Chapter 5
Edward Quan ·
“If you give way to me, it's because you choose to. Not because you owe it to me.”
I looked into his eyes and suddenly felt he had grown up.
I was twenty-four that year. A-Fu was sixteen.
All those years, I realized, it hadn't simply been me protecting him.
He had been there for me all along.
6.
When I was twenty-six, Father fell ill.
Nothing serious. He had merely exhausted himself.
Mother told me to visit him, so I did.
He lay in bed. Seeing me, he waved me over to sit.
“Bruiser, your mother has been nagging about you again.”
“About what?”
“When you're going to marry.”
“What did you say?”
“What's the hurry? If she can't find a husband, we'll keep her.”
I laughed.
“Your mother asked, ‘For how long?’ I said, ‘Until we die.’”
I laughed aloud.
So did he.
When he'd finished, he said, “Bruiser, let me ask you something.”
“Go ahead, Father.”
“Do you actually want to marry?”
I thought for a moment.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Too much effort.”
“Tell me the truth.”
I looked into his eyes and was silent for a while.
Then I said, “Father, I don't want to marry someone I don't like. I don't want someone I don't like controlling me. Above all, I don't want to spend my entire life confined to a courtyard, having children, raising them, serving a husband, and ending up like Mother.”
Father said nothing.
“Mother is a good person. But she hasn't been happy.
“I don't want that.”
He was silent for a long time.
So long I thought he wouldn't answer.
Finally, he asked, “What do you want, then?”
“I want to be an official.”
He gave me a complicated look.
“You know women can't hold office.”
“I know.”
“And you still want to?”
“Yes. If I can't do it myself, I'll help you do it. That counts as doing it too.”
He stared for a moment, then laughed.
“Bruiser, the greatest blessing of my life is having a daughter like you.”
“I know.”
He stared again, then laughed even harder.
I was twenty-six that year. Father was fifty-two.
After that day, he gave me more official papers to handle.
Sometimes Mother came to watch. After a while, she would sigh.
“Why are you sighing, Mother?”
“You were born in the wrong age.”
“No, I wasn't.”
“How can you say that? If you were a man, you could have become an official long ago.”
“Mother, whether I hold office doesn't depend on what I am, but on what I can do.”
“What good is being capable if they won't let you?”
“Then I won't do it.”
She stared.
“If they won't let me, I won't. I can do something else.”
“What?”
“Help Father with his work. Help A-Fu get married. Keep you company. Take good care of this family.”
Mother looked at me, her eyes reddening.
“A-Ning, have you truly come to terms with it, or are you just comforting me?”
“Truly.”
Then I said, “Mother, I've worked something out over these years.”
“What?”
“There isn't much in life we can hold on to. Don't cling to what you can't keep. Hold tight to what you can.
“What I can't hold on to is official rank, fame, the glory others see.
“What I can hold on to is you, Father, A-Fu, this family.
“That's enough.”
Mother cried when she heard that.
Not from sorrow, but from joy.
She hugged me.
“A-Ning, you're the greatest pride of my life.”
I gently patted her back.
“And you are mine.”
I was twenty-six that year. Mother was forty-eight.
I suddenly realized that what I'd always wanted wasn't to go out into the world.
It was to make this family somewhere I wanted to come home to.
When I was twenty-eight, A-Fu got married.
To Vice Minister Li's second daughter, the same girl from all those years before.
I'd met her a few times. Fair and delicate, soft-spoken, she walked as lightly as though she were treading on clouds.
I asked A-Fu, “Don't you think she's too gentle?”
“Gentle is good. You're not gentle.”
I fell silent.
“Are you criticizing me?”
“No, no! I mean the two of you will balance each other out.”
“Why don't you marry someone like yourself, then?”
“Like me? Wouldn't we be fighting every day?”
I thought about it. He had a point.
On the wedding day, Mother bustled about, smiling so broadly she couldn't close her mouth.
Father sat in the seat of honor, teacup in hand, his face solemn. But he couldn't hide the smile at the corners of his eyes.
I stood to one side and watched the newlyweds bow to Heaven and Earth, to their parents, and then to each other.
Afterward, A-Fu stole a glance at me.
I gave him a thumbs-up.
He smiled.
I didn't join the bridal-chamber revelry.
I stood alone in the courtyard, looking at the moon.
After a while, someone came over.
Mother.
“Why aren't you joining in?”
“Too noisy.”
“You've never liked joining the commotion, even as a child.”
“No.”
She stood beside me for a while, then suddenly asked, “A-Ning, do you regret it?”
“Regret what?”
“Not marrying.”
I looked at the moon and thought for a long time.
Finally, I asked, “Mother, have you ever had regrets?”
She paused.
I asked: