Letters That Will Remain Unread (series)

Dear Ma, 

I am writing to reach you�" and to reminisce. I am writing to go back to those summers in Shanghai, a city that becomes the color of mildew, as if sweating off the colors painted on by the falling osthmanthus petals. With a distrustful eye, you would crane your neck up towards the congestion of buildings above, in search of a leaky air conditioner or dribbling scaffolding to blame for the unexpected splash on your back. You would brush off each drop as man-made, until the entire sidewalk ahead is dotted and darkened with the humble beginnings of rainfall. You would hold my hand, walking through blurred streetlights and blackened puddles.  

You never failed to indelicately remind me that my fear of lightning was wasted on a city where skyscrapers valiantly take each hit like guardians of the sky, hovering above us in a contactless embrace to shield us from the worst of the storm. “Lightning only strikes you if you’re the tallest thing around, and look up,” you would say. “Do you see how small we are down here? The chances of being struck are one in a million.”

Your words dried like water on fabric; every time the sun returned they were lifted back into the clouds. The rain was over, for a while.

The summer I turned four or five and, playing a prank, jumped out at you from your bedroom door, shouting your name the way I had heard my father do it. You flinched, then burst into sobs, covering your face while you slid down against the door, gasping in silence. I stood discombobulated. I was a daughter imitating her father. My fears paled in pitiful comparison; what was lightning, compared to losing you? 

The summer I turned seven, we were in the States. 

Nothing reveals a relationship’s fragility quite like a silent car ride, where the scraps of our unity spend their last breath on a tacit agreement to keep driving through the rain. This immigration to America was meant to be good for us. But good only comes to those who deserve it, and miracles are the scarcest commodity of all. Back then, I thought that maybe we’d find one on the way from the airport to our little rented house.

The first time you hit me, I was seven. 

“Damn wipers,” you said, “I need a rental with faster wipers.” I’m not sure the newest, shiniest car in the world would clear the rain fast enough for you. “But at least we’re in this together,” you said, with righteous intention and bitter tone. Yes, I guess there was that.

And back to silence.

“Do you ever think about how crazy lightning must have been for people before there was a scientific explanation?” I said, as the rain got heavier.

You said nothing. Your bergamot perfume consumed the heavy air in the car.

“It must have been terrifying. But, also, imagine how special they must have felt to indirectly cause something so powerful.”

You didn’t imagine, but you nodded your head in agreement and I guess that was good enough.

In second grade, with the help of my ESL teacher, Mrs. Morong, I learned how to read. I saw a poster in my homeroom that read, “Silence is Golden,” in big scripted letters. But no, silence is most certainly gray. It’s a gray plain that runs on for miles, coated in fog so thick you might mistake it for smoke and forget how to breathe. Silence is not golden, it is suffocating.

The summer I turned eight, I tried to teach you to read the same way Mrs. Morong taught me. But the act of a daughter teaching her mother reversed our roles, in a culture of absolute hierarchy in age. After the stammers, the words stuck in your throat, the strenuous “Green eggs and ham,” after the embarrassment of your eight-year-old daughter being your teacher, you slammed the book shut and left. 

That was the summer with the metal ruler. My bruised and swollen palms I would lie about to my teacher. “I fell while running.”

“I’m sorry,” you said the next day, icing my palms. “Let’s go to Whole Foods and you can pick out a pastry you like.” I ate my first croissant as you bought tonight’s dinner. “You have to get good grades, okay?” The next week, you went to Costco and bought a whole box of croissants. 

The summer I turned eight, I begged for a dog. You told me you had a stray that you fed from time to time back in your hometown. The Chinese word for the passage of time is “sui yue,” meaning “age moon” translated literally. Maybe it was those memories, maybe it was loneliness, you obliged. You named him “Sui Yue.” That is to say, he meant hazy memories and a nostalgic childhood.

On Sundays, you’d drive me to the nearest Starbucks, bringing workbooks and pencils, because assignments were due on Mondays. The cover said “MassBay Community College.” I’d eat a croissant and read as you filled in each blank and memorized vocabulary, periodically asking me questions. I was frustrated with every answer, until you eventually shut the book and drove back in silence. You tried again, to learn English.

When we got our green cards, our permanent residency, you became Christian. You found a community with your church, and salvation from my father. Our Sunday Starbucks trips became less and less frequent, until you were completely occupied with God. I started to regret being so impatient.

It’s tradition to eat dumplings for Lunar New Year, because they look like pouches of money, meant to bring fortune and prosperity. You’d take me grocery shopping, asking me what filling I’d like, so that we could make dumplings together. We’d wander the aisles as you searched for the right ingredients. Not seeing leeks, you went up to the closest store clerk, pausing for a little too long before stuttering some broken English when he asked if you needed help. He leaned closer, looking confused and impatient. You pointed to the green onions and said “bigger.” But he only started glaring, becoming more and more irritated. You, too, became more agitated, turning to me. You were suffocating like a fish out of water. I didn’t know that leeks were called leeks. 

“Sorry,” I said to the clerk, before taking your hand and turning away, full of shame. You grabbed a rotisserie chicken instead. We checked out in silence. Our words felt misplaced.

That night, I saw my father’s displeased frown at dinner, turning into insults and yelling once I went into my room. I promised myself I’d never be so useless again. I’d study hard to fill in your pauses and to be your voice. 

You stopped trying to learn English.

At parent-teacher conferences, I’d be the only student there, translating for you. My teachers would praise me and say how you must be so happy. I don’t know because I never asked you.

You always told me that it’s too late for you to change, to learn. You told me that being bilingual is a privilege I have with what you exchanged. I hope that maybe in the heaven you believe in you’ll be blessed with a husband that writes you letters instead of trauma. 

Did you know, Ma, that I often dream about getting struck by lightning? In my dreams, I am running away from your car, the road growing and stretching to no distinct end, like the edge of the universe. There are no streetlights to guide me, no crammed buildings, overflowing like storm clouds, to steal away thunder and scrape bolts right off the sky. Your headlights are blurred in the downpour. I stand as tall as I can, hoping to be one in a million. 

But the sky is remiss. Indelicate and indifferent.

Lightning strikes in the sky above, too high for my limbs to reach.

Maybe in another life I’d be one in a million, the miracle you had hoped.