A Good Son
By Lisa Lai
She had not heard the home phone ring for five years, yet when it had trilled, she ran from the back of her apartment to answer it. It was as if he hadn’t left five years ago and everything was still the same.
Mrs. Lu picked up the phone. Is it him? It has to be, for who else could it possibly be? “Hello?” she said breathlessly.
The phone crackled. Then, a female’s low voice: “Is this Helen?”
Mrs. Lu’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Who?”
“Helen? I’m looking for a Hel—”
Click.
Knees weak, she sat by her faded padded armchair and stared down her open window, looking wistfully at the merchants and children who were either holding onto their mother’s hands or helping to carry groceries, looking with bored interest at the adults yelling at each other about prices of fruits. The shouts were the typical Chinatown sounds Mrs. Lu was used to hearing. She remembered a time when she had been one of the Chinatown mothers. It had been a long time ago, but her memory had not faded.
***
“Can you wait here and watch the bags?” She led her twelve-year-old son over toward the curb of the bustling street. “I go to pick out some bok choy, okay? Mommy come right back.”
Her English was improving, she knew. Her son had sat her down the night after the PTA meeting, apparently embarrassed that he had been the only child in his class who had a parent who could not speak English. After that night, every night after school, he had sat her down at the small dining table and taught her some English vocabulary.
“Okay, but hurry,” Liu Zhao responded in Chinese.
She tsked. “Hey, it’d only take a minute,” she said back in Cantonese.
The grocery store was packed with people though it was ten in the morning. She pushed her way to the front of the store where the fresh bok choy was located. An elderly woman next to her yelled out to no one in particular, “How much for the bok choy?”
A short man wearing pilled white gloves and carrying a damp cardboard box came out of the store’s narrow entryway and yelled back, “Seventy-five cents for a pound!”
Mrs. Lu’s eyes lightened up. This store was way cheaper than the one across the street. She inspected a stem she was holding, and frowned. The quality wasn’t much better than the other store. But this was cheaper. Mrs. Lu ripped a plastic bag off of a roll and rubbed furiously on an end with her fingers to peel it open before picking her produce.
By the time she finished paying after waiting in a long line, it was 10:30 a.m.
“That was so long,” Liu Zhao complained in English.
“I know, but there were a lot of people.” She put two full bags of bok choy in a grocery bag beside her son’s feet. “Hey, are you hungry yet?” she asked in Chinese.
“A little bit.”
“Let’s go yum cha then, okay?” She heaved the heavy bag onto her shoulder while Liu Zhao took the lighter one. He may be an impatient boy, but he’s a good son. Mrs. Lu could not keep the smile off her face. “Where should we go?”
“Golden Palace Restaurant?” Her son looked up at her hopefully.
She gave a hearty laugh. His favorite. “Okay, let’s see,” she said in English.
They walked a block before waiting for the pedestrian scramble light to change. From far away, Golden Palace looked like any other shabby five-story building. But unlike other shabby buildings, this restaurant never ceased to amaze Mrs. Lu no matter how many times she and Liu Zhao came to eat dim sum for lunch.
If not for Golden Palace’s loyal customers lining up for seats outside their entrance a few years ago, Mrs. Lu would have never guessed it was up and running, and successfully at that. The windows were covered up with yellowed Sing Tao Daily newspapers, the entryway outside welcoming cigarettes and dried bird droppings as if that was all it was meant to do. Above them, the awning was in tatters, the name of the restaurant, akin to its outward spirit, long faded.
The inside was a completely different story. Chinese paintings of houses and koi fish occupied empty off-white walls. Strips of lucky red paper were plastered above doors and entryways for good fortune. At least twenty-five tables were clustered near the doorway, but over the last two years, the restaurant had managed to crowd in five more, leaving just enough room for staff to walk past seated customers without squeezing in their stomachs. The other customers had been visiting just as frequently as they had been, mostly small families with young children, who, like Liu Zhao, had come craving a taste of their locally famous puffy Chinese sugar donuts.
Today, thankfully, there was no line out the door. Usually, by eleven in the morning, the place could be found at full capacity; dim sum started as early as ten. Mrs. Lu and her son were seated quickly.
Mrs. Lu ordered their usual beef balls, shumai dumplings, and shrimp rice noodle rolls, and of course, the sugar donuts. She then wiped her plate, teacup, and chopsticks clean with a paper napkin and instructed Liu Zhao to do the same.
The food arrived quickly, and within fifteen minutes, all the food was gone. Finally, the long-awaited sugar donuts came, perfectly round and fried.
“There’s only four,” Liu Zhao told her in disappointment as he picked up his chopsticks.
“There’s always four,” she reminded him as she picked up her own pair, tapping the ends lightly on her plate to even them. “And always yeet hay. All the sugar is bad for you. And do you know how oily these sai yong is? It’s fried, so it was probably drenched in oil. You kids nowadays only eat super sweet or super oily stuff.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Liu Zhao roll his eyes.
“That’s how you kids get acne and get sick. You eat too much oily and sweet and spicy and fat foods—all yeet hay!” She swallowed, pointing her chopsticks at her son, as if to say, “Listen here.” As if he had a choice. “Your friend Paper Bag—”
“His name’s Brendan. And he only brought lunch twice in a paper bag.”
“Benden always gets sick. You want to know why? He eats foods that are yeet hay. He always brings spicy lunches and—”
“That’s part of his culture! He’s Korean, so most of the foods he eats are spicy.” Liu Zhao rolled his eyes again.
“Hey! I just want the best for you—”
He was saved from the continued lecture by the arrival of the beef balls and shrimp rice noodle rolls. She was too hungry to go on, but she knew that Liu Zhao understood how detrimental oily and sweet foods were to their health. She ate at her heart’s content, assured that as long as Liu Zhao listened, he would be healthy and safe.
***
He hadn’t come home for five years. He was supposed to during this time last year. But there had been no phone call. Something was wrong, she knew. If he had been missing or dead, she would have had a phone call, or perhaps a visit with one of his own. A sergeant or lieutenant, perhaps. And she hadn’t come across any.
So Liu Zhao must be alive. But why wouldn’t he come home? Perhaps he was promoted and his duties were dire, so he couldn’t call to let her know he wouldn’t be back home for some time. Or maybe he found someone and forgot about his mother.
He is such a grown man now. Mrs. Lu thought of the other Chinatown mothers who boasted of their children. She knew exactly what she would say to them: Well, who else’s son willingly fought for years for this country simply because he was grateful that his mother was given U.S. citizenship?
Suddenly, the phone came back to life again, its sharp trills breaking Mrs. Lu out of her thoughts.
Mrs. Lu gasped. This is it. This is what she has been waiting for.
She picked up the phone. “Wei?” She held her breath.
“Ma.”
“Oh!” she gasped in relief, tears falling nonstop. Her free hand fumbled for the arm of her chair. She sat down, hoping to calm her wobbling knees and pounding heart. Shakily, she breathed into the phone, “Liu Zhao! Ai, Liu Zhao-ah! You’re home?!”
“Yes, Ma.” Then in Chinese: “I’m at the door.”
Mrs. Lu let loose a sob and dropped the phone, practically leaping over furniture to get to the door. She flung her fortune-decorated door wide open, and there he was.
Liu Zhao was dressed in uniform, cap tucked under his muscled arm, as was customary with soldiers. Unlike his mother, he shed no tears, instead smiling so wide his round eyes became slivers on his hardened face. He had grown a little taller since she had last seen him, but still bald and well-groomed. Mrs. Lu reached up for an embrace.
“You were gone for so long and you didn’t call? I was so worried, but—” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re finally home,” she finished in English breathlessly. She pulls him inside.
“I’m sorry I took so long.” He closed the front door and hung his cap on a hook on the wall. “I was given the opportunity to oversee a boot camp for trainees for eight months.”
“So where were you for the rest of the year?”
Liu Zhao let out a long exhale. “I actually came back home. But you weren’t here.”
Mrs. Lu paled.
“Because where were you?” Suddenly, his tone became angry and impatient. “At a casino! And do you know how I know?”
She shrunk backward.
“I saw you, Ma.” Liu Zhao’s eyes held hers steadily, but they weren’t succeeding at holding in his boat of tears. “Every day for two months, I saw you gambling from as early as eight in the morning! And you stay there until three in the morning the next day! You practically lived there, gambling all of our money away! How were we going to live when I came back?” His voice cracked. “Did you think I wasn’t going to come back?”
Mrs. Lu blinked back tears, speechless.
“I didn’t join the military for friends or for fun, Ma. I joined to help my family. To get benefits from the government because we can barely afford living in New York as it is. Don’t you understand? I’m trying to take care of us—of you—and you’re just throwing what I earned away for fun. Don’t you think that’s selfish?”
His mother looked away.
“I crashed at my friend’s place for four months. It took me two months to figure out that you didn’t really miss me because you were in money’s company. It took me two more months to finally work up the courage to come home!”
“Liu Zhao-ah,” she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She looked in his eyes, hoping he knew that she meant it. She continued, “And I—I really, really did miss you. I didn’t hear from you for so long I thought you were dead.” Mrs. Lu pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob.
Liu Zhao didn’t believe her; his twisted face said it all. “That’s no excuse to throw away money like that! Don’t you remember you used to go to all the different grocery stores just to compare prices so we could get the cheapest vegetables with the best quality?”
Against her will, Mrs. Lu’s tears overflowed, leaving wet trails on her face. “I needed to feel happy. I missed you so much, and now that you’re back, I’m really happy. I’m sorry, sorry for…” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, unable to continue. Unable to voice her addiction problem; it would make it all too real.
“If you really are sorry, you’ll go to the therapy appointment I scheduled for you tomorrow morning at eleven.” He looked away from her, as if the sight of her emotionally hurt him. He left the kitchen, leaving an air of cold behind.
So it turned out that he didn’t come back whole after all. And it was all her fault.
“Where is it?”
Liu Zhao turned around. “I’ll take you.”
This was not what she had imagined for his homecoming. Mrs. Lu tossed and turned the whole night, the image of her son calling her selfish burning into the back of her eyelids each time she started to doze off. She had to make this right.
The next morning, Liu Zhao grabbed his mother’s coat and helped her into it. The coil of scarf around his neck told her that he had already been out while she was asleep.
“We’re riding the subway,” he announced. “Remember your card for the bus.” His tone was unreadable, sharp.
She couldn't reply. Was there a worse way to feel as a mother?
An hour later, they walked into a suite building, knocking on the door of a Dr. Chan, a Gambling Addiction Therapist.
Mrs. Lu’s heart was in her throat. How could he do this? In Chinese, she whispered, turning to face her son, “Nothing made me happy when you were gone for so long. Why do you insist on taking away my happiness?”
Liu Zhao’s cheek twitched but as she watched his jaw quickly hardened with resolve. He didn’t meet her eyes. “Dr. Chan,” he said, ignoring her, “can speak Chinese, so what you can’t relay to me, you can to her.”
The door opened, and a woman wearing a white lab coat and red-rimmed spectacles greeted them.
“Mrs. Lu?” the woman asked, and Mrs. Lu acknowledged her glumly. “Come on in.” Dr. Chan pushed the door wide open and strolled inside.
Mrs. Lu hung her head in shame, following her a few paces away when she felt a warm hand grip her shoulder. She turned around.
Liu Zhao held out a large white take-out box. “I’m not going to go in with you.” He pressed the box to her, forcing her to take it. “I’m going to wait outside. I just want the best for you, Ma.” Turning, he closed the door, locking her in.
His words lingered in her head. I just want the best for you. He’s a good son. Even the Chinatown mothers would know. She pries open the take-out box.
Inside sat four sugar donuts, perfectly round and perfectly fried.
“Mrs. Lu?” Dr. Chan was standing in a doorway, waiting patiently. “Are you coming?”
Mrs. Lu looked back at her sugar donuts.
I just want the best for you.
She closed the container. Her eyes reflected what she felt in her gut as she walked toward her therapist—determination. “Yes.”
Lisa Lai
3/29/21
Lisa Lai is a third year English major at UC Davis. When she is not reading or writing creative fiction, she enjoys scrapbooking, playing board games, and watching dramas and reality television. She dedicates “A Good Son” to her family.
Cover photo by Jessica Hua
