Mom in Brooklyn (II) — Page 24

Outside the Saturday boba shop, mid-morning

#01

The Saturday Boba Woman, with Mom

Mom ordered the brown sugar oat milk, less sweet, no pearls — less sweet is, in any language, Mom-coded.

The Saturday boba woman said for your mom? without me having said anything. Mom took a sip on the sidewalk. Paused. Mom said 甜. Sweet. I said that's the less-sweet version. Mom said, after another sip: good enough. Finished the cup. The Saturday boba woman has never said my name. Has now nodded at my mother. Mom kept the cup. Said it was a good cup. I keep it on the shelf now.

#02

Priya, Finally

Priya met Mom on the seventh day.

Been quietly managing the meeting for the entire week. Taken them to the small café on Norman that doesn't, on Tuesdays, have a line. Priya, who has the social register of a small ambassador, ordered Mom a tea before Mom asked. In the second minute, made a small joke about me that landed perfectly between Mandarin and English. Mom laughed. In a way I have, in thirty years, seen four times. Priya didn't know what she'd done. Sat sideways at the corner, watching my best friend and my mother take each other in. Drank the coffee. They drank the tea. Didn't say much of anything for forty-six minutes. Didn't need to.

A small Chinatown shop in lower Manhattan (Pearl River, possibly — generic small-shop, dark wood, warm lighting)

#03

The New Teapot

On the eighth day Mom said we're going to a shop. Took the subway to Chinatown.

A small dish-and-pot place she'd somehow found in her head. Picked up a teapot. Mom said yours is too small. I said the one I have is fine. Mom said the one you have is small. True. Mom paid. I tried to pay. She boxed me out from the register with a shoulder-check that was surprisingly aggressive. I am the mother, she said. I stood there, a thirty-year-old woman, completely defeated in a housewares aisle. The teapot was twenty-six dollars. On my counter since. On the bottom, in pencil — Mom's handwriting — 6/8/2028.

The same McGolrick Park bench from Pack 23 #07

#04

The Bench, Again

Lent Mom my cardigan.

Air shifted in the half-hour between the apartment and the bench. She wore mine to the park. Mom in my cardigan is exactly half a size too big and exactly the right amount of funny. The trees had leafed in four days in a way hard to argue with. Mom said: next time, you come. Next time. With her, not without her. Hadn't been planning it. Am, now, planning it. The bench held us — my mother in my cardigan, and me. The bench was, on day eight, the only object in the world.

Jan's dining table on day eight evening, set for two

#05

The Dinner I Made for Her

Made Mom's soup for Mom on day eight.

The soup she sent in a Tupperware two springs ago — the one I'd gotten right last winter, and wanted to feed her ever since. Plated it. Lit the candle. Mom sat down. Took a sip. Paused. Mom said 盐少了一点. A little less salt. I said I tried to do it the way you do it. Mom said I do it with less salt too, these days. Then, quietly: otherwise—good. Finished the bowl. My mother, the harshest food critic of my life, called my version of her recipe good. The cup was hers, for one more night.

#06

The Suitcase, Open

The cat got in the suitcase.

Three years prior she'd gotten in my suitcase the week I packed for Hangzhou. Now in Mom's, on the morning of Mom's departure. Mim doesn't do symmetry. She was just in the suitcase. Mom looked at the cat. Mom said cat thinks she is coming. I said I don't think so. Mom said we should let her think it. Let her think it. Eleven minutes. The flight was at three. The Uber at noon. Mom didn't, in those eleven minutes, look at the time. Let her think it.

#07

The Airport, Departures

Mom didn't want to be walked all the way to security.

Just to the start of the line and then for me to leave. Don't stand around, she said. I am going. Patted my shoulder twice — the two-pat she's done my entire life, the two-pat my brother does now too. Mom said: eat well, take care, call me. Then: the cardigan looks good on you. Daniel chose well. Then, in a voice a half-step different from her usual: thank you, Jan. I think she was thanking me for the nine days. Didn't ask. Wouldn't have asked. I said I love you. She said: I know. Went into the line. Didn't look back.

Jan in the apartment alone, late afternoon of the same day

#08

The Apartment, Empty

The apartment at four PM was the apartment minus one.

The teapot on the counter. The cardigan folded on the side table. A small jar of fermented something in the fridge. Greg, moved six inches left. The small note I hadn't yet found. Mom was somewhere over the Pacific. Sat on the couch beside Mim. Picked up the cardigan to move it — and it smelled exactly like her house in Hangzhou. Dropped it back on the table like it burned me. Walked into the kitchen and stood at the open fridge, looking at the jar, completely unmoored. Mim doesn't, generally, mourn. I do.

The bedroom, morning after Mom's departure

#09

The Card

Found the card under the pillow the morning after.

A small generic one — the kind Mom keeps in her purse for occasions she doesn't yet know she'll have. The inside dense with her handwriting, the way Chinese fits a paragraph into a card the way English never can. Read it twice. Three times. Won't transcribe it. It ended with one sentence in English: "I am proud of you, Jan. I am also, separately, proud to be your mother." The two prouds on different lines. Doing different work. Cried in the kind of quiet that doesn't make sound. The card is on the wall.