“Mom isn’t going to change,” Ga Jeh said. “She’s always talking about the past. Get over it, already.”
“I got to get back to the front,” Goh Goh said, “but we should talk about this later.”
We’d said that before. We each wanted our parents to divorce and had each expressed this to our mother, but she would only say, “I’ll tell him everything. Soon.” Our conversations about our parents never went much farther than discussing our need to discuss.
Two days later, Bah Ba would return to Minnesota, and for the next few months, he’d continue to send money home. I didn’t think much about him. All my energy went to the kids I taught. The gym teacher, who’d already been reprimanded, though not fired, for choking two students, got into another altercation with a pair of students, two brothers, and this time was canned. The younger brother had thrown something at the gym teacher’s head, maybe a chalkboard eraser, and the teacher snapped. Put the student in a headlock. That’s when the older brother jumped on top of the teacher. My goal was to not get fired, to not snap like the gym teacher. I was determined to live stress-free outside of work. Plopped down with my dinner in front of the TV, let my girlfriend win every argument, then slept. It was a recipe for survival.
Bah Ba would call the North Beach apartment, looking for my mother, and each time, my brother covered for our mom, like always. Through these phone calls, some brief, some much longer, Goh Goh and my father grew closer.
Five months after the Red Egg and Ginger Party, our father wrote us an email asking us to explain our mother’s, his wife’s, behavior.
Why? I want to know!
For so many years, I have been working out of state. That’s not what I want. Just imagine how sweet to close to home. But I was forced to part from the family according to some of the bad situations with my work. I felt I was betrayed at that time. I had the chance to come to Minnesota as head dim sum cook to show everybody I was a valued worker. So I thought why not, I could make twice as much for my family. Let them had a better life, as all of you were growing older. All expense in the family were growing too!
For so many years, I am the only one to support the family. Mom takes care of the family while I am not home, so I am glad both are doing our parts to support the family. This is a perfect family, everyone admires.
Gained one thing, but lost one thing!
For the first few years, everything was fine, everything were in the track. But the relationship with Mom changed slowly. At first I did not realize, after several times when I came home, I felt I was up set time after time. I came home with happiness, but I left with sadness. After my restaurant closes, we lost a lot of money for the attempt, we had to pay the debts, but I could not return to SF with empty hands. I tried to work seven days and more hours in order to make more money, still I failed. I sent money back less by less. I wrote if Mom could work to help my burden, to help support the family with me together. All I heard were nothing?!!!
Now, everything is clear, I need to save money when I retire; I need to plan for my future.
Don’t blame me, just compare!
Now I need to say something, as all of you are grown up, judge by yourself whose wrong, whose not, what to do next. Please don’t put hate in your mind, as we are one family.
I confess I did not communicate well with you, many things I don’t want to speak about, focus for the future, that’s not a good idea to talk about the past, after all, past was past!
If you blame me not to communicate well, I want to know how many messages, family news, cards and calls I received from you including Mom for so many years? How many minutes she talked with me when I called home? As a member of the family, why I had to sleep in the sofa when I came home? Why she didn’t talk with me before she bought Honda for Cindy? Why didn’t she tell me about Jackson’s marriage? Why she always talks about the past in Hong Kong? I know I was wrong, but what can I do now? Kill myself to pay back? All I know is working hard, hope all of you have a better life.
Me, member of the family, you, members of the family, try to solve the problems between everybody, let me know any idea, if you have conclusion.
Dad
* * * * * *
I was floored. My dad had personality, a range of emotions he’d been holding back, at least from me. His words in the email, his writing, created a new father for me, a complex man that I wanted to understand. The way he saw it, he was the one who’d been left behind.
He’d handled his responsibilities the way a husband and father should. Yet his wife had pushed him away for years. His children had never recognized the sacrifices he’d made for them. They’d been playing for the wrong team, siding with a mother who’d turned her back on a good man.
None of us responded to our father’s email. We also didn’t write to each other. We acted as if that bomb of an email would defuse itself. We ran from it.
The following week, Bah Ba called home and Goh Goh was tired of running. He finally confessed: Mom had a boyfriend.
My parents would exchange a couple of letters filled with gripes. My mother filed the paperwork for divorce; I paid for the lawyer. I
