"You very bad," Sai said ominously in Chinese.
"Yeah, well, whatever you're doing there is really making me sick. I better talk to you tomorrow, Ma." April backed out of the kitchen. She was now pretty sure there was decayed animal matter cooking in the kitchen. She decided that wherever her mother was headed with it, Skinny Dragon had to go there alone. April wasn't visiting this particular hell with her.
"No, no, no." Sai jumped out of the chair with amazing nimbleness for someone who did nothing all day but watch TV and brood. She grabbed her daughter, restraining her with an iron grip that transported April back to the time when her mother used to dig all ten fingernails into April's upper arms to break the skin, or her daughter's will, whichever came first. Skinny didn't dare do that now. But she held on, stopping April from escaping out the kitchen.
"No, Ma," April said firmly, prying off her mother's fingers. "Let go. We're not playing doctor tonight. I'm fine."
"You sick," Sai hissed. The top of her head with its crown of frizzy dyed-black hair came up to April's chin. April could have wrenched away, could have taken her mother down with the twist of her wrist. But she didn't. She let Skinny reach up a scrawny paw and clamp it on her forehead to prove she didn't have a fever.
Many times in her life April had longed for a hug, not a poke or a shove, but Skinny Dragon believed that the best mothering was achieved through tyranny, threats, and deprivation.
"Hot," Sai said with satisfaction.
"No." April moved out of range. No matter what, none of that stinking brew was going down her throat.
"Hot," Skinny insisted.
"I'm going to bed now, Ma."
"Liver very bad," Sai said knowingly.
"My liver's great."
Sai's face twisted with Chinese opera as the charges poured out. Worm daughter's face was a no-good color. Worm's pulse was racing. Pulse was elevated to ten times its normal rate. This was a sign of imminent death. Sai screamed that she personally didn't care if
boo hao
daughter bit the dust, but such a death was an insult to
her
father and mother, to their Han ancestors dating back to the beginning of time.
"My pulse is racing because I'm tired and you're screaming at me."
"No screaming!" Sai screamed.
"What's the matter with you, Ma? You've got to calm down. You're going to have a heart attack."
"No care about me. No care about your father. Only care about yourself." Still in Chinese. She gripped April's arms again.
"Oh, God." April detached herself a second time. "It's one o'clock in the morning. I have to go to work in a few hours." She stepped across the room and turned off the burner on the stove.
"Okay. Go to work. Never come back. But take medicine first."
"I'm not taking it," April told her. For the first time in her life April was absolutely determined not to take any smelly medicine.
"Yes." Sai was acting the peasant in her black pants and jacket, trying to deceive the gods about her prosperity. But the peasant guise was ruined by the natural disaster occurring on her face. Rage like a tornado, a hurricane, blasted her because she could manage any demon but her own daughter.
"No, I'm not taking it. I'm throwing it out." April reached for the pot handle.
"Nooooo!" Sai screamed. This sustained shriek was so loud it woke the dead. A loud protest came from the bedroom, and April's father shuffled out.
Ja Fa Woo was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt on his skinny body. His tongue was probing the place where two important gold teeth were missing from his lower jaw. His face was bleary with sleep. The top of his head was bald; the sides, where hair grew, were clipped down to the skin. He was even bonier than Skinny Dragon Mother, his head hardly better fleshed than a skull's. He fumbled with his black-rimmed glasses, got them on, and rubbed his flat nose, looking out at wife and daughter from eyes narrowed with pain and suspicion. He spoke with the powerful number 12 silence:
What is the meaning of this disturbance to my important sleeping self?
His wife replied with the non sequitur of silence number 42.
I told you so.
"Hi, Dad," April said.
Ja Fa Woo sniffed at the pot, scowling with silence number 3:
You did it wrong.
About the medicine.
Skinny's stony face replied:
I did not.
They fought on in this vein for a while.
"What's going on?" April was the first to speak.
"Your mother thinks you're not in harmony."
"I'm in perfect harmony," April said, touching the phone in her pocket.
Sai glared at her husband.
"Spanish boyfriend bad for liver," Ja Fa spat out
"Huh?" "Doctor said."
April shook her head. "No real doctor could have said my boyfriend is bad for my liver." She backed out of the kitchen. "If I had a boyfriend."
Which I do,
she didn't add. Both parents followed her into the other room. She felt on safer ground in the living room, turned on the light. Ah, normalcy.
Her father moved toward her suddenly, in slippered feet, and clamped his hand on her forehead as her mother had done. "Hot," he announced, as she had.
"That's because your hand is like ice. Sit down. I want to talk to you."
Sai sniffed at the air around her daughter. "Smell like monkey business."
"I'm thirty years old."
"Old maid," Sai muttered. "Double-stupid. Boyfriend no good."
"He's good."
"Why not captain?"
"He's almost the same as a captain."
"No-good Spanish," Sai spat at her.
"I won't hear that." April was ready to spit fire herself. Her mother was not even five feet tall. Her father was not more than five two. She suddenly realized they were not the giants she'd thought. She let her voice show her anger. "I will not hear that. I will not let you say that. Mike is a good man. He is a better man than anyone I've ever met. I love him."
"You marry?" Sai screamed.
April flushed, unsure. "Maybe."
"No marry you, not good man," her father said.
"He wants to marry me. I'm the one who's not sure," April clarified.
"Ayiee!" Sai screamed. Worse and worse.
April threw up her hands. What did they want? There was no pleasing them. "I'm going to bed now," she announced.
"You eat something." Sai tried a new tack.
"I ate."
"You take medicine for your heart." Skinny followed her to the stairs.
"I thought it was my liver."
"Heart," Sai insisted. "Heart fever."
Whatever. April had reached the first step when a high-pitched wail rose from outside. Sai charged out into the kitchen. "Sollie, sollie, sollie," she cried.
"What's that?"
Ja Fa Woo shook his head as Dim Sum charged into the living room barking excitedly, jumped on April, and hugged her leg with her front paws. Sai must have let her out and forgotten her. She continued to apologize to the dog in the dog's native language. "So sollie, so sollie."
April squatted down to let the beautiful apricot puppy cover her face with kisses. Her own heart beat as frantically as the dog's. There was no question that her parents' house was an insane asylum. And now she had to admit she
was
feeling a little hot, a little overwrought herself. Her parents were crazy; that point was not in doubt. But now it seemed, so was she. She'd actually thought Sai would kill her own beloved pet and make her eat it just to spite her. That proved she was as nuts as they were. "I love you," she murmured to the dog.