Finally Seen

I listen to the quiet hum of the plane and the not-so-quiet flutter of my heart in my chest. This is it. Another six hours and I will finally see my parents and my sister again! I try to picture Mom’s and Dad’s faces when I land. Except I keep picturing Marge and Homer Simpson. Only Asian. With shorter hair. And a lot less smart Lisa. (Hopefully.)

I guess that’s what happens when you haven’t seen your family in five tears (and you’ve watched a lot of subtitled Simpsons.) I was starting to give up on the whole going-to-America thing, until my mom called six weeks ago.

“Lao Lao told me you’re doing your middle school applications,” Mom said. “And you’re writing an essay on your parents being in America?”

I nodded, coiling the phone cord around my fingers.

“Is that not a good topic?” I asked.

“No . . . ,” she said, “it’s just . . .  what are you going to say?”

I shrugged. I like writing, but not as much as I like drawing pictures. But art’s a sure way to get kicked out of any school in Beijing, let alone Beijing Normal Middle School #3, where I was applying. It was my Aung Jing’s middle school. She now has a fancy tech job in Shenzhen. She says there’s no future for artists in China. Being normal would get the art out of me . . . and turn me into a steady workhorse. Just like her.

“Well?” Mom asked.

I felt a rush of heat spread across my forehead. Here was my chance to tell her how I really felt about being left behind all these years. I was only five years old when she left. I thought she was going on a work trip. I didn’t even understand. Most of all, how could she take Millie, my baby sister, and not me? I grew up with postcards from my parents.

But as usual, my voice was locked in the chamber of my throat.

There are things I don’t want to tell anyone, well, except Lao Lao.

My grandmother, Lao Lao, is my moon and my Wilson. Like the volleyball in Cast Away (another movie I binged), she is my companion in my waiting city. That’s what Beijing feels like, just me and Lao Lao waiting. It used to be me, Lao Lao, and Loa Ye. But last year, when Lao Ye passed away . . . our trio of tea leaves went down to two. Now I am Lao Lao’s human alarm clock (I wake her up every day at 6 a.m.), dumpling steamer, pu’er brewer, flower waterer, and medicine fetcher.

I know how much she needs me. I’m all she’s got left. Which is why some feelings are too hard to even tell her.

Instead, I catch them and tuck them behind my cheek.

Lao Lao says that’s the way to succeed in China.

Every morning, Lao Lao reminds me to go to school, make your parents proud, and watch your words, lest they label you a bad apple. She grew up in the era of the cultural revolution, and her father was thrown in jail for being a “bad apple.” Even though that was a long time ago, the memory of it never really left. She’s always telling me to sew up half my mouth. I imagine an invisible thread running along my mouth, my lips stitched up like a sock.

But the thing about some feelings is . . . they just won’t go away. Instead, they form a tight ball at the base of my throat. Where they sit and they wait, planning their escape from the thread. And one day, just when you least expect it, they shoot out like a rocket.

That’s exactly what happened that rainy spring day when Mom called.