A Closed Door

The door to Obaachan’s room remains closed for two weeks, although there are signs of her: the rustling of paper and the sound of boxes (which finally arrive), the scent of jasmine, gardenia oil, incense, and green tea.

From outside the door, I try to remind Obaachan that we are here, waiting. During my cello lesson, I play as loudly as possible so she’ll hear. Ms. Nga, my teacher, scolds me: “Volume is not the result we’re looking for, Lin. It is subtlety.”

Sally rushes in to offer her opinion of my music. “Did a cat die? I heard someone murdering a cat.” Sally once had her own lessons, at piano. Her teacher was a man named Gustav. He taped thumbtacks on the keys he didn’t want her to strike so that she would get poked if she made a mistake. “Meeeowww,” Sally howls. “I’m dying.”

She does sound like a dying cat.

Ms. Nga takes a swipe at Sally with her bow. Sally jumps back and runs out of the room. “Now, Lin,” Ms. Nga instructs. “Think of the notes as being round and sweet, like little chocolates that float in the sky. You are speaking sweetly for the composer.” I try to imagine candy in the air. My mouth waters as I play.

Still Obaachan’s door doesn’t open. In contrast to the other sounds of our house—the voices, the loud Barbie sagas that Sally enacts with her friend Molly, the television, Mom’s kitchen utensils and phone conversations, and the rustle of Dad’s newspaper, Obaachan’s room is an island of quiet. I have a name for the room. I call it Mystery. The silence of that mystery is louder than any noise.

 

That weekend, the temperature soars. The snow melts to a muddy slush. Buds appear like fists on the trees waiting to open their fingers into petals.

This year, Sally’s birthday and Easter are on the same day. The priest has spent the morning hiding plastic eggs in the church. After mass, he rings a bell and the children dash through the reception room.

If it wasn’t for Sally I would get nothing; the other children are so much faster and more forceful than I am. But Sally beats them all; she gets the most filled eggs, then she scatters half of her winnings in the church for only me to find.

At our house, we live at the kitchen table. On it, when we come home, is an Easter bunny cake that Mom has made. The bunny cake stands straight up on its hind legs and is covered in pink and yellow frosting. Sally cries when Mom goes to cut it, so we don’t eat the bunny. Instead it’s placed on top of the fridge, a triumph of baking powder over gravity.

Although Obaachan still doesn’t come out, she leaves a present for Sally wrapped in rice paper. It is a tiny straw doll in a red-and-white kimono. Inside its hand is a little scroll with words in Japanese. “What does it say?” Sally asks Mom.

Mom squints at the characters. “Many blessings.”

Sally slides the doll across the table to me. “You can have it.”

“It’s raining.” Mom points out the window.

“I wish my birthday was July Fourth, like Lin’s,” Sally says. “It’s always warm and sunny.”

“April in New England is nothing but another March,” Dad complains. In our house, he is the foreigner with his red hair and freckles. There is no sign on us that he is our dad.

April reminds me of Sally, actually, sulky and teasing much of the time, then once in a while letting out a smile.

Mom puts candles in mint chocolate chip ice cream. Sally blows out all nine of them in one breath, then says her wish out loud. “I want my room back to myself.”

“Shhh, Sally.” Dad looks toward the mysterious door.

“Wishes don’t come true if you say them out loud,” I gripe, because I like being in Sally’s room, even in my roped-off half.

“Get a life.” Sally folds her arms.

“She’s your grandmother, our family,” Mom whispers.

“Molly’s grandma takes her shopping at Providence Place. She buys her a new wardrobe every time the weather even hints at a change. She takes her to Fire and Ice to eat.”

“You always talk about Molly,” I nag.

“Obaachan doesn’t even try to join our family, or to be American.”

“When you get to a certain age,” Dad explains, “it’s hard to change.”

“Well, she should get a life.”

“Everyone should get a life, according to you,” Mom says.

The door creaks open, then. Obaachan appears in sweatpants and a black turtleneck, her long gray hair piled on top of her head. Her skin looks like the rice paper.

Dad, Mom, and Sally stare at her, as if she were a ghost, but I peer past her into my old bedroom. The high shelves that held my trinkets and books now contain strange objects: stones, statues, vases, photographs, and woodcuts. A sweet scent escapes, curls around us like smoke, reminding me of mornings when we go to church and Mom kneels at the pew mumbling Hail Marys and Our Fathers.

“I was a little tired from my trip,” Obaachan explains.

Sally’s face goes bright red. She grabs the doll back from me.

“So . . .” Mom’s voice is singsong and false. “What were you doing? Sleeping?”

“Meditating.”

“Meditating.” Mom taps her foot. I know that tap. I saw it when the lamp was broken and Sally said the wind blew it over, when Dad lost his fifth lunch pail in a month, and when Sally’s teacher sent home a note about her talking in class. “About what?”

“Mu.”

“Like the cow?” Sally says.

Obaachan peers at my mom. “You remember?”

“No. I don’t remember much about the past.” Mom says it like an accusation. “I tend to focus on the future.”

“The present is also nice,” Obaachan says.

“We’re having mint ice cream.” I grab a bowl and scoop ice cream into it. Dad pulls another chair to the table.

“Sally’s favorite.” Obaachan sits down and tastes the ice cream. “I am ready to be American.”