It took Bree a minute or so to read through it. “wow… :( :( :(”
I sighed. “Yeah. Sometimes I used to think maybe I should just change my address, and my number, and not answer her calls again. I can’t now because she’d hassle Henry until she found me.” I sighed aloud and put my damp face in my hands for a second. Who was I kidding? “I can’t do that anyway because there’s only me, Mum and Grandma, and Grandma’s old and sick. I am literally the only family member who’s really left, I can’t just fucking disappear on her. Especially since she gave up everything and her whole life to come here and give me a brighter future and a good education. I mean, she’s a qualified accountant in Korea, but here she had to work as a cleaner for 15 years. She did all of it for me.”
“and so you feel like you owe her??"
Feel like? “I DO owe her.”
“no one owes anyone so much that they should marry someone theyre not in love with.... or like pretend to be someone who theyre not :( :(”
I laughed bleakly. The sound echoed off the tiles. “And yet I managed to do it for years.”
“yeah and you were fucking miserable min,” she reminded me, “you were so fucking miserable when i met you...... i dont want to watch you go back to that..... i dont care who she is :( :( i dont want to watch you go back to pretending to be a woman and pretending to be happy but actually being miserable and suicidal just because you feel guilty... ”
I sighed. “I don’t want that either, trust me. But I don’t know what to do. On one hand, she’s made these enormous sacrifices for me and she would honestly do anything for me, anything. She paid my private school fees and my $40,000 uni fees on a CLEANER’S wage while she was supporting us both. But it works the other way, too: if she thinks something is bad for me and will wreck my future, she doesn’t care who she affects around me or what she has to do to stop it.”
“well i dont care how she affects me because im not leaving you,” Bree told me valiantly.
“Your school is an inch away from chucking you out,” I reminded her. “You don’t think some crazy woman showing up and ranting at the principal might speed that up?”
Her defiance may have been wavering, but I couldn't read any sign of that in her reply. “still wouldnt leave you!!!!!!!”
I sighed. “Great, and then I get to be responsible for you not getting your HSC, too.”
“well on the bright side i probably wasnt going to get it anyway despite how awesome you and your friends are...... im too far behind and my family is too fucking pov................. :( im seriously just waiting to be called into the principal’s office….. semester 2 fees are due in like 3 weeks and i dont know if my marks are high enough yet to let me stay…………”
I felt more hopeful than she did; no school would want to be responsible for ruining their student’s future, and Bree obviously cared about hers now. I was sure they’d take that into consideration. “I bet that your marks ARE high enough for you to stay, Bree. You've been working so hard. You'll get there! :)”
She didn't reply straight away, and it gave me the opportunity to sit back on the edge of the bath and stretch. I was opposite the mirror, of course. It was jarring. I felt so much better in big, baggy clothes, and I wanted to put them on straight away, but I wasn’t done with my shower and the conversation with Bree didn't really feel like it had come to a proper end.
I tried to fix that. "Anyway, sorry about the enormous, essay-length walls of text just then. I hope I didn't fill up your internal storage complaining about my mother.”
"haha nooooo.... i was just asking google what we should do about your mum but the results are stupid and not very helpful :/ but seriously though i know youre like imagining your life is over and all that but thats worst case yeah??? best case is she doesnt even come..... and probably what actually happens is something in the middle because thats how things always work :)”
That actually felt like really good advice—good advice from Bree, which was even more jarring than the skinny chick in the mirror—and I felt better after I read it. I climbed back into the shower to wash my hair and shave, and just for good measure, I filled Sarah's soap dish with water so her soap would be all slimy and gross, and then snickered about that to myself for several minutes.
Bree was probably right, it wasn't likely to be as bad as I thought, was it? I always stressed myself out over shit. I was really, really not looking forward to getting back into stockings and a dress—I couldn't face the thought of it, honestly—but Mum couldn't live here because Grandma was really sick and not eligible for Medicare. I wasn’t even sure they’d let Grandma on a plane. So maybe Mum would come here for a while, interfere a bit, and then leave without being able to do any major damage. I’d just have to deal with it, somehow. I laughed a bit darkly to myself and wondered if Bree would forgive me for drinking again if Mum did come. Henry had always quietly handed me a big glass of wine when Mum was being really insufferable, but he wouldn’t be there to help this time.
Maybe I should just tell her about Henry and me, I thought as I got out of the shower and buffed my hair dry with the towel. Maybe Sarah's right and I should just tell her. At least then I'd know what she's going to do when she finds out and I don’t have to spend weeks fucking stressing about it. I toyed with the idea while I was brushing my teeth and moisturising my face, and then when it was time to get dressed, I picked up my phone off my hoodie.
I should tell her, I thought. Right now, so I don't talk myself out of it.
Being stupidly impulsive, I dialled her number, my heart pounding in my chest. I mentally rehearsed what I was going to say—“Mum, I have some bad news…”—and listened to each ring and the long pause between them. Frustratingly, it went straight to voicemail. I didn't bother leaving her one.
I made an angry noise, put my clothes back on, and went to go and zap myself some dinner.
While I was watching the microwave slowly turn my food and the numbers ticking down to zero, I kept second-guessing my decision to tell Mum about Henry and me. I had this nightmare image of her exploding at me and jumping straight on a plane to come over… but that wasn’t really that realistic, was it? She couldn’t just jump on a plane straight away because of Grandma. And she didn’t always handle things terribly. I remembered once when I was sick and I had a big exam to study for, she drove all the way to the other side of the city to buy me a particular laptop table so I could be comfortable in bed while I studied. She’d scrimped and saved so I could have a new haircut at a top salon for my internship interview at Frost even though hers hadn’t been cut all year. And on the night she left Australia to go live with Grandma in Korea, I saw her weeping over her packed suitcase and clutching one of my stuffed animals to her chest.
Maybe I’m having this huge panic over nothing, I thought. She loves me. She just doesn’t understand that marrying Henry isn’t what’s going to make me happy.
The sharp buzz of my phone vibrating in my pocket startled me.
My heart pounded. Oh my god, it’s her, I thought, feeling shaky. I took my phone out of my pocket and stared at it as it pulsed with Private Number on the screen.
Do it, Min, I thought. Just do it. Then you won’t have to worry about it.
I answered.
“Min! What a lovely surprise it is to have you be the one to call me for once!” she greeted me. “I’m so sorry I missed your call! Do you have some fantastic news for me?”
I grimaced. “Actually, no, I don’t. I need to tell you some bad—”
“—Oh,” she said. “Well, didn’t you do what I told you to: casually mentioning marriage and children here and there?”
“I’m working on it. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about Henry and me—”
“I was thinking about you and Henry, too. What have you planned for his birthday?”
I sighed. “I haven’t decided yet. I really want to talk to you about something else.”
“But it’s only a couple of weeks away, you can’t
just defer planning it because you don’t want to think about it,” she said, sounding a bit critical. “You need to stop always putting things off. This is important. You’d want to do something very special for him, not just because he’s a wonderful person and he deserves to be actually treated like one, but because you’re trying to get him to propose to you, Min.” She paused. “You are actually trying, aren’t you? You aren’t trying to put this off, too?”
I could feel myself slowly deflate as all my resolve began to seep out of me. Fuck everything, I thought, just fuck it. What the fuck was I thinking? “I’m trying, Mum.”
“Good,” she said. “You should think about what you will wear. Try to find out what he’s wearing, because if you show up matching, it will be very romantic.” Just as she was making some suggestions about that, the microwave dinged. I stopped it as soon as I could, but she’d heard it and stopped speaking. “Is that the microwave? What are you reheating?”
“Dinner.”
There was a long pause. “You’re at home all day, with nothing to do because you’ve quit your job, and you didn’t even make fresh food? Are you going to feed Henry that nuclear waste?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m not at Henry’s house. I’m at Sarah’s.”
“So Henry has to cook his own dinner?” I didn’t say anything. What could I fucking say to that? I could hear her release a breath. “Does he wash his own clothes too?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “So, let me get this straight, you quit your world class job to do what, exactly?”
My jaw was tight. “I’m about to start studying again, Mum.”
“No, you’re not. Your course doesn’t start until October. You quit your job in May—two months ago. And besides, you’re studying Art. It’s not the same as a real degree, there’s plenty of time to help Henry around the house. Art may be a good hobby for a mother who is wife to a rich husband, but you’re well on your way to not being either of those: you’re well on your way into the gutter, and you’re not even trying.” She took a breath and released it slowly and loudly. “It’s like as soon as I give you the smallest amount of trust, you completely abuse it. You just have no idea, no idea. I gave up everything I had for you, everything. Where do you think this leads, Min, if you’re not his wife? What does your future look like?”
“I’m 26, Mum, it doesn’t matter if I don’t know exactly what my future—”
“—Exactly! You’re 26 and you don’t know! You don’t even know how much it matters, Min: decisions you make now will affect your entire life, and you will end up suffering, and struggling, and miserable, and you just have no idea. Well, I won’t let you do this.” She exhaled. “You need to drop out of that silly degree, it’s too much of an excuse and a distraction to you.”
My stomach bottomed out and I opened my eyes. “No! It’s not, it’s not!”
“You’ve been unemployed for two months and you’re telling me it’s because you’re getting ready to study? But what have you been doing, Min? For two months? What have you been doing?”
The answer felt like a punch in the fucking stomach. “Nothing.”
“Exactly. Which university are you going to, again? I wonder if they’re open in semester break.”
She was going to call them! “No, Mum! It’s not because of the degree, really it’s not, it’s just that— it’s because I never had any proper holidays and I just need some time off and some time to—”
“No, Min. Time is the last thing you need. You get stuck in place and never do anything unless someone else basically forces you to do it. I’ve never met anyone who was such a terrible procrastinator. You would be 60 years old and not ‘ready’ to marry Henry, if it wasn’t for me. This is the push you need. Do something nice for his birthday—you know him best. Make it special, make him want to marry you, somehow. For god’s sake, make sure you look nice for once. I didn’t give up 20 years of my life to raise you just to have you throw everything I did for you away when it matters the most. You will thank me, Min, when you’re safely married to someone who will stay with you and take care of you. You’ll thank me for being strict with my difficult daughter.” She exhaled. “Well, that’s tonight ruined. The Church ladies are having an event in the park—I was going to take Grandma there. I’ve been really looking forward to it for weeks, but I don’t think I feel like it anymore, thanks to you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I didn’t know what else there was to say. I was terrified she was going to call Sydney College of the Arts and somehow get me ejected from the course; the course I’d dreamed about my entire life, and finally gotten a place in.
She didn’t sound like she accepted my apology, anyway. “The next phone call I want to get is you telling me there’s finally a ring on that finger, Min Lee. That will finally give me something to celebrate.”
She hung up, and I leant against the kitchen counter, staring at my phone. My jaw was so tight it ached, and I was still shaking.
What the fuck did I think I was doing, thinking my mother was in any way reasonable? What the fuck was wrong with me?
I hurled my phone at the floor in a single, harsh movement. The screen probably cracked, but I didn’t check.
It may have been that sound that distracted Sarah from her work. She swung into the kitchen. “I don’t know what you’re breaking in here, Toyboy, but that smells amazing,” she said. “I mean, not that I’m not going to totally throw it up straight afterwards, but can I have some if I’m really nice to…” The words died on her lips as she noticed my phone on the floor—LED still flashing—and then looked up at me. “Whoa. Whoa. Min, are you okay?”
I couldn’t even answer that question. I gestured stiffly at the microwave and managed, “Have all of it. I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Yeah, suddenly neither am I,” she said gently. She was looking at my phone, and I think she knew the answer. “What’s going on?”
“Mum called.”
She nodded slowly. “I figured. Did you tell her?”
I sighed deeply and shook my head. She hopped up to sit on the bench and draped an arm over my shoulder, resting her head on top of mine. Then, something occurred to her and she lifted it again to look at me. “Wait a sec, Min,” she began hesitantly. “Do you think she’ll show up here? Like, at my house?”
I inhaled sharply. God, I felt sick. I hadn’t even thought of that, but I immediately knew the answer. “Yes.”
She watched me, frowning. She didn’t say anything about it; she didn’t need to. She had enough going on at the moment, she wouldn’t be able to cope with much else. Neither would Henry. Or Bree. And I just fucking bet Mum would figure all that out.
FOURTEEN
I didn’t even get out of bed on Tuesday morning. I lay on my back and listened to Rob kiss Sarah goodbye on the way to work, the sound of her heels on the floorboards, and the door falling shut behind her. Then I pulled the covers over my head and just closed my eyes.
She came home from work at whatever time she did—I didn’t check—and knocked faintly on my door. “Min?”
I could hear Rob’s voice from the kitchen. “I don’t think she’s home. I haven’t seen her all day.”
“She’s home,” Sarah told him. She leant closer to the door and called in a sing-song voice, “There’s pizza out here…”
I should have at least answered her, but I didn’t even have the energy. I just stared at the ceiling as she gave up and walked away from the door.
For the rest of the night, I listened to domestic sounds of the two of them chatting together, laughing at things on TV, and going about their lives while I lay in bed.
On Wednesday when she got home, there was another knock on my door. “Hey, let me in?” When I didn’t say anything, she opened the door a crack and lopped a plain sports bar onto my bed. “Here’s some scientifically formulated sustenance so you can hate your mum properly and with increased endurance,” she called. “You’re welcome!”
On Thursday, though, she didn�
��t wait until the evening. When I wasn’t up at seven, she knocked firmly on my door. “Open up, Toyboy!” She thumped again when I didn’t answer, and more insistently.
I took a breath. “Yeah.” My voice rasped; I hadn’t spoken for two days.
Sarah came in, stood at the foot of my bed and chucked a towel at me. “This isn’t palliative care,” she told me. “Get up, have a shower, let’s talk it through. Also, for chrissake, message your poor girlfriend. I got a panicked call from her at some godforsaken hour of the night worrying that you haven’t answered her and that you’re not okay. I told her what happened. I hope you don’t mind.”
I sat up slowly and shook my head. “Thanks. My phone doesn’t work.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” she said, and then took a few steps over to my dressing table, presumably to pass it to me and supervise me answering Bree. When she picked it up, though, she paused. There was a network of big, deep spiderweb of cracks across the screen. Even though the screen didn’t work, the fucking LED was still flashing. “Huh,” she said, holding it up and examining. “Your phone doesn’t work. I guess you’ll have to email her.”
I nodded.
“Hmm,” she said, and then just heaved me out of bed by an arm, dragged me to the bathroom and deposited me inside it. “I’d give you a big hug, but you’re greasy and yuck. Have a shower.” She put the towel in my hands and closed the door.
She went to work while I was in the shower, and when I got out, she’d hidden my phone so I couldn’t see the flashing LED. That made me smile. But not half as much as it made me smile when she got home in the evening, and passed something to me while I was sitting zombified on the couch with a controller in my hand. I put the controller down to take it.
It was my phone, and it had a brand new screen and case. I looked up at her, speechless, and she grinned down at me and went to go get changed.
Flesh & Blood Page 19
