I followed my mǔqīn home in a haze, the aftershocks of the shit storm still rolling in. When we arrived, she came in just long enough to snarl “I wish you were a boy” to me, and “Deal with her” to my father. Then she left on foot to who knows where. (To the mysterious park, perhaps? To see Liang or Chu something?)
From his perch on the couch, my father patted the spot beside him. For a moment I longed for the bǎbá I’d known when I was young: clean-shaven, openly affectionate, finding any excuse to hug me. That vibrant, goofy version of him was now covered in apathy and salt-and-pepper stubble that would probably sting on contact (though I would welcome the pain, a reminder he was actually embracing me, near me, wanting me).
“What happened?” he asked, and my traitorous mind filled in the last two words for him: “niū niū,” my childhood nickname, which he hadn’t used in years. I wasn’t sure if he’d stopped because it was a term for little girls or because he no longer talked to me enough to warrant a second way to address me. Or a first.
“Um, she’s being really strict.” I wanted to ask him why my mother was forbidding Chase and me from being together, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what had happened. We’d never talked about boys before, and I had a feeling he wouldn’t exactly be proud papa bear if he knew I’d been sucking a boy’s face on the roof of the library a little while ago.
He nodded. “She’s doing her best—you know that, right?” I said nothing, partly from shock that he was defending her but also because I didn’t agree. “I’m… sorry… that she’s constantly saying the thing about wishing you were a boy.” I stiffened. “I don’t want you to blame yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Obviously, I thought, but my father’s assurance revealed it wasn’t obvious to him.
I tried to make a joke. “If anything, you’re the one most in charge of my gender.”
He laughed, and I felt safe… until he said, “That’s not what I meant, but yes, you’re right about that. I meant you shouldn’t feel bad about causing her infertility.”
My entire body and even my mind froze for a moment. “What?”
His eyes widened. “Oh! I, uh, thought you knew. Your mother became infertile giving birth to you. So she never got to try again, and…”
He didn’t have to say it. I heard the words as clear as cooked glass noodles: she never got to have a boy, and she blames you, Ali.
Was this why she treated me the way she did? Was there so much resentment that she couldn’t see past it to the child who did exist, the one who was more than ready to receive her mother’s love? Why did having a boy even matter?
“She loves you even though she doesn’t say it,” he continued. “That’s not our way. We show our love by sacrificing so you have food in your belly, a roof over your head. You don’t see everything she’s given up for you—did you know she used to be a brilliant painter? But she gave that up when you came along.”
But why? No one asked her to, certainly not me.
Then, slowly, as if he wasn’t sure whether it was okay for him to voice it aloud, my father said, “Your mother is headstrong. She knows what she wants and she’ll do what it takes to get it, even if… it means forsaking her parents. Life has been unkind to her, and she’s doing the best she can. I’m glad we’re here, in America, Ali, because you take after her. If we weren’t here, you’d probably never fit in, just like your mother never did.”
I shifted away from him, unwilling to let him see in my eyes how he was wrong: I still didn’t fit in, even here in America.
“What happened with Mā?” I asked quietly, not wanting to spook the truth away. Because I had seen a glimpse of it in his eyes—there was a lot to my mother’s story I’d never heard.
“It was a long time ago.” He opened the book in his lap, signaling an end to the conversation.
It was how every discussion about the past ended. But just because they didn’t tell me didn’t mean I had to stay in the dark. And regardless of what I discovered or what my mother said, I’d find a way to be with Chase. After all, what was one more secret in this family of hidden truths and buried emotions?
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just up to me.
Hours later, when my mother returned, she made a beeline for me. And from the stern, constipated look on her face, I knew what was coming was going to require all the humor I had.
“You cannot get involved with the Yu family. They’re no good,” she said.
I was stunned. That was not what I’d been expecting her to say (yet after it came out, it felt so perfectly Mǔqīn). “How could you possibly know that?” I asked.
She ignored me.
“What about their family?” I pressed.
Instead of answering, she stated with authority, “You need to go to China.” The time of asking was apparently over.
“What about Chase’s family, Mǔqīn?”
She flinched, then continued on about the China trip in rapid, clipped sentences. “You don’t have to worry about the money. We’re not paying. There’s a program: they want to help Asian Americans connect with their roots.”
Her focus on another topic enraged me, as if my feelings for Chase had no meaning to her, which, well, I guess was true given everything she’d done.
I took a stand. “Since you haven’t even bothered to tell me why you don’t like Chase’s family or why you don’t want us to be together, I don’t need to listen to you. You can’t stop me from seeing him; I’m not a prisoner.”
I thought I’d won and that I’d either force her to divulge what she knew or relent, but instead, to show me who controlled my world, she removed the bottom left piece from the haphazard Jenga tower that was my life.
“No more kung fu,” she said matter-of-factly.
The words knocked the wind out of me like that time I’d bobbed left instead of right and met Marcin’s punch square in the chest. She might as well have said No more food or No more breathing, the way my gut had sunk into my pelvic floor. It wasn’t even about Chase anymore—kung fu was the one place I truly felt like myself.
“I’ll do anything,” I said softly as my eyes remained glued to the floor by her feet. “If I promise not to date him, can I have kung fu back?” I was ashamed by how quickly I’d caved, but I was also desperate and completely at her mercy. I could see Chase behind her back, have my cake and eat it too. What was she going to do, make me wear a body cam?
She lowered her eyes and shook her head, only a slight jerk of the chin.
“What could possibly be so bad about his family that you would destroy me like this just to keep us apart?”
She didn’t answer.
“Mǎmá, wǒ xūyào gōngfū,” I begged.
“Why?”
Her use of English in response to my Mandarin felt like a slap. Was that what it felt like for her every time I spoke English? I never thought about it because her English was fluent, but of course she was less comfortable in it than her native tongue, just like I was fluent in Mandarin but strayed from it because it felt foreign in my mouth, like salt water coating my tongue.
She put her hands on her hips. “Why do you need kung fu, Ali?”
Here was my chance to show her a piece of my soul. I could finally explain how kung fu filled in the missing piece of me, made me whole, and without it I felt weak, inconsequential, unseen.
But I couldn’t get those words out. All I managed was “I just need it. This isn’t even about him, Mǎmá. Please.”
Of course, just like everything else, it wasn’t enough.