The New Year Boyfriend

by Zoey Gong

  “Kai!” his mother said as he entered the room. “There’s my boy. Meimei, let’s set a place for Kai.”

  One of Kai’s aunts was there fixing dinner for her sister and herself. She gladly prepared another bowl of rice for her nephew, but Kai was too sick with worry to eat.

  “Ma,” Kai said, his eyes downcast. “We...we need to leave.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I can’t afford your treatments anymore,” he said. “So there is no point in you staying here. You need to come home with me tonight.”

  Kai’s mother and aunt looked at each other and set their chopsticks down. They were suddenly unable to eat either.

  “I just remembered that I need to call my son,” Kai’s aunt said, dismissing herself politely and stepping outside.

  “I’m sorry, Ma,” Kai said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What happened?” she asked. “I thought things were going well with your job.”

  “I screwed up,” he said. “I did something terrible and stupid. I stole from the company. So they fired me and levered a huge fine. If I don’t pay it, I’m going to go to jail.”

  His head dropped to his hands and he started to cry. He couldn’t contain it. He was the ultimate failure. He couldn’t take care of his own mother. He was a worthless child. A pitiful excuse for a man.

  “Oh, Kai,” his mother said, moving around the table and wrapping her arms around him. “I’m so sorry for what you have been going through. I was so wrapped up in my own worries about my health, I ignored the signs that things weren’t going well with you.”

  “The signs?” Kai asked.

  “Working all the time,” his mother said. “The bags under your eyes. You wear the same clothes for days. I suppose I thought that if things were truly that dire, you would tell me. I didn’t want to hurt your pride by asking if anything was wrong.”

  “No, Ma,” Kai said, squeezing her hand. “You shouldn’t have to worry about me. You need to focus on your health. I should be able to take care of you. I failed. And now you are going to die. I’m so, so sorry.”

  His mother held him tightly. “Don’t talk about that,” she said. “I’m not dying yet. We will find a way out of this, I promise you. Haven’t we been through tough times before?”

  Kai nodded. There had been many times when they had been without work or without a place to live, and they always survived as long as they had each other. Maybe that was why Kai had failed, he had not included his mother in any of his plans. He had tried to take care of her alone. He nodded as he took her hand.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We have. But I don’t see a way out of this.”

  “We will find one,” she said. “But first, we need to clean this up and go home.”

  Kai’s aunt came back into the room and together they cleaned the room and packed up his mother’s few belongings. As they left the little apartment and headed to the car, the other residents of Cancer City nodded at them knowingly. So many of their neighbors had made a similar exit, either when money or hope had run out.

  As they rode home in silence, Kai wracked his brain for an answer, but he had been trying to find a way out of this mess for months and he was exhausted.

  “Kai,” his mother finally said. “Tell me what’s bothering you. Stop trying to carry this burden alone.”

  “I just don’t know what to do,” Kai said. “We need money and you need treatments. I don’t see a way to get either one.”

  “What about that nice Australian doctor?” his mother asked. “The one who helped set up the latest treatment plan.”

  Kai had forgotten that his mother had seen Winnie when Winnie participated in a conference call to discuss her treatment.

  “We are...not in a good place,” Kai said.

  “Oh?” his mother asked, cocking her eyebrow. “Were you seeing each other?”

  “I don’t know what we were,” Kai said. “Just friends for sure. Not sure if we were ever anything more.”

  “Well, if she is your friend, surely you can reach out to her,” his mother reasoned.

  “I don’t know,” Kai said. “I think she will be angry if I try to talk to her.”

  “Angry at you for talking about your sick mother?” she asked. “She didn’t seem that heartless to me.”

  “No,” Kai said. “She’s not heartless. Just complicated.”

  His mother scoffed a laugh. “Aren’t we all?”

  Kai had to laugh in agreement.

  “I think you should call her,” she said. “What do you have to lose?”

  Kai nodded. His mother was right. He took her hand in his and kissed the back of it.

  “I will,” he said. As soon as he got up the courage.

  21

  “And what treatment would you recommend?” Dr. Frasier asked Winnie and the rest of the interns she was with. Winnie raised her hand, but the doctor called on someone else.

  “A course of antibiotics with a follow up in two weeks,” the other intern said.

  “Very good,” the doctor said. “Anything else?” Winnie raised her hand again, but again she was overlooked.

  “I would also run the bloodwork again, looking for additional abnormalities,” the intern said.

  The doctor nodded. “Let’s move on.”

  “I would also recommend acupuncture,” Winnie spoke up. Everyone paused and looked at her. “It is known to alleviate this type of pain specifically.”

  She heard one of the interns scoff and a couple of others giggle.

  “I suppose you could,” the doctor said, “but it would not be necessary. Anyone else? Then let’s move on.”

  Winnie grimaced and reached into her pocket, squeezing the diamond engagement ring that Chang had given her when he drove her to the airport for her return to Sydney. She never wore it, but she always carried it with her. A reminder of the devil’s bargain she had made in order to stay here. Lately, she needed help remembering why she wanted to be here so badly. Why she was risking everything to study here. Being ignored and even laughed at by teachers and colleagues was nothing new. She’d been subjected to that sort of rudeness from the day she stepped into Australia. But she’d never let it bother her before. It was just one more thing to overcome. As a woman. As a minority. As a person determined to get ahead no matter what. But the health scare with her sister, the loss of all her savings, the lies upon lies she told to her family. Getting engaged to a man she couldn’t stand. Knowing what her ambitions had cost her sister. The loss of her friendship--or something more--with Kai. She wasn’t so sure it was worth it anymore. She had her friends, but she was still lonely, and very sad. Of course, she could still stick it out. She’d come so far. She might not have gotten into that program, but she was still going to be a doctor in a couple of years. Everything she had been working for could still happen.

  She just wasn’t sure she wanted it to anymore.

  ‘What’s eating you?” Brock asked as he slid his lunch tray across the table and sat down. Winnie looked down and realized she’d only been poking at her salad with her fork. She hadn’t eaten a bite. In fact, she hadn’t been eating much at all since her return to Sydney. She missed Chinese food, and nothing in Sydney--especially in the university cafeteria--satisfied the gnawing hunger in the pit of her stomach that never seemed to quite dissipate no matter how much she ate.

  “Just...missing home,” she said, and Lian froze mid-step as she approached.

  “What?” she asked. “You?”

  “I know,” Winnie said, scooting to the side and making room for Lian. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s not the right way to describe it. Just a general unhappiness I guess.”

  “Are you missing China?” Brock asked. “Or Kai?”

  “Yeah, you’ve hardly mentioned him since you got back,” Lian said. “What happened?”

  Winnie shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell on that front. I haven’t heard from him in weeks, and I don’t blame him.”

  “Why?” Brock asked. �
�What happened between you two?”

  Winnie pulled the ring out of her pocket and slid it across the table.

  Lian’s and Brock’s mouths gaped open.

  “He proposed?” Lian asked.

  “No,” Winnie said. “Chang did...and I accepted.”

  “What?” Lian and Brock both shouted at once.

  “Shh!” someone hissed from across the room.

  “Sorry!” Brock said loudly, then he whispered harshly to Winnie. “What? Why didn’t you tell us? How could that have happened? Why?”

  “Yeah,” Lian said. “All that!”

  “I guess I was hoping I could find a way out of it,” Winnie said. “That it wasn’t a real engagement. Chang paid for my sister’s treatments. And then he found out I was living in Australia. He threatened to tell my parents. They would have been so angry. And so hurt. And I was scared for Lingling. I didn’t know what to do!”

  She slapped her hand over her mouth as the tears started to pour out. What had she done? She’d ruined everything. Her whole life was in shambles and for what? She was miserable! How did she let things go so wrong?

  “Hey,” Lian said, reaching over and rubbing her back. “It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Yeah,” Brock said, patting the back of her hand. “We will figure this out.”

  “How?” Winnie asked. “What am I going to do?”

  “You need to tell your mother the truth,” Lian said. “Before you end up married.”

  “But all of this, Kai, Chang, the last-minute flights, the lies,” Winnie said. “All of it was to avoid telling her the truth. She will be furious. She will make me come home.”

  “Better to go home single than married to Chang,” Brock said. “And you’re still her daughter. She will be mad, and hurt, but she’ll get over it eventually.”

  “You don’t know my mother,” Winnie scoffed.

  At that, her phone rang. Winnie gulped as she looked at it.

  “It’s her,” she said.

  “It’s a sign,” Lian said with a nudge, encouraging her to answer the phone. Winnie looked at Brock. He shrugged.

  “No time like the present,” he said.

  Winnie took a deep breath and answered the phone. “Wei, Ma.”

  “Wenwen,” her mother said. “We need to set the date for the wedding.”

  “Ma--” Winnie tried to say, but her mother rambled on.

  “Chang’s family wants to set the date now so we can book a room for the reception,” she said. “And we need to make sure everyone can take off work to be here. You’ll need to get the wedding pictures done while the weather is nice, so before summer ends. And you and Chang both need to go to the registration office and get the paperwork started. And don’t forget to--”

  “I’m not marrying Chang,” Winnie blurted out.

  Her mother paused for a moment, but then went on. “Of course you are,” she said. “You are just nervous. I understand. But if you come back to Harbin and spend more time with him, everything will be fine. I spoke to a friend at the local hospital, and he said they are always hiring nurses. So it would be--”

  “I’m not coming to Harbin,” she said. “I...I’m not in China. And I’m not a nurse.”

  “Wenwen?” her mother asked, confused. “What are you saying?”

  “Ma,” Winnie said, sitting up straight even though her mother couldn’t see her. “I’m an obstetrics intern at the University of Sydney in Australia studying to be an obstetrician. I’ve been living here for two years. I only have a couple of years left to finish my program and become a doctor. I’m sorry I lied, but I’m staying here and finishing my program. I’m not marrying Chang.”

  The silence on the other end of the line was terrifying. Even Lian and Brock were clutching each other tightly, waiting for her response.

  Finally, her mother spoke. She didn’t yell, but her voice was low and clear. “If you don’t come home and marry Chang right now, don’t ever try to come home again.”

  “Ma,” Winnie said, “you don’t mean that.”

  “I do,” her mother said. “You have been living in another country and never told me? What if something happened to you and I didn’t know? My own daughter. My first-born. How could you do this to me?”

  “It was always my dream to be a doctor,” Winnie said. “You know that. But you wouldn’t help me go to medical school. So I worked and raised the money and got scholarships and did it myself.”

  “And you never told me?” her mother asked. “You didn’t answer my question. How could you do such a thing?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Winnie said. “I still sent money home every month. I was there for Lingling.”

  “Family is about more than money,” her mother said. “You lied to me. I don’t know you at all. You are never here.”

  “I just need more time--” Winnie tried to say, but her mother cut her off.

  “No,” she said. “You have had enough time, you selfish girl. You come home. Now. Get on a plane and come here now. You will marry Chang and stop living this fantasy life.”

  “No,” Winnie said. “I can’t. I won’t. I hate Chang. I won’t marry him and you can’t make me.”

  “Just come home and we can talk about it,” her mother said.

  “I can’t,” Winnie said. “I have missed too much work already when I was in Shanghai for Lingling. There won’t be another break until Christmas.”

  “Now!” her mother yelled. “Or never again.”

  Winnie’s heart seized in her chest. Her mother was more than angry. She was disowning her. Cutting her off. Of course, if she called her mother’s bluff, there was always the chance that she eventually would change her mind. But what if she didn’t? She had only ever known her mother to be hard and unrelenting. If she refused her mother’s order, this might very well be the last time they ever spoke.

  “I can’t,” Winnie said. “I’m sorry.”

  She braced herself for more yelling, but what she got was much worse.

  Her mother ended the call.

  “Hello?” Winnie said. “Ma? She cut me off.”

  “Maybe the call just got disconnected,” Lian said. “The service in here is not good.”

  “No,” Winnie said. “She cut me off altogether. I think she just disowned me. She told me to never come home.”

  Lian gasped, her hand going to her mouth. “What? Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Brock asked. “All moms say that from time to time.”

  “Not Chinese moms,” Lian said. “If she said it, she means it.”

  Brock looked at Winnie, alarm on his face. “How are you feeling?”

  “I hate to say it,” Winnie said. “But I feel lighter. Better. The endless knot in my stomach is loosening.”

  Lian nodded. “Telling the truth feels good, doesn’t it?”

  “I think that’s it,” Winnie said. “I feel sad, and a little scared over my mom disowning me. But it doesn’t feel nearly as bad as the weight of the lies on my shoulders. Or the fear of having to marry Chang.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Brock asked.

  “Give my mom space,” Winnie said. “I have to hope she will come around. But I have other problems to fix too.”

  “Like what?” Lian asked.

  Winnie picked up the ring from the table. “Like sending this back to Chang. And apologizing to Kai.”

  “Kai was just your New Year boyfriend,” Brock said. “Now that your mom knows the truth, you don’t need him anymore. Just let it go.”

  Winnie knew that Brock was probably right on some level. She could walk away from Kai. Just let whatever was going on between them end. And yet, she knew she couldn’t. That kiss had been more than just a kiss. There was something about Kai that she wanted. Did she dare think he had something she needed? She could be herself around him. She could relax. Being with him didn’t feel constraining, but freeing. She wanted to feel that again. She pulled her phone
out and called him.

  “Umm...hey,” he said when he answered. “I...I was just thinking of calling you.”

  “Really?” she asked, her heart skipping a beat. Maybe there was hope for them after all.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not sure why. I know you can’t help me. But I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “What do you mean?” Winnie asked.

  “It’s my mom,” he said. “We had to end her treatments. I...I lost my job. I couldn’t pay the bill. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Oh, Kai,” Winnie said, her heart breaking for him. “I’m so sorry!”

  “I didn’t know if you had any contacts,” he said. “Some kind of medical trial or a medical school that offers free or low-cost treatments. I don’t know. Anything.”

  She could hear the desperation in his voice. The last time she had spoken to Kai’s mother’s doctor, the test results had been promising. She was sure that in only a few months, she would be in remission. But if she went too long without treatment, the cancer could come back even stronger than before.

  “Kai,” Winnie said. “Don’t despair, okay. I’m going to find a way to help you. I promise.”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” she said.

  “Then don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said.

  Winnie stood up. “I will fix this,” she said. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

  “What are you going to do?” Brock asked as she ended the call.

  “I’ve been working at the cancer center for years,” Winnie said. “I’m going to talk to everyone I know and find a way to save Kai’s mom.”