“What about you? You didn’t have to become a surgeon. You could have stayed home. Are you happy now? I would have taken care of you.”
My answer was soft. “I had an obligation to my ma and to myself. I couldn’t have changed who I was. I wish I could have. Sometimes, I wish I had.” I stopped and walked a few steps away. He was watching me. “But I wouldn’t have been happy on your journey, and I know you wouldn’t have been happy on mine.”
“And our baby paid the price.” His eyes were filled with emotion. “You don’t know what it means to love a child.”
I parted my lips to speak, ready to change everything now, but then he said, abruptly, “Vivian’s pregnant again.”
I was blinded as all the tears I’d been holding back rushed into my eyes. Despite all of my logical reasoning, despite knowing we could never really have a life together, I realized now I had hoped that if he knew the full story, our fate would somehow change. I turned away and wiped my face with the back of my hands. I felt his arms go around me.
He whispered into my hair, “It’s always been you, Kimberly, from head to tail. But Vivian needs me.”
My voice was quiet. “I know. Your family needs you. Matt, why did you come back here today?”
For a long moment, he held me. “For the same reason you sent me your card. To say good-bye.”
I closed my eyes. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
Matt gave a long whistle when he saw the Ducati. Sleek and powerful, it was everything I had dreamed of in a motorcycle.
I’ll never forget that ride with Matt. His arms were around me, the smell of leather was everywhere and the scenery of New York blurred and turned liquid as we raced by. I felt as if we were traveling through a time warp, back to that first bike ride when Matt was working as a pizza delivery boy. I wished we could go back to then and through all the years that we had missed together. He was wrapped close around me, my hair streaming back onto his neck. What I would have given to have that ride last forever.
I stopped the bike. He slowly let his arms drop away from me, as if he too were reluctant to let me go. I had parked the Ducati a short distance away from his current apartment building. They lived next to the FDR Drive. The roar of the highway must have been deafening in their apartment, and the ground seemed to tremble as we walked toward their place. I stopped around the corner from the entrance. I didn’t want anyone to see us.
I swallowed. “That’s it, I guess. Ride’s over.”
He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, his eyes sadder than anything I’d ever seen.
I saw the glint of gold around his neck, under his T-shirt, and I reached out a finger and touched it. “I remember this.”
I pulled him down by the necklace around his neck. Slowly, we kissed. I was engulfed by the softness of his lips, the delicious taste of him. I had lived all these years for this kiss, so that I could be here, on this morning, with him. I would have given anything to be able to go home with him, go to our life together, with our children and no one else. Had I made the right decision? Could I have chosen the life he’d wanted for us? I hadn’t had a choice, it was simply who I was.
Then we pulled away.
There was a long moment when he looked at me with his golden eyes. Again, I drew breath and he put his finger on my lips. “Kimberly, please don’t say anything.”
He slowly lifted his necklace with the Kuan Yin pendant over his head and poured it into my hand, as he’d done so long before by the steamers at the factory.
“Take this,” he said. “Keep it. Stay safe.”
“What will you tell Vivian?”
He gazed at me steadily. “I’m going to lie and tell her I lost it.”
I knew I should have refused, given it back, but I wanted it too much. “I miss you, Matt. I will always miss you.”
Despite his sadness, he shook his head with a hint of a wry grin. “One thing I know about you, Kimberly Chang, is that you’ll always be all right.”
“Good-bye, Matt.”
He turned and walked into his apartment building, without looking back at me again.
I walked back to my bike. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at the building that contained their apartment, cherishing the knowledge that Matt was inside. Then I started to ride away but my mind and heart were so filled with him that I couldn’t help myself, and I pulled over to take one last look back.
One of the windows on the upper floors had just opened, as if that inhabitant also had too many thoughts on his mind, and someone climbed out onto one of the fire escapes. I knew it was Matt. I parked the bike on the side of the street and got off. It should have been obvious that that one was his apartment. It was crowded with plants and flowers: beautiful, that tiny fire escape filled with living things, a gentle protest against the highway and the city.
Vivian should have had my garden now. I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of that thing. Ma had taken it over for me, planting plot after plot filled with squash and winter melons, as if we were in danger of starvation. Then she would go to our bewildered neighbors with her extra vegetables in a little basket, still speaking almost no English.
“For you,” Ma said.
At first, our neighbors had either refused or tried to pay her until they realized that she lived in one of the nicer houses on their street.
“Eccentric,” they now whispered among themselves.
I got off my bike and walked a little closer. Matt stood there in the morning light, glorious in a thin T-shirt he’d changed into. He leaned on the railing while the highway rumbled behind him and the smog rose into the air. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
And then she came out.
Her hair was long now, and it blew backward in the wind. Her shoulders and arms were thin in contrast to her swollen belly. She touched his shoulder, and whatever thoughts he may have been having dissipated and he was back there, with her, his lovely wife and mother of his children. He pulled her in front of him, wrapped his arms around her, and they stood there, looking out into their future.
It started to rain as I rode, the drops beating down on my helmet like a funeral drum. It was all so much. I could let go of my past with Matt. But what really hurt was the reanimation of a dream I’d thought I’d let go of. A future of lying with him every night in our bed, raising a family together, wavered against the reflection of my headlights on the tar and disappeared into the air like smoke from a fire.
I kept his necklace inside my glove during the whole ride home. It seemed longer than usual. My mind and heart were filled with Matt, the smell of him, the feel of him. How would I ever get him out of my head again? But in the end, my emotions quieted themselves and by the time I turned onto the long driveway of our house in Westchester, I knew that someday, I would be able to fully accept it all. In a bittersweet way, I was glad I had given him his happiness with Vivian.
I parked the Ducati in front of the garage, then composed myself before walking across the lawn. As I approached the entrance, my twelve-year-old boy hurtled out the door, his gym bag in tow.
“Hey, where are you going?” I asked in Chinese.
“I’ve got baseball practice! Mom, I’m going to be late.” His Chinese, although not quite as perfect as his English, was excellent. Jason’s face was so similar to his father’s, Matt would have recognized him in a moment had he seen that photo in my office: the golden eyes, the bushy eyebrows, even the lock of hair that always fell in his face.
He was already getting his bicycle from the bike rack but I called, “Jason.”