The Two Grandmothers

Tara stared at the short email until the black pixels started to bounce and blur. The notice telling her she’d better travel the 12,000 miles to her grandmother’s funeral read as both a plea and a threat. Tara shut her laptop and thought of calling her mother instead of replying. She'd told her mother she’d been unable to get a phone with international calling capabilities and so had only been communicating by email.

Though it was 10:00 a.m. and a Tuesday, Tara opened a bottle of wine and sat in front of the fan. Her rationale for drinking on the morning of a workday was that she had no emotional reaction to her mother’s news and she hoped the wine might help one along. She tried to empty her head and conjure images of the woman she had once loved more than anyone. But she didn’t know which woman to think of, the woman of Before. Or After.

At least once a month for as long as she could remember, Tara “spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa,” During these 24 hours, they played countless hands of rummy at the dining room table, M&Ms and sodas always at their sides. On cold days the trio baked cookies or created masterpieces in Grandpa’s shop, and on sunny afternoons, she crawled into the backseat as Grandpa took the wheel and Grandma rode shotgun. They drove for hours in the countryside, making up stories about the abandoned barns. Grandpa didn’t say much, but he always smiled and winked in the rear-view mirror anytime she said something clever. Grandpa was a dead ringer for Kirk Douglas and though Grandma’s composite wasn’t Hollywood lovely, some of her individual bits were, like the impossibly large blue eyes and a sparkling laugh that filled a room.

In the evening, Tara was tucked in snug on the sofa that seemed to stretch for miles, wrapped in fresh sheets and afghan blankets, drifting off to the sound of her grandparents’ murmurs, chuckles, and later, snores. In the morning, they ate BLT sandwiches in their pyjamas and Tara tried to ward off the growing dread of waiting for her mother to collect her, bringing with her a heaviness that flattened the room as she recounted yet another confrontation with Tara’s stepmother at the grocery store or a date gone wrong.

Grandma never drank and wouldn’t tolerate alcohol in her house but she did need a daily dose of chocolate to feel “right in the head”. That mild July day, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Grandpa was more than happy to pop over to the store, as doing so allowed him his own indulgence of smoking his pipe. Windows rolled down, public radio blaring, he drove the long way home, arm resting on the window, one hand on the wheel. The horizontal light beams of the 7:00 sun had temporarily blinded him and he didn’t see the other car coming. Men his age ignored seatbelts so he, his pipe, and a lone Hershey’s bar were found 100 meters from the crumpled car.

The After Grandma still played cards but distractedly and without enjoyment. She suspected that everyone was cheating or letting her win out of pity. During these games, she chastised her companions for not having appreciated the man who was “the heart of this family”. She stopped going to church because “God only took the good ones” and each week she highlighted in detail how she hoped she’d die, wanting most to be “euthanized like an old cat”. One day she’d be nostalgic and amazed that a man loved her so much he’d die for her, while on another day she might weep and say she should have been an alcoholic. “Frank would never have gone out to get me more drink.” When her sister’s husband died of cancer, After Grandma, rather than offer condolences, sputtered bitterly, “You better damn well appreciate you had the chance to say goodbye!” Soon, friends stopped calling round and she began to shrink inside the rooms she once had filled with laughter. She watched TV, ate chocolate, and did little to take care of herself despite her family’s attempts at interventions.

Tara graduated and went to college and left the Midwest. She tried to send chipper emails, but the replies she did receive left her feeling helpless. “NOBODY TOLD ME HOW HORRIBLE GETTING OLD WOULD BE AND THAT YOUR FAMILY WOULD ALL EVENTUALLY ABANDON YOU. GRANDMA.”

The last time she had seen her grandmother was before she left for Thailand. Tara sat in the bright cafeteria with her and as they played rummy, her grandmother tried to make sense of what she was doing teaching English in a country halfway around the world. She said she and Grandpa had planned to travel when he retired but they’d been robbed of that dream. It was the first she’d heard of this plan and eagerly asked where they had wanted to go. “Why think of it now? I’ll die in this chair, in this prison. But you, you keep on seeing the world. You always had the freest spirit of all of them.”

Tara looked at her empty bottle of wine and contemplated her “free spirit”. She’d thought that by escaping toxic relationships and dead-end jobs, she’d be free. But her demons had followed her, stowed away as she boarded the plane. And here she was, drunk and likely to call in sick again so as not to be a spectacle in front of her class of 60 students who she doubted would even notice.

She opened the message again and considered getting more wine, but felt clear-headed and sure of what to do. The truth struck her so forcibly that tears formed as she poised her fingertips over the keys and sent her mother an equally curt reply.

“My grandmother did not die yesterday. She died July 12, 1991. There was and never has been a chance to say good-bye. I’m sorry.”

Just a Sandwich

Miranda put the tiny plate into the sink and immediately felt guilt. How many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches had she consumed in her lifetime? Hundreds of bright white squares with their mushy brown and purple interiors, eaten and forgotten as quickly as they were made. How many opportunities for something new and mind-blowing had she missed? After all, “extraordinary” meant “beyond ordinary” and what was more ordinary in a single woman’s life than a PB & J?

As Miranda washed the plate and knife, she imagined what she should have made instead. She’d yet to try an egg baked inside half an avocado, buffalo cauliflower, or a roasted fennel salad. She had a boxful of recipes written on bits of paper and a collection of cookbooks threatening to collapse a shelf in a kitchen. She calculated that she had maybe 10,000 meals left if she cooked at least once a day and a couple times on the weekend.

 How had living each day like it was my last turned into living it like it was last night? She sat in the chair by the window and put her head between her knees to reverse the scorching panic that had started in her stomach and was burning its way up to her throat.

For the past few years, whenever she read or watched stories of tragic death, she was struck by how every person always said between sobs that they never thought that it would happen to them. Miranda was certain that it would, indeed, happen to her. She had no doubt that cancer, probably the stealthy and fast melanoma, would take her out in a matter of months when it was discovered. She knew a bus was poised and ready to strike her down as she mindlessly crossed streets on her pre-dawn runs. She knew her limbs would fail before her mind and she’d be trapped in a prison of unmoving and unfeeling flesh. She was more than ready for the dementia to set in and make her body do things and go places it shouldn’t.

Sitting in the chair, she whispered to the room, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, which is why it’s called the present.” Each day she received a little message from carpediem.com that forced her to examine how she would live life to the fullest that day. She made notes: take pictures of the two cute seagulls who dominate the courtyard; make Ethiopian food; stand on the Ha’Penny Bridge for a full five minutes; try sketching in charcoal; pick a flower; watch the sunset or the sunrise—no, do both!”

She mostly followed the lists and suggestions, occasionally going off script and pleasing herself with some spontaneous moment seizing—stopping to watch a street performer; kneeling to pet a stray cat; lying in bed for an hour just to enjoy the freshly washed sheets.

But lately, more often than not, she has having more PB&J moments than avocado and it terrified her. She had started taking short showers instead of the long contemplative lavender scented baths; the Real Housewives franchise was edging out BBC, and she often arrived at work not remembering one object or face she encountered on the way. The moments were slipping away one by one.

She opened her laptop and googled “inspirational quotes” and decided the first one that came up would guide her towards some meaningful action.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”—Eleanor Roosevelt

Exactly! A trip to an exotic locale would lift her out of this rut. She imagined standing arms wide to the sky at Machu Picchu or twirling beneath the Northern Lights in Lapland.

“You must live life in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”—Henry David Thoreau.

She sighed, suddenly relieved not to have to go through the hassle of on-line booking, inefficient airports, and inaccurate travel guides. Not to mention, she only had enough funds to get to where Ryanair would take her in western Europe.

No more wasting her life on carbs and bad TV. For the next few weeks she blogged “30 Small Things I’m Thankful for” which included pictures of her duvet and Vitamax, walked a different route home each day, cooked every recipe from 100 Curries of the World, and sat on a bench in the courtyard at sunset.

Yet anxiety accompanied her on each of these activities. She chewed slowly to focus on the flavour, desperately trying to appreciate it enough. She strained to take in every detail; fretting over if she was doing mindfulness correctly, feeling disappointed when dancing in the rain just left her soggy and cold. To suck more marrow out of each day, she started staying up late, journaling obsessively so as not to forget the wonders of the minutiae of the day.

But then she suffered a cold and could do nothing but lie on the sofa. She closed the curtains to sunsets and sunrises, and watched reality TV. One day she felt well enough to bring home a bottle of wine and takeout and felt amazing, then sick, then nothing.  She slept for two days. The third day she woke feeling ravenous, chest and nasal passages clear. A jolt of energy propelled her from the bed and she went to the kitchen.

Staring at a nearly overripe avocado, she began to sweat and breathe unevenly. It’s time to start living again! Time to grab life by the horns and make each nanosecond, each morsel, each breath astounding!

 But suddenly, a sense of calm overcame her as she grabbed the familiar jars. Her breathing slowed and her mind cleared. After all, she thought, it’s just a sandwich.

 

The Feb Debs

In the beginning there were only two Debs—Debbie Jacobs and Debbey Johnson, who were sat together in the first class of first grade. They quickly recognized the “it” quality in one another, and rather than become enemies, decided to be the most powerful duo in the school.

Not only did they share a first name, they also had birthdays in February, Debbie’s on the 3^rd and Debbey’s on the 12^th. They convinced their mothers to bake red and white cupcakes to be given out on Valentine’s Day. The two girls received stacks of individualized cards decorated with hearts and glitter.

It was during this odd party which Ms. McIntyre felt had got away from her that she announced there was another “February sweetheart” and pointed to Jessica Meyers, who rather than try to make herself invisible as most would have done, rolled her eyes and pretended to gag. The two Debs, secretly hating having to smile and be nice to all those creepy and boring kids, found Jessica hysterical and at the next recess, the three found one another and were instantly inseparable.  

For the next couple of days, the girls began and ended each recess by marching around the entire playground, arms linked. They surrounded small groups jumping rope, playing marbles or hopscotch. At first they would smile sweetly and ask to join in the fun, but soon enough, hats were knocked off, braids and barrettes pulled out, and marbles and jump ropes were tossed asunder. Jessica, who now went by “Deb 3” and doing the work at the bidding of the other two, felt both a hot lash of shame and a jolt of excitement. But then the two Debs would daintily pick up and hand back the objects with a smile and a “just kidding”.  

A few days later, a clearly nervous Ms. McIntyre addressed the room. “Children, I made a big mistake during our February Sweetheart party. We have another student who has a birthday soon. Isn’t that right, Erin? What day is your birthday?”

Erin, who had thought she had escaped, turned red and stuttered. “Tw-tw-tw-twenty-nine”.

Some kid in the back shouted, “There’s no February 29, Brainless!”

Ms. McIntyre, always happy for a teachable moment jumped to board, “Why, yes there is, Jason. Every four years we have an extra day on Feb. 29. It’s called Leap Year.”

“She only got a birthday every four years. So she’s 2 years old! Baby!!”

The class dissolved into hysterics and Erin, who hadn’t fathomed this level of embarrassment, felt the familiar sting behind her eyes and her throat close.

“That’s enough! Erin, we will have a special Leap Year party and if you would like to bring treats, feel free. Ok, now let’s get out our social studies books.”

Erin and her best friend Beth had managed to avoid the Debs by changing location often and if the horrible Jim Carter wasn’t in charge, joining the kickball game. The next few days, though, began a campaign that began and ended with the school bells. The three girls, wearing matching pink bandanas, held one out to Erin.

“Come on. Be a Feb Deb like us.”

Arms linked, they danced a circle around Beth and Erin, chanting, “We are the Debs, the local celebs!” They passed her notes in class that read, “Do you want to be a Deb? Circle yes or no.”

Erin politely said “No, thanks” to the gifts and didn’t pass any notes back. She hated the look on Beth’s face that was both fear and sadness. When she woke in the morning, she felt like throwing up and dreaded going to school. What she didn’t want to admit was that she wanted to be a Deb. More than anything.

After a few days, the Debs realized that to get to Erin they needed to get her away from Beth. They passed her a note: “Meet us by the slide after school. Come alone.” Many years later, Erin would still wonder why she lied to Beth and stayed behind after school that day.

They were waiting, today in matching jean jackets and orange headbands. “We’re having a secret Feb Debs party on your birthday at recess. We’ll bring a present for everyone in the group. And after that we’ll officially be the Four Feb Debs. We really like you Erin, but you have to be a Deb.”

Erin, suddenly connected to these girls and imagined a future of boundless friendship with them. Though she knew it was wrong and could ruin everything, she asked, “What about Beth?”

“Duh! She doesn’t have a birthday in February!”

“And she’s kinda weird. You are way cooler and prettier. Being with us will be so much more fun. You’ll see.”

That weekend, Erin took all her saved allowance money and went to the mall, emerging four hours later with carefully selected items for each girl—a set of flavoured chapsticks for Debbie, who always was using them; a tiny purple journal with a lock and key for Debbey; and a set of sparkly bangles for Jessica who wore jewellery more than the others.

On that February 29, Erin told her best friend she couldn’t be friends anymore. As Beth stood on the playground dumbstruck and hurt, Erin went to a corner of a playground near some shrubs and sat down with a group of giggling girls. She pulled out the beautifully wrapped gifts from her pockets and placed them in the middle with the others. Debbie announced they would open their gifts in the order of their birthdays. So emerged from the pile, keychains, stickers, and polish.

And when it was time for Erin to unwrap three neatly wrapped boxes, she imagined earrings, barrettes, or a locket. Instead, each box was empty, except for the last, which contained a small, folded pink heart bearing four little words.

 “We don’t like you!”

And is if on cue, the girls jumped up and ran, their laughter echoing for years to come.

 

Misophonia

Janet was both shocked and delighted to find an article in her students’ textbook that outlined her particular hatred of sound. The word “misophonia” had a pleasant ring to it and the similarity to misanthrope wasn’t lost on her. She had taken the survey with the students and they were baffled by her score of 20 (severe case) compared to their score of 3-5 (no problem with sounds). They asked her to explain the sounds that made her head throb and teeth grind. She told them that the whirring of the bathroom fan caused her to shower and pee with a candle. She once had to leave a supermarket because she could hear a man who was stocking the shelves whistling. She avoided the staff room and its microwave beeps, chair scrapings, rustling of plastic packages, and the groan of the overworked photocopier. She found relief in empty classrooms where the decades old carpet absorbed all sound and the slight rattle of the old windows was barely noticeable.

As a result of her profound annoyance with sound, she often listened to podcasts. The dulcet, calm voices of Melvyn Bragg or Terry Gross blocked out the world and as a bonus, made her feel less alone. So it was because of a long discussion on Cleopatra that she didn’t hear the man running behind her, his breath raspy with the effort and a slight limp making his feet hit the pavement in a dissonant clompity clomp.

The headphones were ripped from her ears in the fall and she noticed how tinny and disturbing the sounds were when the earbuds were not firmly in place. The man was on top of her and she could feel her hipbones digging into the concrete of the sidewalk. His breathing was uneven and laboured and she could smell cigarettes and a lack of brushing.

He couldn’t pull down the lycra pants that she’d tied extra tight as a reminder of the excess weight she wanted to burn. His weight became heavier as his sick body lost its strength; his breath coming in and out like the braying of a donkey. She focused on that sound until it drowned all others out—her own breathing, the seagulls, the distant hum of the tram, and even the wind. The louder his breathing became the more repugnant it was and her disgust became rage. With a roar, she thrust, flipped, and twisted, but though he was now beneath her, he had his arm around her neck like a vice. She elbowed, kicked, stomped, aiming for his balls and trying to break his face. Usually the sound of a bone cracking in a movie would make her nauseous, but today, she could think of no other sound.

Finally, something connected and with a gasp and a whimper, his grasp loosened and she jumped to her feet. He was braying again but something wet was turning the dry rasp into a gargle.

“Shut up! Stop making that noise!”

His hands covered his face and she could see blood streaming out between his fingers.

“Ya broke me fuckin nose, ya cunt!”

Whiny and high pitched like a petulant child and all the more vexing because it sounded like he had a cold or worse was altering his voice to get at her.

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” She said, punctuating each word with a kick to his legs. She wanted to hear him yell out and whimper more, but instead he laughed. A cartoonish cackle that permeated to every nerve already raw and exposed. He lay there rolling side to side, holding his face, and laughing, occasionally choking and sputtering on the blood that must have been running down the back of his throat. He rolled over onto his stomach and began to wretch, a sound so repulsive she nearly began to vomit too. Whatever had given him the strength and desire to overpower her was beginning to fade. He lay there his cheek pressed against the asphalt, eyes closed and softly moaning as people sometimes do when in a deep sleep.

And then she saw it. Tucked in his back pocket was a small knife. She grabbed it quickly and stood over him. She could hear the blood pounding in her temples and her breath came out like it did in the last few hundred meters of a race—all sharp wheezing inhale, no breath out. She heard a voice, “You scum, loser, waster, piece of shit, dirtbag, junkie knacker! You fucking animal. I’m going to fucking kill you.”

She later remembered the dong dong dong of the tram as it left the stop. She knew that it was approximately six minutes from the time she first heard the faint siren to when it was so loud, she couldn’t tell if it was coming from outside or inside her brain. She remembers the seagulls getting louder and protesting the rising of the sun. But she couldn’t remember words, hers or those of the police.

A man getting off the tram had seen her straddling the young man’s back, knife raised and ready to strike. He called the police and ran to tackle her, making it the second time she was pushed to the ground by a stranger in the span of an hour. Seeing her running gear ripped at the knees and a large scrape on the left side of her face, he quickly assessed the situation and began a stream of “shushes” and “there theres” and “it’s gonna be all rights” that normally would have driven her mad but did have the desired calming effect.

Despite the family’s protests that she had intended to kill their son, Janet was allowed to leave after giving a statement and being checked by a physician.

And though she resumed running, she did so without headphones. The only sound she suffered on dark, dreary mornings, was a constant nearly inaudible whisper set to the rhythm of her footfalls—a three-word mantra: “I’m a killer”.

The Arms, Unravelled

The Arms were named as such because no one had ever seen them without their arms intertwined around one another’s waists. This despite the 100 degree heat and the culture’s disdain for such public displays. Though this limb locked couple lived and worked in the foreign town, they were anything but acclimatised. Rather than eat at the local restaurants or even the requisite Irish pub, they shopped daily at the foreign goods market and cooked their 7 euro bags of pasta and tins of sauce in the company provided flat. In the evening as the sun set a bright pink behind the palms and the other ex-pats were well into their third big bottles of Leo, the Arms walked past, tennis racquets in their free hands, the woman’s coiffed bob bouncing up and down and the flesh beneath her tennis skirt jiggling ever so slightly. At the local country club, separated at last by a low sagging net, they grunted and cheered their way to victory, the loser giving the loudest cheers. As the couple returned, they purposefully ignored the shouts and queries from the ex-pats who had moved on to Samsung and Coke.

After the couple had left the range of the ex-pats’ blurred vision, they ceased to be a topic and discussion moved on to other such matters of importance such as Harleys and the woes of being a homeowner in a foreign country. Occasionally regret would seep into the flow of the conversation but would be banished by the simple act of ringing the bell for more ice and beer to be brought to the table.

One day the man walked to the table and without saying a word, sat down. The ex-pats’ conversation stopped suddenly as they all turned in unison to stare at him.

“How does one procure a libation around here?”

The men began shouting so loudly for Mai that she came running out, terrified that someone had finally had a heart attack.

“What’s wrong??”

“Bring this man a beer.”

“That all? You men crazy!”

The ex-pats watched as the man filled his glass and drank the contents in one gulp. The others, more quietly this time, signalled for a round to be brought.

“So, uh, where’s the missus?”

“You mean the captivating damsel with whom I occasionally walk?”

“Yeah.” Nods all around.

“Well, a quite amusing thing happened. Hysterical, actually. I came home early. Threw the old back out during last night’s match, you see. Thought I’d have a lie down and watch a bit of telly. After all, I’ve been working 50 hour work weeks in this shit box of a country for six straight months now. Figured I deserved a break.”

The men grunted their approval as glasses were refilled.

“So, I shuffled slowly up the stairs like an old man in a nursing home. Without the drool, of course. At the door, my door, mind you, I could hear moaning, like someone at death’s door. I thought ‘My God! Something’s happened to Elaine’. I was frantic, terrified to the core, Gentlemen! For no reason at all, I thought of our wedding day and how utterly perfect it’s all been up to this point. Ah, what a fickle cunt the old memory is, am I right?”

“Fuck yeah.” More nods, grunts, and refills. Someone lit a cigarette.

“I fumbled with the lock like a drunken idiot for what seemed like ages and finally opened the door. And then. Ah, that sweet, sweet ass as the Americans would say.”

The man paused and poured beer slowly and deliberately, smiling as the level rose in the glass. He pointed at one of the boxes of cigarettes and silently asked permission with raised eyebrows. After coughing and sputtering a few moments, he sat back in his chair, folded one leg over the other and continued.

“The first thing I saw was my wife’s derriere, as milky white as the day she was born, or so I imagine. My first thought was, ‘how the hell did they get on that glass table without breaking it?’ Quite impressive, it was. And behind my wife’s behind was a young lad, couldn’t be more than 20 pounding away at her as if his very life depended on it. So utterly immersed were they in their recreation that they didn’t even hear me. Imagine!”

“Holy shit, Comrade. That’s some fucked up mess. Local?”

“Quite.”

“You need something more than this elephant piss. Mai! Get my bottle from the back. And the glasses. Five!”

The men exchanged glances, trying not to appear too gleeful that they were going to get some actual whisky tonight.

They sat in silence for a moment, savouring the slow and gentle heat from the Laphroaig, relishing in its smoky earthiness.

“Jesus. How long you two been married?”

“Eleven years next month. Eleven!! Oh the irony of it, really. Did you know that the anniversary gift for your eleventh year of wedded bliss is steel? Steel! Last year, the big 1-0, was diamonds, so Princess was given lovely rocks for her lovely lobes. Any of you lot married?”

The man with the bottle nodded and gestured towards Mai who sat watching soap operas inside the shop. “Five years with this one. Too many years with the one back home.”

The other men shook their heads and one spoke up, “No way. Never. No woman is going to take my freedom and half my wages.”

“What woman would have ya?” The men continued in the vein of insulting one another’s skills with the opposite sex until Mick, eager to get back to the story and hoping for more drama, and therefore another drop of whisky, said, “What did you do?”

“Do?”

“Yeah, when you caught your lady getting shagged in the kitchen. What did you do?”

“What any man would do. I beat them both to bloody pulps. And the best part. Ah, you’ll love this. With a 15 kilo dumbbell. Made of steel. Happy anniversary, Darling!”

From the Heartland

Jenny had spent two months preparing presentations for her teaching job in China. She had bought a county atlas and spent the summer taking photos of back roads, covered bridges, corn fields, and unenthused cows. She captured old men fishing in their plaid shirts and stained John Deere hats. She discovered bake sales and lemonade stands run by tanned towheaded children. At night, she waited in fields for the lightning bugs to emerge with their glowing coded messages after the sky had changed from blood orange to royal blue.

For the one entitled “Family”, she inserted Christmases with all the cousins huddled under the tree, family reunion pot lucks with its overabundance of fried chicken and Swedish meatballs and lack of greens. Snowmen waved to the camera with their stick arms flanked on both sides by her sisters. The last photo was of her father, years before cancer paled and shrunk his body, on a pogo stick, having more fun than the children who surrounded him.

When she arrived on her first day at the primary school, she was impressed with the modern building and its landscaping of flowers and exotic plants. The floors gleamed and the corridors were eerily quiet. She glanced into one of the rooms and saw a sea of black hair as the students all had their heads of their desks. She was surprised to learn they were meditating as part of the break.

As she waited outside the room, the teacher spoke to them and with their hands clasped and resting on their desks, they watched and listened and nodded in unison. Jenny felt a rush of enthusiasm and said a little thank you to God for giving her such a well-behaved class. The teacher left the room, nodded to Jenny and without saying a word, walked on past.

Jenny entered, smiled, and harking back to her cheerleading days, shouted “Good Morning!” The students looked at one another and laughed and something shifted in the air. They unravelled as she connected her laptop to the projector. Boys began throwing bits of eraser at one another and girls whispered behind their hands and didn’t take their eyes off Jenny. She wondered if they’d ever seen a white person before.

Her first lesson about Introductions was designed to practice questions that people ask one another when meeting for the first time. She showed the map of the US, took a deep breath, and began. After a few minutes, Jenny felt relieved that the noise had subsided but soon realised from the glazed over eyes that they were bored. They asked questions. They asked where the mountains, the Hollywood sign and the Empire State Building were.  They wanted to see her parents’ big house with a pool and pet tiger. Did she have a boyfriend with a Ferrari? Glowing insects and farmland did not captivate them the way she expected. “Nobody wants countryside” as one confident student put it.

One picture that received a gasp was of her ice skating and holding a medal. They cheered when she said “champion” but their faces and shoulders sagged when she explained she stopped at age 14 due to a broken ankle. By the end of the class, she hated the Midwest too.

During the break she was horrified to discover she had to use the same toilets as the students; a squatting trough with no doors. A steady flow of water carried the waste below to a drain at the end of the room. As she squatted low, she tried not to cry and told herself the next class was older and would be better. After five more chaotic classes she left the building, trembling. After a month, she found a new job.

At the new equally shiny school in an equally concrete part of the city, Jenny quickly became popular as she told animated tales of her Beverly Hills life, most of the details stolen from The Real Housewives series. Students were silent and awestruck by her astronaut father and they swooned over her mother, the heiress. When she told them that her fiancée had been killed in Iraq, the girls cried and drew sad faces inside hearts on their homework. Selfies of her with students received hundreds of likes.

After living in the city for nearly a year, Jenny was elated to find out that her mother and aunt were coming to visit. They had begun saving after she left, foregoing taco Tuesday nights and Saturday matinees at the cinema. Neither of them had ever been further east than Washington D.C. or seen an Asian in person. As the time neared, their emails became more jubilant as they expressed their readiness to be shocked, to eat chicken feet, and to climb the Great Wall.

For a week Jenny, her mother, and aunt walked on walls, saw hutongs from the comfort of rickshaw bicycles, gazed at Yellow Mountain, wandered the old neighborhoods of Shanghai and gasped every other minute. They took photos of everything and everyone and their childlike joy was infectious.

During their last weekend, Jenny brought them to her city to show them where she lived and worked. As they walked the busy street near the school a large group of young teens suddenly surrounded them. Because they were wearing jeans and t-shirt and not their pressed trousers and white shirts, she didn’t immediately recognize them as her students.

She turned to introduce her mother and aunt and suddenly saw them as her students would: the overly permed hair cut too short, the discount khakis and the “Proud to be American” t-shirts from the local drugstore. Not the Beverly Hills heiress the students were expecting. As she mumbled, “This is some of my family,” she felt her face burning and worse, felt eyes searching for hers. When she looked up and into her mother’s eyes, she saw a hurt that was forever captured that day in a multitude of selfies, requested by the group of adoring teens.

 

 

Lost and Found

The driver watched as the foreign woman crossed the road, a half dozen plastic bags digging into her pale, sweaty arms. He had considered helping her but didn’t trust leaving the tuk-tuk on the side of the busy road. So he carried on, beeping and pausing, half-heartedly looking for fares. It was that calm part of the afternoon when students were still in school and it was too hot for anyone else to be out, save foreigners who seemed to follow their own agendas. He bought a bag of pineapple and parked beneath a cluster of trees in one of the parking lots near the beach.

As he climbed in the back for a short nap, he noticed the brightly coloured backpack. Though he couldn’t say how, he knew it was expensive and immediately recalled the farang he had dropped off nearly an hour ago. He considered going back but had no idea which building she had been heading for.

As if opening a ribbon on an ornate gift, he gingerly opened the zippers that neatly met at the top of the bag and feeling the anxiety of childhood curiosity, peered inside.

The first thing he noticed was a shiny metal container. Pulling it out, he recognized it from many American movies where men kept it in their cars and drank deeply from it when particularly stressed or sad. He unscrewed the cap and smelled the contents which reminded him of earth and smoke. He did not take a drink.

Also inside were several books, some of which appeared to be for children. He felt a sharp pang of fear, thinking of a little boy or girl who may not be read a story this night. But there was something about the woman that made him think she did not have a child.

At the bottom of the bag was a small plastic folder which contained several photographs. He quickly flipped through them, occasionally glancing out the window to make sure no one was watching. He feared he looked like a strange man who peered through windows to watch women sleep. Dropping the objects back into the bag and zipping it shut, he decided the best thing to do was to pick up dinner for the family and go home early.

When he walked in the door, he had the plastic bags of food slung over his right arm and the backpack over his left shoulder. He briefly imagined that this is what the women would have done if she hadn’t left behind her bag. His daughter, Nit, came running from the back room where cartoons screeched and honked.

“Papa! What did you bring me?”

“All your favourites, Little Mouse. Snake liver, duck knees, and water buffalo brains!!”

“Papaaaaa!!” She yelled, pouting and giggling the way only a seven year old can do.

That night, as he put her to bed, he showed her the children’s books with the strange animal in a giant red and white hat. Inside one of the books was a lone creature the size of a child who was visiting strange lands of bright colours, balloons, and fantastical vistas.

“Papa, this book is English. Is this what England is like? Or is it America?”

“I don’t know, Little Mouse. Maybe it’s wherever you want it to be.”

Over the next few weeks, both the driver and his daughter spent hours looking at the books, saving the best for last. The photo album. Here were not drawings or make believe. And though they knew they were real, they might as well have been from a cartoon book. They spent hours discussing the possibilities of the secret kingdoms the photos revealed. A family made of clouds stood before a garden, their white hair, white skin, and bright white smiles glowing amid a blue sky. Nit loved the picture of eight teenagers standing on a hill, a setting sun illuminating the women’s long gowns and the armour of the men’s suits. She imagined a land where children become princesses and princes when they turned 16, so much better than just moving onto a bigger school, with uglier uniforms like here. Other pictures showed hills made of cotton with children in astronaut suits sliding on picnic mats. Perhaps they were in space. And next, a military camp or ghost town, brick houses lined up next to each other square and neatly symmetrical. These dynasties must love playing with blocks. But the fact that there were no shops, no motorbikes, no people around—just smoke coming from the tops of the houses saddened the young girl. “Papa, do you think all the people left because the houses were burning?”

Each night, the girl visited dreamscapes of stone temples with coloured glass, where people made shrines above fires in their homes, where giant chickens were sacred birds on feast days, and kitchens sparkled like silver and diamonds. Before she awoke, she waved good-bye to a prince standing on a hill in the fading sunlight.

Perhaps sensing the power of his daughter’s imagination, he had hidden the other books from the teacher’s bag that he recognized as textbooks of English. If Nit learned English, she could become a CEO in New York, an actress in Hollywood, or a doctor in Australia. Though his selfishness shamed him, he could not shake the premonition that if given a chance, she would flee to the lands of castles and giant houses. This home and this life would become too small.

But just as he often encountered more traffic by trying to take a shortcut, this decision could not bend the line drawn by fate.

“Papa!! You’re not going to believe what happened at school!”

“An elephant taught mathematics.”

“No, silly! SHE is my teacher! She has come for me!!”

“Who, Little Mouse?”

“The woman in the photos. She’s here.”

The next day as his daughter raced towards the school, colourful backpack over her shoulder, he waited for a glance and a smile that never came.