Series: Goldfish

I might have been ten- or eleven-years-old, already had a sense of self-awareness.  Mom handed me a yellowing old photo and asked me if I knew the person in the picture.  I was perplexed seeing a male version of myself looking back at me.

Dad never talked about his past.  Never once.  The only thing linking us to his previous life was a photo of our grandmother.  It was taken outdoors.  Grandma sat on a chair not showing too much emotion.  Still, she seemed gentle but in control.  The photo was in a simple frame, placed high on a shelf most of the time.  On Chinese New Year’s Eve, we would bring it down and set it on the table with all the celebratory dishes.

From time to time, mom told us that our grandfather was a Chinese medicine doctor.  He was generous with people and had great reputation.  However, he died young.  Mom said that dad grew up poor and that he used to read books while herding water buffaloes.  He received scholarship to attend high school and college in Japan.  The photo that mom showed me was taken during those years.

Whether dad was hoping for a son or not, he loved me.  I was told that his first report to mom was: “She is beautiful.  Maybe she will win Miss China pageant one day.”  Our bound was instant and innate.

My nose is straight and tall.  Dad loved to pinch its narrow bridge.  I disliked his squeezes as much as his occasional kisses on my cheeks.  His unshaven face rubbed against my skin, sticky and prickly.  I would always push him away.  Sometimes, he would press on my chin, complaining about its thinness.  Later, he would pull on my brother’s large earlobes.  They were round and fleshy—signs of good fortune.

Dad wasn’t very hands-on with our education.  Whenever he disagreed with mom’s philosophy and approaches, he would voice his concerns sternly.  In contrast to mom’s harsh discipline, dad’s soft guidance seemed to have influenced me more over time.

Dad didn’t go out often.  He would leave in time for his lectures at the universities and came straight home.  He stayed up most nights reading and writing and slept in late.  I used to stand close to his bed watching him; watching his chest gently expand with every breath.  My fear of losing someone who loved me so dearly would dissipate for that moment.

Dad was never a celebrity to the general public.  But his works were widely read.  His translations of German Lieder were taught at schools.  Many of my teachers knew and remembered me as his daughter.  It put some pressure on me to behave properly and to study hard, especially in literature and music.

Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease began to slow down dad’s work shortly after he turned seventy.  By my undergraduate years, his steps became unstable; he started talking less and less; he wouldn’t be able to eat by himself.  He attended my graduation, walking slowly on canes.

Soon after that dementia and related issues set in.  Dad was in and out of hospitals often.  Mom, my brother and my stepsister cared for him.  I, on the other hand, didn’t really do enough for him.  The changes in him were difficult for me.  I started working and was getting ready to study abroad.  Everyone at the hospital told me that dad was happiest seeing me.  He would always hold my hand and told me that he owed me apologies. . . Because of his conditions, it was difficult to tell whether he didn’t want me to see him suffering or he was still troubled by old family feuds.

I took TOEFL and passed it with decent marks on the first try.  It became more and more certain that I would go abroad for my graduate study.  Even with dad’s worsening conditions, mom consulted with him.  He said: “She always wants to leave.  Let her go.”

1983 must have been an extremely difficult year for mom.  Father passed peacefully on April 3.  I left for the United States four months later.  She was fifty-seven years old.

During one of mom’s visits, she brought me a selection of old photos.  Among them was a picture of my little brother dressed in white dress shirt, vest and a bow tie.  He was standing proudly at attention and armed with toy guns and swords.

Even as a child, I was always wary of everyone and everything.  My little brother, on the other hand, was a trusting soul.  He would believe anything any adults told him.  He learned that cops were the good guys that protected common folks.  He also heard that cops took red envelopes.  Since we got red envelopes with New Year’s money, he believed it was a good thing, not knowing they were a euphemism for bribes.

A neighbor lady asked him what he aspired to be when he grew up.  He replied: “To be a cop.”  When pressed for the reason, he said: “Cops get red envelopes.”  For a while, “red-envelope cop” became his nickname.

We didn’t grow up with sweets around the house.  Instead, seasonal fruits were always in the pantry.  In those days, mangos were not much larger than a baseball.  Covered in dark green peels, they didn’t look very appealing.  Even though they were extremely sweet and fragrant, there wasn’t much between the skin and the seed.  One basically held the entire fruit and gnawed on and around the core.  When Little Cop had his first taste of mango, he looked at mom: “This is good eating.  Why is there a big stone in this fruit?”  Sadly, the native Taiwanese mangos had gone extinct, replaced by the new, more attractive looking varieties.

Big watermelons were our summer time favorite.  They are sweet and juicy.  Mom taught us how to not make a mess eating them.  The seeds—hundreds of them, black and fat—were troublesome.  We told Little Cop that, if he wasn’t careful and swallowed melon seeds, little plants would start growing in his tummy.  He worried for days.  I might have made my parents proud.  Little Cop brought joy to the family.

He was smart but didn’t like to study.  He was artistic:  He took painting instructions.  There were photos of him sketching outdoors with his art class: Holding the paint brush steadily, he focused on the drawing intensely.  Once he won the top prize of a television painting contest hosted by his teacher.  He practiced calligraphy for several years under the guidance of an old gentleman.  In his high school years, he picked up photography and was very serious about it.

Using the term “sibling rivalry” to describe the relationship between us would seem superficial.  Little Cop was a sweet talker.  When we got in trouble, he knew exactly what to say so mom would calm down.  It only made me more rebellion when he got off easily.

He had a security blanket—”Dǐdǐ” (little brother)—which he dragged around all day long and couldn’t sleep without it.  He was stronger than me physically.  Several times, when I lost the fights hopelessly, I drowned the blanket in bathtub to punish him.  For as long as it would take for the blanket to dry, he would be reminded of his “mistake.”  Then, of course, it would take a few days, for Dǐdǐ to “smell good” again.

He was jealous of me.  To him, mom and dad were always more attentive to my needs.  Whatever I got, he would need to have something in equal value.  I was jealous of him.  Mom and dad allowed him to play all day.  They were always smiley around him.  We fought physically and verbally until life took us apart.

Little Cop discovered computer when he was in high school.  He asked for the top model with the most memory capacity and speed. . . (We are talking about the first generation of personal computers.)  He locked himself in his room for hours on end.  The restrictive college entrance exam system and the limited school choices during the marshal-law era prevented him from studying “electrical engineering” (remember those terms?).  But his self-taught programming skills led him to a successful career in information technology.

In the last decade, mom became less and less independent, first because of her bad knee, then her decreasing mental ability.  With me being on the other side of the ocean, Little Cop picked up the responsibility of caring for her.  Nowadays, everyone calls him Robert.