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I didn’t answer.
Growing up, people always told me, ‘So good you survived.’
But had I really survived that crash?
I didn’t think I did. I’d lost too many parts of myself that day.
Still, I lived without living. After all—survivors are pros at going through the motions with the weight of everyone left behind on their shoulders.
And for twenty-one years, that was my fate.
Until now.
I was making progress. Slowly coming alive.
Lights were too bright. Food oversaturated with taste.
But I was no longer dead inside.
And that frightened me.
“You must lock the Eileen arrangement down before she comes to her senses.” Mom set her chopsticks on their stand, spine straight like a sentinel’s. “Your days of sneaking around with the staff should be over. You’re thirty-three now.”
Celeste Ayi scooped a dumpling into her mouth, eyes cutting from my face to Mom’s. “Who told you they’re sneaking around? That embrace was practically projected in IMAX.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Mom snapped up the napkin from her lap, bringing its edge to the corner of her mouth to wipe an invisible stain. “My son knows better than to break my heart this way. An ambitionless woman is not a logical choice as a wife. Far too dangerous.”
I picked up a cucumber slice and shoved it into my mouth, chewing. Mom peeked my way, waiting for confirmation.
When it didn’t come, she continued, “He knows his Dad wouldn’t have approved of her, either. Which he cares about deeply, since Lao Bo is no longer here to voice his opinions.”
She said that often, and it drove me mad.
Especially because sometimes, I wished it were me who died.
I reached for my wine. “I am well aware, Mom.”
“And since when do you drink wine atlunch?” Ayi drew a hand to her chest. “We could’ve done so many happy hours together.”
She didn’t need my company.
She had more friends than a person should have, most of them she’d acquired after single-handedly sponsoring a local pride parade two decades ago. She’d just arrived in the States, hadn’t gotten used to acronyms, and had mistaken LGBT for Let’s Get Boba Tea.
The rest was history.
Mom ignored her sister. “Is there a problem I should know about?”
“I think thereisa problem.” Ayi produced a pocket mirror from her purse and checked her makeup, even though it was only the threeof us. “The problem is, he finds Eileen just a little less attractive than a bathroom carpet. And I’m not even talking about the fuzzy kind.”
“That’s not true.” Mom slapped the napkin back onto her lap. She never slapped things. “He adores her, and she’s stunning.” She turned her head to me. “Isn’t she, Zachary?”
“She looks fine.” I swirled the wine in my glass, dissatisfied that my mother was, in fact, right.
Pragmatically speaking, there was no reason for me to delay the inevitable. I’d made an arrangement with Eileen. She’d since written to me numerous times in emails, even texted.
She expected me to take it to the next step.
Why shouldn’t she? We had a deal.
