minefield. I use my words like a stick, prodding for bombs to find a safe path. “Why would anyone change her name?” I keep my voice soft and soothing, trying to coax out the story.
“Her father was furious. A good but haughty man, so sure he’s right. That’s why my brother helped me. I wanted the baby.”
I look at the album. There’s a photo of a man and a child Mom said were relatives who owned a farm she used to go to. I always liked it because the girl looked so much like me that I used to pretend it was my sister. I hesitate, then go for it. “Mom, are you saying this is Wei Fangli?”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I knew her father would take care of her. Then I lost the other baby when I arrived alone in Canada. I had no one. It was my punishment. I couldn’t go home but I had nothing.”
I look at the album and then back at Mom. Then back at the album, which has somehow become impossibly weighty in my hands. The edge of it dips dangerously, and I catch it right before it tumbles out of my numb fingers to the floor.
“Mom.” There’s no way I understood her correctly. “This girl is Fangli?”
She reaches out and grabs my arm with a surprisingly strong grip. “Fangli. Yes.”
“The actor.” I pull out the magazine photo. “This woman here.” I jab it so hard that the page crumples under my finger.
“My Fangli.”
Is it the dementia? I try to remember what the doctors have told me. They said she would be confused…but like this? Making up a daughter? Mom fumbles for the gold chain around her neck that I’ve never seen her without. On the end dangles a jade coin, the empty center filled with gold and inscribed with the character for love. Her hands shake as she tries to take it off her neck and she finally gestures me closer, turning the pendant so I can see the reverse side.