“A week ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick Delaware out on a map.”
“That’s not something you should be proud of.” I glance to the passenger seat where my younger brother rides shotgun. Dash stares out the window of our rental car as we cross from Pennsylvania into Delaware.
“I blame our public school education,” he concludes.
He’s not wrong. There are a lot of reasons I hold a grudge against our grade school, and I don’t mind adding sucky geography lessons onto the pile.
As the silence stretches, I try to find a response. A joke or witty comeback to maintain the light-hearted banter between us on this last leg of our journey. But nerves shut down my vocal cords. As our destination looms, I fight off the panic trying to convince me that this was a horrible decision. That in the next hour I will obliterate all the secret dreams I’ve kept tucked in a back corner of my heart.
We approach our destination as quiet as the manicured streets our car rolls down. This neighborhood lacks the personality of our childhood block in New Orleans. There was a wildness to that place. A dangerous edge. Here is all well-maintained safety. The former made me a survivor. But this suburb might have made me happy. If only I’d known family lived here.
Following the GPS, I pull up to a house with a neatly trimmed lawn. There’s a meticulously organized garden on the south side of the house, and despite its orderly rows, the small patch of agriculture gives the house more personality than the cookie-cutter palaces sitting equally spaced down the rest of the street.
“Mom grew up here?” Dash stares up at the massive house. The home isn’t a mansion or anything, but it’s at least three times larger than the shotgun house we were raised in.
“Maybe they moved after she left,” I suggest, trying to connect our mother to this upper-middle-class dream house. The pieces don’t fit. “Or maybe I got the address wrong.”
Our mother, Vivian Lamont, does not give off middle-class vibes. She gives off born-without-wealth-and-one-day-expecting-to-fly-on-a-private-jet vibes. No matter how delusional that last belief is. I always imagined she grew up in some shack even shittier than the house passed down through my father’s family.
“Doesn’t hurt to check it out.” Dash climbs out of the car, and I follow. A shiver creeps through my nerves, and I’m not sure if the sensation comes from the fall weather or some disquiet about this task. Still, as we head up the front walk, I take the lead. Like I always do.
As my finger hovers over the doorbell, I offer my brother another glance. A final chance to warn me off this course.
Dash just offers a tight smile and a quick nod.
Guess we’re doing this.
I press the button, listening to the echoing ring of the bell. Long enough goes by that I’m considering ringing again when the dead bolt clicks and the door inches open wide enough to reveal the face of a woman.
We meet eyes easily, with her coming in at the same height as me. And the similarities don’t end there. That’s my nose, I can’t help thinking. Straight with just a touch of a dip at the end. I’ve seen that nose every day in the mirror and all throughout my childhood whenever I looked at my mother’s face. This woman also has the same hooded eyes as my mother, my siblings, and me. She uses them to watch us with sharp attention.
“I don’t want any,” she snaps, adding a jerk of a head shake that has her slate bob brushing her cheeks.
Those are my cheeks, my brain declares.
“Any what?” The question is all I can manage as I try to deal with the fact that I’m talking to a member of my family. An entirely new member I never thought I’d meet.
“Whatever you’re selling. No solicitors. See?” She taps the sign hanging on her door. “Try the next house.” The woman goes to shut the door, but I stop her, pressing my palm flat on the wood.
“Wait. I—”
“What are you doing? Trying to break into my house? No!” That’s when this woman, who must be pushing seventy, gives me a mighty shove and slams the door in my face.
Behind me, Dash snorts. I throw a glare over my shoulder. “You want to take over?”
My brother backs away, hands raised in surrender.
Facing the door, I knock again.
“Go away! I’ll call 9-1-1!” The barrier muffles her words, but the threat is still audible.
Shit. My eager hope twists into desperation as the situation falls out of my control. If she calls the authorities, we have to leave. Immediately. Dash doesn’t need a run-in with police when he just finished his parole.
In my imagination, I always pictured bringing up this topic delicately. Sitting down together at a table and using a careful tone as I explained the circumstances.
But when has delicacy ever been how my family dealt with the world?
“I’m your granddaughter!” I yell, tilting my head back, trying to give the words enough power to pierce through the building between us.
She meets my shout with an extended silence.
“Maybe we should write her a letter or something.” Dash offers the suggestion carefully. “Give her time to process.”
Sure, he makes sense. But I didn’t fly from Nashville to Philadelphia to have a door slammed in my face.
“Is your daughter Vivian?” I holler, not caring if all this ruckus brings her rich-ass neighbors out of their houses to give us dirty looks.
“No. That is not my daughter’s name. See? You’re lying to me.”
At least I know she’s still listening to me.
“I have a picture. Is this your daughter?” I hold up my phone toward the peephole. Mom loves posting on social media, especially pictures from when she was in her early twenties. A time she did a superb job at pretending she didn’t have three kids.
“I’m not opening my door!”
I try not to growl in frustration. This is not going at all how I’d imagined.
Pulling on a special piece of knowledge, I bring up the name I saw on a hidden birth certificate. The one that led me here.
“Is your daughter Tsai Mei-ling?” Good bet I butchered the pronunciation.
Another stretch of silence.
“In her defense, that info is probably public record. Anyone trying to scam her could look it up,” Dash whispers.
I grit my teeth and then relax my jaw, acknowledging the truth of his statement.
“How about a man named Bill Lamont?” I bark. “Do you know him?” My voice loses volume as my hope for this situation dwindles.
The door wrenches open.
“Bill Lamont is the devil,” she hisses.
“Then consider us his demon spawn,” I snap back, holding up my phone again now that there’s nothing dividing us. “Is this your daughter?”
Eyes still full of distrust, the woman at least leans forward to squint at the picture. I found one of the few images Mom posted with us kids, all the Lamonts looking downright happy at the zoo. The type of outing a normal family does regularly.
We went once and never again.
“That’s her,” the woman answers, her voice losing the sharp edge of a moment ago. “That’s my Mei-ling.” Still, she doesn’t step out of her doorway to invite us in. Her age-marked fingers grip the wood harder. “But that’s not proof.”
“Hi,” Dash says, waving from his spot on the stoop but not moving closer. Probably worried his over six-foot height will only add to the discomfort of the situation. “We brought some documents that might be helpful.” He holds up a folder, then passes it over.
I already know what’s inside. Copies of our birth certificates. But our mother is listed as Vivian Lamont, and since we weren’t sure if this woman would know that name, Dash also snuck a picture of our mom’s license. That was his fiancée’s idea. Paige works as a book editor and is good at picking out holes in information that would have someone questioning the validity of what they’re reading. Or being told by a stranger.
The woman takes her time looking at the documents, her stare tracing over the printouts, then flicking back up to our faces.
“Your licenses?” she eventually asks.
I decide to take her not slamming the door again as a good sign. Dash and I pull out our IDs and pass them over. When she gives them back, I notice a slight quiver in her hand.
“I have a patio. Behind my house. You walk around there. I’ll be out in a moment.”
Then she shuts the door again.
“That could’ve gone better,” I mutter.
“Could’ve gone worse.” Dash gestures to a pretty stone path leading around the side of the house. I’m disappointed the walkway goes in the opposite direction of the garden, but we follow it and come upon an orderly yard with a larger garden than the one out front. This one also seems to be filled with food plants rather than vibrant flowers.
We settle into padded chairs in the afternoon sun, and I try not to fidget. Eventually, she reappears, carrying a tray holding a pitcher of colorful liquid and glasses. Dash jumps up and helps her settle the heavy load on a table. When I accept my glass of the drink, I take a sip and find myself enjoying the rich flavor of a fruity tea. Until this second, I didn’t realize how dry my mouth had gotten.
The woman I believe is my grandmother settles into her own chair, not taking a drink.
“You are Tsai Shu-fen, correct?” I lean forward in my chair as I ask, hoping Google Translate helped me pronounce her name correctly.
She offers a short nod. “Why visit me now? Why wait?” Suspicion traces deep lines in her face, and with Dash’s earlier observation still lingering, I don’t blame her. I’ve heard of scams played on old people. Hell, that’s what keeps the whole telemarketing industry afloat.
Still, I’d had this fantasy in the back of my mind where I’d find my grandmother and she’d recognize me immediately when she saw me. Then she’d pull me in for the kind of hug my mother had never bothered with.
But that was naive.
Life taught me the only way to get something good is to struggle for it. And even then, you shouldn’t be surprised if the thing you wanted all along kicks you in the teeth.
“Our mom has been going by Vivian Lamont.” I set my glass down as the sweetness turns sour in my gut. “But I saw another name on a birth certificate she’d hidden. I hired a private investigator to find you.”
The woman blinks, all expression clearing from her face. I wonder if the change is a good thing or if she’s going to try to shoo us away again.
“You’re saying you’re my grandchildren, but you didn’t know about me? Mei-ling never talked about me? About her father?”
I grimace, knowing exactly how bad that sounds. Lingering behind my fantasy of a loving reunion, there exists a small worry my mother had a legitimate reason to cut off contact with her parents.
Maybe if Vivian Lamont was someone I could trust, I wouldn’t have gone hunting.
“We don’t know anything about her life before we were born,” I explain. “She doesn’t talk about it.”
Tsai Shu-fen shifts her stare to the distance, as if Dash and I glare brightly like the sun, burning her vision whenever her gaze lands on us. “Tell me about what you know then. About you. About her.”
Not my favorite topic of conversation, but between Dash and me, we give her an overview of our lives growing up in New Orleans. Bare facts. None of the hard or dark stuff.
My grandmother just sits and listens. Eventually, when our words trail off, she refocuses.
“I have a lawyer. I’ll need to speak with him. Find out if you are who you say you are.”
Dash clears his throat. “Then it’s best you hear it from me. I spent some time in prison for stealing cars. I’m done with that life now, but I understand if you’d rather not be around me. But please, don’t hold anything I did against Luna. She’s better than me.”
“I’m not better than you. I’m more stubborn.” I turn to the older woman, suddenly defensive on my brother’s behalf. I want to get to know her, but not if she’s going to make Dash feel shitty about himself. “If you know anything about Bill Lamont, then I guess it’s not hard for you to believe he’s involved in some shady shit. Our father had no qualms about dragging Dash into them.”
Her mouth tightens the way it has every time I’ve mentioned my father so far, but a spark alights in her gaze. “You don’t like the man.”
I snort. “Not like is an understatement. Hate is a better word.”
Strangely, it’s this, more than the documents and the pictures and our childhood stories, that relieves a slight hint of the tension in her shoulders.
She nods. “I believe you. But I will still double-check. How long are you here for?”
Dash and I share a silent communication before I answer. “We can stay for a couple of days.”
Tsai Shu-fen rises from her chair. “Come back tomorrow. I will make dinner. A meal from home.”
The single sentence clenches around my heart.
“Could I—” I swallow a blockage in my throat. “Could we come early enough to help you cook?”
The woman tilts her head. Then I earn my first smile.