“You’ll need a green card to stay here long enough to see my babies,” Tian once told his mother jokingly.
“You’ll get me a green card, won’t you?” she asked.
Well, that was not easy, and he wouldn’t promise her. She hadn’t been here for three weeks yet, but already his family had become kind of dysfunctional. How simpleminded he and Connie had been when they encouraged Meifen to apply for a half-year visa. They should have limited her visit to two months or even less. That way, if she became too much of a pain in the ass, they could say it was impossible to get her visa extended, and she’d have no choice but to go back. Now, there’d be twenty-three more weeks for them to endure. How awful!
The other day Tian and Connie had talked between themselves about the situation. She said, “Well, I’ll take these months as a penal term. After half a year, when the old deity has left, I hope I’ll have survived the time undamaged and our union will remain unbroken.” She gave a hysterical laugh, which unsettled Tian, and he wouldn’t joke with her about their predicament anymore. All he could say was “I’m sorry, really sorry.” Yet he wouldn’t speak ill of his mother in front of his wife.
As Connie spent more time away from home, Tian often wondered what his wife was doing during the day. Judging from her appearance, she seemed at ease and just meant to avoid rubbing elbows with his mother. In a way, Tian appreciated that. Connie used to be a good helpmate by all accounts, but the old woman’s presence here had transformed her. Then, who wouldn’t have changed, given the circumstances? So he ought to feel for his wife.
One evening, as he was clearing the table while Connie was doing the dishes in the kitchen, his mother said, “I ran into a fellow townswoman today, and we had a wonderful chat. I invited her to dinner tomorrow.”
“Where are you going to take her?” Tian asked.
“Here. I told her you’d pick her up with your car.”
Connie, having overheard their conversation, came in, holding a dish towel and grinning at Tian. Her bell cheeks were pink, while her eyes twinkled naughtily. Again Tian was amazed by her youthful face. She was a looker, six years younger than he. He was unhappy about Meifen’s inviting a guest without telling him in advance, but before he could speak, Connie began, “Mother, there’ll be a snowstorm tomorrow — Tian can’t drive in the bad weather.”
“I saw it on TV,” Meifen said. “It will be just six or seven inches, no big deal. People even bike in snow back home.”
Tian told her, “It’s not whether I can pick up your friend or not, Mom. You should’ve spoken to me before you invited anyone. I’m busy all the time and must make sure my calendar allows it.”
“You don’t need to do anything,” Meifen said. “Leave it to me. I’ll do the shopping and cooking tomorrow.”
“Mom, you don’t get it. This is my home and you shouldn’t interfere with my schedule.”
“What did you say? Sure, this is your home, but who are you? You’re my son, aren’t you!”
Seeing a smirk cross his wife’s face, Tian asked his mother, “You mean you own me and my home?”
“How can I ever disown you? Your home should also be mine. No? Oh heavens, I never thought my son could be so selfish. Once he has his bride, he wants to disown his mother!”
“You’re unreasonable,” he said.
“And you’re heartless.”
“This is ridiculous!” He turned and strode out of the dining room.
Connie put in, “Mother, just think about it — what if Tian already has another engagement tomorrow?”
“Like I said, he won’t have to be around if he has something else to do. Besides, he doesn’t work on Saturdays.”
“Still, he’ll have to drive to pick up your friend.”
“How about you? Can’t you do that?”
“I don’t have a driver’s license yet.”
“Why not? You cannot let Tian do everything in this household. You must do your share.”
Seeing this was getting nowhere, Connie dropped the dish towel on the dining table and went to the living room to talk with Tian.
However, Tian wouldn’t discuss the invitation with Connie, knowing his mother was eavesdropping on them. Meifen, already sixty-four, still had sharp ears and eyesight. Tian grimaced at his wife and sighed. “I guess we’ll have to do the party tomorrow.”
She nodded. “I’ll stay home and give you a hand.”
It snowed on and off for a whole day. The roofs in the neighborhood blurred and lost their unkempt features, and the snow rendered all the trees and hedges fluffy. It looked clean everywhere, and even the air smelled fresher. Trucks passed by, giving out warning signals while plowing snow or spraying salt. A bunch of children were sledding on a slope, whooping lustily, and some lay supine on the sleds as they dashed down. Another pack of them were hurling snowballs at each other and shouting war cries. Tian, amused, watched them through a window. He had dissuaded his mother from giving a multiple-course dinner, saying that here food was plentiful and one could eat fish and meat quite often. Most times it was for conversation and a warm atmosphere that people went to dinner. His mother agreed to make dumplings in addition to a few cold dishes. Actually, they didn’t start wrapping dumplings when the stuffing and the dough were ready, because Meifen wanted to have her friend participate in some way in preparing the dinner, to make the occasion somewhat like a family gathering.
Toward evening it resumed snowing. Tian drove to Corona to fetch the guest, Shulan, and his mother went with him, sitting in the passenger seat. The heat was on full blast, and the wipers were busy sweeping the windshield; even so, the glass frosted in spots on the outside and fogged on the inside. Time and again Tian mopped the moisture off the glass with a pair of felt gloves, but the visibility didn’t improve much. “See what I mean?” he said to his mother. “It’s dangerous to drive in such weather.”
She made no reply, staring ahead, her beaky face as rigid as if frozen and the skin under her chin hanging in wattles. Fortunately, Shulan’s place was easy to find. The woman lived in an ugly tenement about a dozen stories high and with narrow windows. She was waiting for them in the footworn lobby when they arrived. She looked familiar to Tian. Then he recognized her — this scrawny person in a dark blue overcoat was nobody but a saleswoman at the nameless snack joint on Main Street, near the subway station. He had encountered her numerous times when he went there to buy scallion pancakes or sautéed rice noodles or pork buns for lunch. He vividly remembered her red face bathed in perspiration during the dog days when she wore a white hat, busy selling food to passersby. That place was nothing but a flimsy lean-to, open to waves of heat and gusts of wind. In winter there was no need for a heater in the room because the stoves were hot and the pots sent up steam all the time, but in summer only a small fan whirred back and forth overhead. When customers were few, the salespeople would participate in making snacks, so everybody in there was a cook of sorts. Whenever Tian chanced on this middle-aged Shulan, he’d wonder what kind of tough life she must be living. What vitality, what endurance, and what sacrifice must have suffused her personal story? How often he’d been amazed by her rustic but energetic face, furrowed by lines that curved from the wings of her nose to the corners of her broad mouth. Now he was moved, eager to know more about this fellow townswoman. He was glad that his mother had invited her.
“Where’s your daughter, Shulan?” Meifen asked, still holding her friend’s chapped hand.
“She’s upstairs doing a school project.”
“Go get her. Let her come with us. Too much brainwork will spoil the girl’s looks.”