BY THE TIME they crossed the border into Louisiana, Andrew started to feel like they’d live out the rest of their lives in the backseat of this car. There was no way to really get comfortable. He and Grace tried opening the windows and sticking their feet out in the open air, tried taking turns lying down, but no matter what, every position felt awkward.
Thanks to some unspoken mutual agreement, they didn’t talk about the pictures Grace had taped up around her seat—especially not the picture of their mother that Andrew didn’t remember ever having seen before. Instead, he let Grace lay her head in his lap and told her what was going on outside the window.
“This is so weird. There’s a guy on a skateboard pushing a guy in a wheelchair right now, and they’re, like, flying down the street.”
“Mmm . . . what’s the guy in the wheelchair like?”
“White guy, scraggly beard, Hawaiian shirt.”
Ama had been in a wheelchair once, back when she’d sprained her ankle chasing their dog Lady down the stairs. Would he ever see her again?
Andrew turned to Grace. “What’s Ama’s name?”
“Isn’t it Ama?”
“No, that’s what she is, an ama. It’s like a nanny.”
“What?”
“Yeah. You’ve basically been calling her ‘caretaker’ all your life.”
“Well, you have, too!”
“I know. It’s terrible. We’re terrible people. Dad—what’s Ama’s name?”
Their father looked at them in the rearview mirror. “Why do you wonder?”
“Because she’s a person, Dad!”
“Okay, Gracie, okay . . .” Charles thought hard. What was Ama’s name? It was lost somewhere in the past, when Ama was pretty and young and she carried him everywhere on her back. “I think she was from Lu family, and then she have to come live with us, come take care of your baba. Maybe she tell Jiejie?”
Grace was doubtful. “Why would Saina know if we don’t?”
“Let’s call,” said Andrew.
“I want to call.”
“We’ll conference. If she picks up.”
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
“I was just about to call you guys,” said Saina.
“We have a family dispute to resolve.”
Grace kicked him and waved her cell phone in his face. “Wait, I’m being abused. What are you supposed to do when you’re in an abusive relationship?”
“Rehabilitate them with love.”
“Kill them with kindness?”
“Kill’s a little extreme. Maybe just maim.”
“Hold on.” Andrew dialed Grace’s number.
“Finally! Saina, this is important. Do you know Ama’s name?” She kicked against Barbra’s seat, dislodging the Diane Arbus photograph.
“Doesn’t Dad know it?”
“No.” Grace glared at her father, but his eyes were on the road. “All he knows is her last name even though he’s known her all his life.”
“You’ve known her all your life, too,” said Saina.
“Yeah, but I’ve known her for the shortest amount of time compared to everyone else, so you guys have been assholes for longer.”
“What made you think of it?” Saina asked.
“Andrew did. I don’t know.”
He felt silly, suddenly, for insisting on this piece of knowledge. Of course they’d be able to find her. “Dad! Do you know Ama’s daughter’s phone number? Kathy’s number?”
Charles, busy unfolding a map, shook his head.
“But then how do we call Ama if we need to? I didn’t say goodbye to her!” said Andrew.
“You mean we won’t see her again?” Grace thought back to their escape from Kathy’s house. It had been a hurried, uncomfortable exit, and she’d only given Ama a quick hug. They’d abandoned Ama as if she were a puppy, an off-season sweater, this woman who had changed their shitty diapers and bandaged their skinned knees and spooned porridge into their baby-bird mouths. She would never have done it if she’d known. Never. This was her father’s fault, and Barbra’s. Grace kicked Barbra’s seat again, but still her stepmother did nothing. Nothing. What did she ever do besides get her nails done and organize her closet and buy sunglasses? Babs had so many pairs of sunglasses. The only worthwhile thing she’d ever taught Grace was how to apply lipstick without looking in a mirror.
“Hold on, I’m checking Facebook,” said Saina over the phone. “Where are you guys stopping next?”
“Remember Uncle Nash? We’re going to stay with him in New Orleans.”
“That guy? He always had such a crush on Mom. Oh wait, here, Kathy’s on Facebook!”
Andrew reached over and touched his little sister’s leg. “See, we found her. It’s okay.”
Suddenly, finding Ama didn’t matter as much to Grace. “Hold up, Uncle Nash had a crush on Mom? How did you know?” Worried, she looked at her father in the rearview mirror, and whispered, “Does Dad know?”
Saina laughed. “I don’t think it was that big of a deal. He just used to always compliment her and open doors for her and stuff.”
“I guess it makes sense,” said Grace. “She was so beautiful.”
“Do you want me to message Kathy?” asked Saina.
“I don’t know,” said Grace. “What do we write? ‘Dear Kathy, sorry we kept your mom for so long. But at least we gave her back. Love, the Wangs. PS. Um, BTW, what’s her name?’ You guys didn’t see how mad Kathy was. She’s never going to talk to us unless maybe we tell her that we’re coming to give the car back.”
“What do you mean?”
Andrew and Grace rolled their eyes at each other. “Saina, what car do you think we’re driving?” he asked.
For a long minute, she was quiet. Andrew pictured her sitting in one of the weird invisible plastic chairs that were in the pictures she’d emailed of her new house. Once she moved out to the Catskills, the house was pretty much all she talked about anymore. Wood flooring and contractors and something called subway tiles—for a while it had seemed cool and grown-up, like everything that Saina did, like she was some sort of New Age pioneer, but now it all sounded pointless to him. She’d isolated herself in a lonely outpost, and now they were all going to live there, too. It was as if she’d been building a prison for them. A pretty, pretty prison.
“I didn’t think about it,” said Saina. “Yours? Wait, is Dad driving the whole way? You guys should split it up.”
“Yeah, like he’s going to let anyone else take the wheel—we tried. And nope. Not mine. Ama’s.”
Grace looked at him as she replied. “You know, our mother’s.”
“Across country?”
They both nodded, and then Grace said, “Yeah, if we make it.”
They were driving her mother’s old car? What else had she missed? Saina picked up her bottle of beer and took a long swig. Leo was in the kitchen, rendering duck fat that they would later stir into a vat of rice, making each of the grains glisten. “But it’s ancient! I didn’t know that we still had it, even.”
“You’d remember if you came home last Christmas.”
She glanced towards the kitchen, not wanting Leo to overhear. “Gracie, you know why I didn’t come home.”
“Yeah. Because sitting in a room and crying was more important than seeing your family.”
Yoga breath. Yoga breath. “I couldn’t even brush my teeth. There was no way I could have gotten on a plane and flown to L.A.” Yoga breath.
“We would have still loved you with gunky teeth,” said Andrew.
“And smelly feet,” added Grace.
“And greasy hair.”
“And hairy legs.”
Saina laughed. Grace and Andrew, bumping around in the backseat of the old station wagon, probably hurtling down the highway at ninety miles an hour—her dad had always been a fast driver—drinking Slurpees and eating Cheetos, falling asleep leaning against each other.
Leo called out from the stove: “Hey, which bottle do you want to open? The red or the white?” Before she could even respond, Grace pounced.
“Saina! That was a boy! Who is that? Do you have a new boyfriend?”
Leo was in the doorway now, holding the wooden spoon between his teeth and waving both bottles in the air. She smiled at him. “Leo, my sister wants to know who you are.”
“Who’s Leo?”
He raised an eyebrow and spoke with the spoon still clenched. “She doesn’t know?”
“Who’s Leo?”
“I wasn’t sure if you were ready to meet the kids.”
“Saina! Who’s Leo?”
“And now?”
“Saina! C’mon!”
“Guys,” she said into the phone, her eyes locked with his. “There’s something I haven’t told you. I like a boy.” Saina wanted to hook a finger through one of his belt loops and pull him towards her. She winked at Leo and nodded towards the bottle of red.
Her boyfriend turned back to the kitchen with the Malbec held aloft as Grace whispered something Saina couldn’t quite hear.
“What?”
“I said, can we tell Dad? He just asked who Leo was.”
“Yeah, because you kept screaming it!”
“Well, you were ignoring me.”
“It’s oka—”
Before Saina finished, Grace was saying, “Daddy, Saina has a new boyfriend! Leo’s the new boyfriend.”
“Is it serious?” asked Andrew.
“I think so. You guys will meet him. You’ll like him—he has a farm.”
“Like, a real one?”
“Crop rotations, fertilizer, harvests, the whole shebang. He even has a tractor. But it’s organic.”
“The tractor?”
“Yeah. It runs on daisies.”
Grace broke in. “I think Daddy’s happy.”
Faintly, she heard their father call back, “Daddy happy if Jiejie is happy.”
“Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, that was nice. Thanks, Gracie.”
“So, are we going to meet him?”
“Of course. Yes. He’s . . . yes.”
A boyfriend, thought Andrew. Already. Saina clearly didn’t have any problems with love. Maybe people just decided they were in love and then—bam!—they were. Everyone always said that there was nothing like first love—maybe he just had to stop looking for someone who made him feel the same way that Eunice had. Why hadn’t he stayed at school? Other people went to college without their parents’ money. Other people’s parents didn’t even have any money. Why hadn’t he just gotten a job and a loan?
Andrew stared out the window, half listening to Grace quiz Saina on how she and her boyfriend had met. They were winding down the greenest road Andrew had ever seen, verdant swamp on either side of them. Occasionally a sign would appear at the head of a narrow path snaking into the wild: ATASKA GUN CLUB/KEEP OUT. OLD BOGS GUN AND FISH SOCIETY. He imagined those secret societies, blood oaths and racist jokes over some delicious barbecue. There were so many worlds he’d never even considered—which one would be his?