“Starving,” I said.
He poured me tea out of the metal teapot. “Vivian’s coming too.”
I hadn’t noticed the third plate setting. Vivian was Bah Ba’s goddaughter. What that meant, I wasn’t exactly sure. I didn’t know anything about her, other than she existed. She was the one who’d contacted us when Bah Ba was kept in the hospital overnight. He’d passed out on the street a couple of days after my brother broke the news to him about Willie. Vivian called my brother to explain the situation and that had been the first time I’d heard of her. My dad had his own secrets.
I wondered if “goddaughter” was a Chinese euphemism for “young lover.” That I could handle. It would make him and my mother even. It would also absolve me of any wrongdoing, for the lies I’d told him. I couldn’t fathom a goddaughter in the usual sense, that my father had been playing daddy for someone else’s kid instead of us.
“She used to work here, a waitress,” Bah Ba said. “She came from China for school, by herself. I look out for her.”
“That’s nice of you,” I said.
He looked over my shoulder. It was Vivian. She was in her early twenties, not unattractive. She gave my father a hug and shook my hand. “So happy to meet you,” she said. She wouldn’t stop smiling. I thought something was wrong with her face.
The waiter dropped off a couple of dishes on our table, shrimp dumplings and rice noodle rolls.
“Start eating,” my father said. “I have to get back to kitchen.”
Vivian sat next to me. The rest of our round table was empty, the vacant chairs staring back at us.
“Your Bah Ba was so excited when he heard you were coming,” she said.
“How long have you known him?”
“Oh, a few years now. He thinks he takes care of me, but it’s the other way around. I bring him groceries, make sure he’s OK.”
“Does he always drink in the morning?”
Vivian laughed off my question. “He’s made some mistakes, I know, but he talks about you guys all the time. He’s really a sweet man.” She used her chopsticks to cut a noodle roll in half and placed it on my plate. “Eat before it gets cold. Try the ha gau.” She tapped her chopsticks on the metal rim of the bamboo steamer.
During my weeklong visit, Vivian would bring me out with two of her school friends, a couple. We went to a late-night bowling alley that served cocktails. Another day, we drove out to Great Adventure. I wore a throwback Warriors jersey and got sunburn from waiting in the long lines. Before I left, Vivian gave me a parting gift, a wallet.
She had a fiancée in California, and as far as I could tell, everything between her and my father was on the up and up. They filled a need for each other. She hadn’t seen her parents in years, so my dad became her father figure. For Bah Ba, having a goddaughter meant starting over, forming a new family, a chance to redeem himself with another daughter.
On Bah Ba’s day off, he took me to the Mall of America.
We were on the fourth floor overlooking Camp Snoopy, an amusement park in the center of the mall. Trees and log cabins surrounded the rides. Kids posed for pictures with costumed characters. That was my mother’s sort of thing. She had a framed picture of herself and Pinocchio hung in the hallway of her home. In the photo, she has her arm and leg extended out to the side, as though she’s been waiting her whole life for this moment.
A rollercoaster zipped by with screaming passengers, circling the indoor park. “Do you want to go?” Bah Ba pointed below at the inflated Snoopy, two stories tall, holding up his paw as though he was waiting to be called on.
“Ga Jeh would love this,” I said. “Snoopy’s her favorite.”
Bah Ba’s eyes tracked the roller coaster as it zipped around the track. “I’ve worked thirty years in a restaurant,” he said and began to stare at his palms, as though angry at them. “I’m done. No more.”
“You’re retiring?”
“A father should be with his kids. And now there’s Jordan.”
“Better to be close to your children,” I said.
“I could live with your brother and take care of my grandson. No more drinking. No more smoking. I’m going to be the best grandpa.”
“It would save them money. Babysitters are expensive.” I leaned over the railing. Kids were playing tag below.
Bah Ba tilted his head up to the skylight. “My Bah Ba is gone,” he said. “My Ma too. And my Ga Jeh. I don’t want to die from my family. When my dad got old, we moved him from Hong Kong. Why should he die alone? We must forgive. That’s what Jesus says.”
Earlier that day, Bah Ba had brought me along to his church picnic. He’d become a church-going man since his older sister had passed away. Most of the members were senior citizens. We’d gathered in a circle to say grace. The woman leading the prayer thanked God for sending me here, a son returning to his father. The story sat especially well with this crowd—aging parents afraid of being abandoned by their kids.
Bah Ba’s breathing grew heavy. “I have to retire. Live my life. My boss complains and complains. For any machine that goes wrong, we pay the cost.” He shook his head like a boxer pumping himself up before a fight.
“Retire.” I gripped his shoulder. “Faan ah.” Return.
We strolled around the mall, passing two GAPs and two Victoria’s Secrets. When we saw Hooters, Bah Ba nodded toward the sign and began chuckling. We only explored one shop, a massive outdoors store. We had no intention of buying anything, but we sifted through racks of lumberjack clothes, picked up lanterns, testing their weight, their portability. We ducked inside a family-sized tent.
“Where should we put the TV?” I asked, imagining that we were
