This I understand. “No.” I nearly lunge forward. “This is Sam, a friend. From work. He’s a friend from work. Work friend.”
To Sam, I say, “She thinks you’re her little brother.”
Sam comes into the room and reaches his hand out. “Ni hao. Wo jiao Sam. Wo shi ni nu’er de tong shi.” I bless the app because Sam spoke slow enough to let me understand what he said.
Mom blinks again. “Ni hao?” She glances at me. “Gracie? Sweetie?”
“Sam dropped me off. It was on his way,” I say.
“He’s a friend? Chinese?” She sizes him up. “Married?”
“Mom!”
Sam laughs. “Only to my work.”
She clucks at him. “Do you like my Gracie’s hair? She cut it the other day. So short.”
“Gracie is lovely.” He says it simply as he looks at me. “You are lucky to have her as a daughter.”
She nods, satisfied with this polite answer because what else can the poor guy say, and reverts to Mandarin. Sam listens before he turns to me. “Your mother wants to show me a photo of her brother.”
I go to the cabinet and pull out the tattered photo album. Before Mom came into the home, I made digital copies of all the photos and have another identical album ready if something happens to this one. I wait until she sits down and wave Sam to the seat across from her before I pass over the album and sit down on the bed.
Mom’s crooked finger jabs down at a photo, and I lean over to see a man who looks like Sam only because they’re both Chinese men. Sam gives her the same smile as her brother does in the photo, and she slaps his leg and laughs.
“Gracie is much like Xiao He.” Mom reaches over and pats my hand like she did when I was small. “Much integrity. True to himself, with a core of rectitude.”
Such an old-fashioned word and my face flames because in thirty minutes, Rectitude Gracie is going to leave and put on a wig in a car so she can trick a bunch of kids into believing she’s a film star.
“Tell me more about him,” says Sam.
“Ah, he was an engineer. Smart, smart. We were all very proud of him.”
“Does he live in China?”
Her smile fades. “He died in an industrial accident after Gracie was born. She was named after him.”
“I didn’t know that.” How could I not know that?
“He, for harmony, and there must be harmony to have grace. I owed him much.” She shakes her head. “The past remains in the past.”
The bell rings in the hall and Mom perks up. At the home, meals are what tether her and she gets upset if she needs to wait, so I tell Sam I’ll be back in a minute. Dinner has wiped thoughts of Sam’s singledom status out of Mom’s mind and she walks eagerly to the dining hall after giving him only a cursory farewell nod.
I decide not to mention Dad as she’s better now and instead give her a kiss and greet the dinner ladies at her table. They all fuss over each other, making sure they have forks and water.
Sam is flipping through the album when I return. “I don’t understand how you can look so much like Fangli when this is your father.”
The page is open to a classic picture of Dad from the early 1990s. His reddish hair is permed and he wears a turtleneck and fanny pack, arm slung around a young and happy Agatha who only reaches to his shoulder. Mom’s wearing bike shorts and an oversize sweatshirt. What an era.
“He always said he was happy I took after my mother instead of him because she was the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Sam smiles and hands me the closed album to tuck away. “They were very much in love.”
“They were.” My voice catches as I hug the album. It’s silly but I’m loath to hide the album back in the dark drawer, like I’m tucking away Dad’s memory. “The money from this job for Fangli… I want it for Mom, to move her into a better place. It’s not because I’m greedy.”
Sam comes over and pulls me into his chest. “Gracie.” His voice is low, and for a brief moment, I let my eyes close and simply feel. On the day he died, Dad held me fiercely, as if he couldn’t bear to let me go. He’d lost so much weight from the treatment that his bones almost creaked as he gripped my shoulders.
“Ten years ago when Dad hugged me, I didn’t know that was the last time I’d have his arms around me,” I say into Sam’s chest. “I didn’t know.” Why didn’t I know? I should have sensed it, I should have acknowledged that I’d never feel his touch again. It passed me by and I’d never get that chance back. There’s no redo for that moment.