Good Chinese Wife

by Susan Blumberg-Kason

  My mom waited in line again as I kept watch. When it was her turn to speak to the gate agent, I could see them discussing something but couldn’t hear or read their lips. It seemed like an hour passed, all in slow motion.

  “We’re on the red-eye and have a room at the Marriott. Let’s find the shuttle.”

  Pushing Jake in one stroller while my mom maneuvered the other stroller holding the car seat, we raced through the terminal to the outside transportation area. As the time got later, I grew certain that Cai would find us one way or another.

  While we stood outside for the Marriott shuttle, I started to shiver even though I was still wearing my heavy winter jacket. The wait seemed to take all day, but in reality the bus arrived within five minutes. It wasn’t until we’d safely reached our hotel room, closed the door, and locked it that I could relax until we had to return to the airport later that night.

  By then, Cai would surely know I had left with Jake. It would also give him time to learn about the canceled flight and the next scheduled one to Chicago, the red-eye for which we now had reservations. Over the years, I had called airlines to check if friends or family were on certain flights. The airlines claimed they wouldn’t divulge that information, but after much pleading they always gave the information I sought. So Cai, with his charming voice and pleasant manners, wouldn’t have a problem either.

  At that time, most cell phone packages made it prohibitively expensive to call long distance. That was the reason my mom had rented a cell phone at the airport the day before. We had returned it hours earlier with the rental car, so to call my dad, my mom took out her calling card to use on the phone in our hotel room. I listened closely as she explained the whole ordeal to him. “If Cai calls, tell him that Budgie went to meet us at the airport. Stall him as long as you can, but call us as soon as you hang up with him.”

  I tried to rest but could barely close my eyes. Expecting Cai to phone any moment after 3:00 p.m., when he usually returned home, I fidgeted and paced the small room. My mom ordered a few sandwiches through room service. I fed some to Jake, but I had no appetite, not even for a sip of tea.

  “Why isn’t Cai calling? Maybe Dad forgot to call us.” Or perhaps Cai wouldn’t call my parents. If he found out about our canceled flight, there would be no need to call my parents. He would care more about intercepting us at the airport, even if it meant waiting for hours in the departures terminal.

  My mom reached for the room phone. “I’ll call Dad again.”

  They spoke for a few minutes. “Nothing yet.” It was almost 4:00 p.m. Maybe Cai had stopped to rent porn, I thought wryly.

  By 6:00 p.m. I finally felt hungry, so my mom ordered room service again. Just after she placed the call, the phone rang. My mom and I looked at each other as it rang again. Without speaking, we knew it was my dad. And that he was calling with an update.

  “Do you want me to get it?” my mom asked.

  The phone rang for the third time. Without answering her, I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Cai just called,” my dad said. “He was very upset and could barely speak.”

  My heart raced. “Was he angry? Did he sound violent?”

  “No, no. He was crying. He sounded heartbroken.”

  I slumped into a chair next to the bed. This wasn’t how I had expected him to react. Given his violent outbursts and love of the silent treatment, wasn’t he supposed to lash out at dinner plates or water glasses after reading my letter? Or maybe he would feel relieved, happy I’d left and given him the chance to return to China carte blanche.

  My dad continued. “I told him you weren’t going to arrive for a couple of hours. I tried to stall and say you’d call him in the morning, but he insisted on phoning back tonight. What should I tell him?”

  I gazed at my mom, who sat with Jake on the bed and stared at me. “Dad, can you say I’m exhausted and I’ll call him in the morning?”

  Room service arrived and I forced myself to eat something. I wondered why Cai’s reaction seemed harder to digest than hearing he had been angry or violent about it. Then I realized it was guilt. I was abandoning him in a country he didn’t like, taking away his son, and leaving him with a house, two cars, and no way to pay the mortgage or the other bills.

  My mom suggested we rest up before heading back to the airport for our red-eye departure. She phoned down to the reception desk for a 9:00 p.m. wake-up call that evening. Jake had already fallen asleep in the middle of the bed, so my mom and I lay on either side of him and tried to close our eyes. Images passed through my mind of Cai slumped over the kitchen counter, the tear-soaked letter in his hands.

  By the time we entered the departures terminal hours later, I no longer felt guilty. The terror that I had experienced earlier that day returned in full force. Eerily quiet on a Saturday night, the airport exuded tranquility in contrast to the throngs loitering around the gates earlier that day. I feared Cai would be lurking around the corner after we passed through security.

  The one consolation was that it would be easier to spot Cai at this late hour, but that turned out not to be true. Each tall man with dark hair who came into vision looked just like him from afar. I could no longer differentiate between paranoia and rational concerns.

  Even when we reached the gate without incident, I positioned myself at all times so I could view passersby. After my mom checked the strollers at the gate, she insisted that Cai was probably too upset to think about calling the airport, but I wouldn’t take any chances. When the gate agent called for families traveling with young children to board first, I sprinted to the gate with Jake held tightly in my arms. My mom followed us, loaded down with the car seat and our carry-on bags. It wasn’t until the plane’s doors closed and the flight attendants announced takeoff that I felt the tension from that day—and the last few years—begin to leave my body.

  As the plane ascended, the flight attendants turned off the lights in the cabin. My mom sat in the aisle seat, finally able to sleep. Seated next to her, I turned to peer over Jake’s car seat in the window row and down at the lights peeking through the midnight fog.

  I was going home.

  Chapter 47

  Sweet Home Chicago

  A knock on my parents’ guest room door stirred me from the short nap I had taken after arriving in Chicago at five o’clock that morning. Jake slept soundly next to me.

  My dad opened my door an inch. “It’s Cai. What do you want to do?”

  “Can you tell him I’m resting and will call in a couple of hours?”

  Deprived of a night’s sleep and years of energy, what could I say to him? I didn’t know what kind of mood he’d be in. Remembering the mixed emotions during my last week in San Francisco, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Cai had moved on to anger and lashed out at me over the phone. I needed more rest before I could think clearly. But as Jake dozed soundly next to me, I found that I couldn’t fall back to sleep.

  Even though I had originally left Chicago in search of the excitement I thought I could only find in Hong Kong, it felt good to be back. I reflected back on my years in Hong Kong and my marriage to Cai, and everything I thought I wanted back then. Now what I craved was stability. Cai couldn’t give that to me, and this was the reason I had returned to Chicago. My childhood in the Midwest suddenly didn’t seem so bad anymore. It was the kind of upbringing I now wanted for Jake, rather than the turbulent way in which Cai was raised.

  Many of my friends and colleagues didn’t know Jake and I had left San Francisco. So as I lay in bed next to Jake, I made a mental list of everyone I would call in the next few days. I hadn’t talked to Janice in months, so she went to the top of the list. If anyone would be sympathetic, it would be her. She had moved back to New York a month after I left Hong Kong, and it would be easy to phone her.

  And then there was the narrative Joanne had asked me to write, describing how and when my marr
iage first started to fail and what led up to this point. Other than those two things, I planned to spend the week doing nothing but relaxing with my family, unraveling from years of tiptoeing around Cai.

  When Jake woke two hours later, I knew I had to call Cai. I had put him first all these years and found it difficult not to think about his needs now. He must be terribly upset, whether sad or angry, and deserved an explanation from me. Or maybe Cai should wait. He rarely put me first during our marriage.

  My dad was reading the newspaper when I walked into the kitchen holding Jake. He looked up. “Are you going to call Cai?”

  “I think so. Yes. I’ll do it now. Is Mom still sleeping?”

  My dad nodded and happily took Jake from my hands. Reaching for the phone, I could feel my pulse in my throat.

  Cai answered on the first ring, as if he was standing by the phone waiting for my call.

  “Susan.” The sound of his cries came through clearly. “I’m so sorry if I did something wrong. I never thought you’d leave.”

  “Cai, it’s okay.” Wait, it was not okay. I had to stop being a peacekeeper at my own expense. “I mean, I can’t go on like this.”

  He could barely get the words out. “D–d–do you want a divorce?”

  “No… I don’t know. I just need a rest. I need to think about what I want.”

  “Please come back.” He pleaded with a gentle voice I hadn’t heard in years. “I’ll do anything. I love you.”

  “I’m really tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Can we talk tomorrow?”

  “Sure, yes, call anytime you want. If I’m not home, call my cell phone.”

  “I’ll call tomorrow morning at ten your time.” Argh! I mentally hit myself on the forehead. Again, I put him first in making those plans. I didn’t want to call too early, lest I cut short his sleep.

  • • •

  The narrative I wrote for Joanne spanned sixty-seven handwritten sheets of lined paper, taking me a week to complete. Things I’d buried for years emerged like wriggling earthworms from the dirt after a stormy night: the STD, the red bathing basin in Wuhan, the Shanghai Railway Station, and the subsequent silent train ride to Suzhou, talking to prostitutes, putting porn watching before spending time with his family, and running off with Japanese Father. Those shameful events seemed like a lifetime ago. When I read about them on paper, I wept not because they’d happened, but because I’d allowed them to happen. By leaving San Francisco, I wasn’t just bringing Jake to a safe and supportive environment; I was also saving myself from a marriage that had become defined by fear.

  My daily phone conversations with Cai left me exhausted and wishing for a reprieve from his heartbroken pleas. Every time I spoke with him, he claimed he finally realized what had gone wrong. First it was his poor English and inability to find a good job. The next day he said our marriage was strained because of the late nights he kept while producing the Chinese concert. On the third day, he suggested I ask my mom to come live with us so I’d have a close family member nearby.

  He never spoke about the silent treatment, the threats to hit me or to send Jake to China, the arguments over Jake’s sleeping habits, or the times he had locked Jake in the dark guest room or had held him over the second-floor staircase. When I brought these things up—and asked him about the STD and hinted at his relationships with Yoshimoto and Xiaohong—he changed the subject and cried about how he was losing weight and was alone in the house. I felt overwhelmed by these conversations and sensed that no matter how much I asked, he’d never come forth with the truth. That first week I checked in with Joanne multiple times.

  “I just can’t talk to him every day like this. I’m worried I’ll lose my cool and drive him to hire a lawyer.”

  “It’s all right to set some boundaries. Why don’t you cut your conversations down to once a week and limit them to ten minutes? You’ll sleep better. More importantly, do you think he’s already gone to a lawyer?”

  “No, divorce seems to be the farthest thing from his mind. Of course that could change or maybe he’s trying to trick me. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Has he said anything about visiting you and Jake in Chicago?”

  “Nothing.”

  Cai never did ask to visit us, even though my letter made it clear that he was welcome. Each time I spoke with him, I asked if he would like to talk to Jake. But Cai usually said it was too upsetting for him to do that. Maybe next time. When I asked him the following week, he said the same thing. I still felt guilty that I had taken Jake away from his father, and I was frustrated that Cai wasn’t doing everything he could to keep up contact with his son. Jake could only put a couple words together, but he missed talking to his father. As the months passed, Jake rarely heard Cai’s voice.

  Stalling Cai from afar wasn’t easy, even after I limited our phone conversations to once a week. After three months, he started demanding I make a decision—either to come back or to file for divorce—and saying that he couldn’t stay in limbo anymore.

  “I want to stay here for the summer,” I finally told him in early June. “I’ll have an answer after Labor Day.” That would bring me to just beyond the six-month mark.

  He agreed to wait for my decision in early September. In the meantime, I found a lawyer in Chicago who took over from Joanne as September approached. Once I reached my sixth month in Illinois, my case would no longer be in California’s jurisdiction, thus the need to find a lawyer who was licensed to practice in Illinois.

  At the beginning of the summer, Jake started preschool near the University of Chicago and I began to temp at advertising agencies, copyediting and proofreading. We were still living with my parents, but I had put a down payment on a condo that would break ground later that year. I hoped to pay for it with the equity from the future sale of our house on Newhall Street.

  On the Fourth of July, I informed Cai I would no longer pay the mortgage from our savings. A couple weeks later, he told me he’d found a full-time job at a Chinese publishing house just south of San Francisco. He’d be working in their music department, acquiring new titles, overseeing the production process, and collaborating with the publicity department to market the books.

  When he revealed he now earned more than I made in my first job in San Francisco, I put my head in my hands. Why hadn’t he found this job earlier? Would he have looked harder if I’d been strict, or did it take a crisis for him to become serious about working? In any case, it was too late. I knew I could never go back to him, and I was pretty sure he would treat me even worse if I returned to San Francisco. So it was pointless to ask why he hadn’t tried harder before I left.

  Just before Labor Day, Cai grew exasperated for the first time since I’d left. “Please tell me what you want. I don’t care if you come back or stay there. I just have to know. I can’t go on like this, not knowing what you want.”

  “The summer’s not quite over yet. I’ll decide soon.”

  The following week, a process server handed divorce papers to Cai at his office. It was my thirtieth birthday. Cai could hire a lawyer, but our case was now in Illinois’ jurisdiction. Any legal proceedings would take place in Chicago, not San Francisco. I could finally get on with my life.

  • • •

  My Halloween divorce court date came and went without more than a quick squeal from Cai back in San Francisco. I arrived at the courthouse with my lawyer and my mom and left an hour later with sole custody of Jake and half of my marital assets. The following month Cai finally flew out to Chicago to visit Jake. My mom, Jake, and I picked him up at Midway Airport and drove him to my aunt and uncle’s home where Cai would sleep for the two days he stayed in Chicago.

  Cai gushed over Jake as the two sat in the minivan’s middle row. Although Jake hadn’t seen his father in six months, he still remembered him and took to him right away. But once we arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house, Cai perc
hed himself in a corner of the living room, squatting on the floor and weeping softly. Jake wasn’t two and a half yet, but he caught on to his dad’s distress and brought some toys over to Cai in an attempt to cheer him up. And yet Cai continued to cry.

  Whether or not Jake understood that his parents were separated, it was clear that Jake loved his father. In one way I hoped Cai would stop crying so he and Jake could play in peace, but on the other hand it seemed like a valid reason to cut our visit short that day. It was also emotionally taxing for me to see Cai after six months. A couple hours later, I told him that Jake needed to return to my parents’ for his early bedtime. He didn’t protest.

  The next morning when I returned with Jake to my aunt and uncle’s house, Cai smiled as Jake and I entered the front door. But ten minutes later he was back in the corner, crying like he had on our first day in San Francisco when he was overwhelmed by the newness of our lives there. Now I imagined he wished we were back in San Francisco. Or perhaps he regretted flying out to Chicago. He’d spent years apart from Ting-Ting, so maybe that was an easier way for him to cope with separation from his child.

  We stayed inside for the rest of that day, Cai breaking away from the corner when my aunt announced lunch. The third morning, my mom, Jake, and I drove with Cai to the airport. Although Cai’s tears ran down his cheeks as he kissed Jake good-bye outside the departures terminal, I had a feeling Cai wouldn’t be rushing back to see his son any time soon.

  And as it turned out, Cai’s visits to Jake would continue to be quick, annual forty-eight hour visits in the years to come, until he started only visiting every two years. Two years after we divorced, Cai passed his naturalization exam to become a U.S. citizen. That month he boarded a plane to move back to Hong Kong where he would be working as the music director at the Taoist temple up by the China border.

  My lawyer purposely left the terms of Cai’s visitation vague. He could see Jake whenever he wished as long as I agreed. And each time Cai asked to come to Chicago, I said yes and arranged for him to visit Jake’s school, Sunday school, soccer matches, and Little League games. I would always be amenable to Cai’s visits to Chicago, as I hoped for the best for Jake and his relationship with his father. I was past rancor and bitterness. After all, Cai had given me the great gift of my son.