Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

by T Kira Madden

  One day, in J. C. Penney, Sharon pushes the baby, her baby, around in a stroller. She is looking for towels, home goods, when she sees the woman.

  This woman is too old to be the mother, not a teenager—she’s sure. Could it be the grandmother? An aunt? The Asian woman pauses, looks into her stroller.

  An Asian baby, she says. So cute, this baby.

  The Asian woman has two sons with her. They have dark skin—island boys. The boys tug on the leg of her jeans. These could be the brothers, Sharon thinks. They must be.

  Thank you, says Sharon. She’s mine.

  Doesn’t look like you.

  She’s mine.

  How old’s the baby?

  Couple of months, says Sharon, before pushing the stroller through the aisle, hooking a right, and exiting the mall.

  1976

  HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA

  She sees them everywhere—Asian babies, hapa babies—in her dreams, in the grocery store, at the mall. All babies look the same to my mother—like old white men, indistinguishable, really—but this baby, her baby, would look different. Her baby would look like an island girl, she was sure, a warm tone to her skin, tiny eyes, the hair.

  Would her baby recognize its own mother? She is taking pills to keep her breasts from lactating, but would they drip at the sound of her baby’s cry? There must be something, she thinks, between mother and child, a magnetic jolt between the two that cannot be eased apart. But how long would it take to find her? Where would she be—in which town? How would it ever happen?

  What is my daughter’s name? she wonders. She thinks about this all the time.

  The babies are everywhere. At least, she thinks she sees them. The crescent cheek in a stroller, the black silky swirl at the top of a head. Her body will recover the connection, she thinks, the recognition of her baby, some residuum of those blurry hours in the hospital. The eyes may forget but the body—it remembers.

  When my mother graduates high school, she takes a job as a hostess at a posh Japanese restaurant. The managers dress her in a kimono; they don’t care that she’s not Japanese—She looks close enough. She scans the room each night, wondering if the new parents of her daughter might take her here. An Asian experience, she imagines them saying, but she never does find them. Instead, she watches as the hibachi chefs learn to throw knives, and she is there to bandage their fingers after each miss. She returns home to shower off the stink of burned onions. She falls asleep curled in a towel each night, her hair still wet.

  On the weekends, she takes a job as a Floor Bunny at the downtown Playboy Club. She is weighed in each evening (an extra pound allowed during her period) by a Mother Bunny, who has taught her to Bunny Perch when serving men their drinks. Breasts forward, in their face. Left knee tucked behind right. Remember, they own you. Remember to be pretty.

  You must move forward, Tao says. You’ve got a whole story after this.

  But their mother and father have separated; my mother’s baby is gone. Her life feels pau, over before it ever started.

  My mother moves back to Honolulu for one year. She moves into Tūtū’s sewing room, where flying roaches buzz against the walls. Although this is her island, it has changed since she was a girl—she feels malihini, new again, like a tourist—and her tūtū tries to bring back her old music, the accent on her tongue, the slow-cooked meats and body language.

  During the day, my mother takes a bus to the Ala Moana shopping center, where she will try on whatever clothes she is given, climb up into a window, and pose. She is told to suck in, stretch her neck into a C, stand up straight, smile. She is good at this; I can imagine her as if I were there. I imagine her poised, eyes following each person walking by, legs buckled at the knees. I imagine my mother waiting for somebody, anybody, to stop.

  FALL, 2015

  NEW YORK, NY; ATLANTIC BEACH, NY

  If I have the flu, I can’t be around you, I say into the phone.

  Get one of those nerd masks, says my father. The ones you Asians wear on the planes.

  Tell Mom thanks for passing this on; I was up all night sweating off a fever.

  Mom’s making me chicken soup today, he says. I also feel lousy.

  Good. It’s her turn.

  You took care of me last week; that bean stew helped. It’s my turn.

  I can’t get out of bed, I say. And I really can’t come, with your immune system how it is.

  Have a driver get you out here—I’ll pay.

  I just want to sleep. I need to be home.

  You sound terrible, really.

  I sound like you.

  You sound like me.

  Well I guess we’re both stuck, I say. At least we’ve got the phone.

  I guess that’s safe.

  Drink water, Daddy.

  Take care of yourself, baby.

  I love you. Feel better.

  Okay, now. You, too.

  Later that night, when I arrive alone to my parents’ dark house, the pot of water on the stove has gone cold. The chicken thighs, still pink in their Styrofoam casing. The vegetables are peeled, lined up in a row, a knife dropped with a carrot still clinging to the blade of it.

  1980

  MIAMI, FLORIDA

  My mother responds to an ad and takes a job as a secretary. She wears an outfit that says she knows what she’s doing, that she is more than an island girl, or a Playboy Bunny, or a window and hotel model, no, she is serious here—twenty years old, a woman—with her hair pinned back, a pencil skirt hugging her knees. She will be sophisticated, yes; she is going to make something of her life.

  On her first day, a man walks through the door, combing his hair. He’s wearing sunglasses, his jacket swung over his shoulder, hooked on a finger. His cologne—a velvet spice that she’ll go chasing for the rest of her life. He passes right by her at first, pauses, then walks backward to her desk.

  I don’t believe we’ve met, he says. You must be my new girl.

  Your secretary, yes, says my mother.

  The man reaches for her hand and bows to her. He kisses her between the pointer and middle knuckles, peering up above his glasses. My mother crosses and uncrosses her legs beneath her desk. She does not know how to use her body in this moment, with this man. He is older, bejeweled. His hands, so certain.

  I’m John Madden, he says.

  See my parents, the moment they meet.

  SPRING, 2016

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  She calls me first. It’s one fifty-nine P.M. on a Thursday, and I’m at my desk when the phone rings. Hello, my name is Marjorie, she says, from the DNA site. It is my mother’s voice, exactly, but it is not my mother on the phone. The name—Marjorie—is not my mother’s name.

  Hello, I say, to the voice of my mother. I’m at work; let me step out for a moment.

  I exit the building and stand on the sidewalk of Twenty-Sixth Street, next to a Holiday Inn. It’s an overcast day. Still a chill in the air. Men with briefcases walk in a cluster and bump around my body to get by.

  Thanks for getting back to me, I say. Like I said, I’ve been working on this family tree.

  Oh, of course, she says. I hope I can help.

  So who are you? A secret cousin of mine? Or an aunt? I know it says 1706 centimorgans on the site, but I’m not sure what that means. And your picture—it’s so small. I can only see your hair, really. Who are your parents?

  Why did you take the test? she wants to know. This woman.

  My father died six months ago, I say. The tree—I’m just trying to fill in the blanks, I guess. There’s a lot in my family—just, a lot.

  I see. I’m so sorry to hear that.

  The test was a gift. A Christmas gift.

  Okay, she says. We are both breathing heavily into the phone. I’m not sure why that is.

  Why did you take it? I ask.

  Well, she says, I was adopted at birth.

  I watch a slouching man push a hotdog cart around the corner. I watch a woman exit the ceramic shop with a brown p
aper bag strangling her wrist. I scuff the sidewalk with the toe of my loafer. I’m not sure what to say to this woman.

  Maybe we can both help each other?

  I think we can, yes, she says.

  Well, I think you may be my cousin, or aunt, I say. I’m pretty sure. My family, there’s a lot no one talks about.

  I do not want to be the one to tell her this. She must be my grandfather’s—he had women on the side. I do not want to tell her that he never mentioned another child. He never went to look. I don’t have a clue who the mother might be. Mostly, I do not want to tell her that my grandfather has been dead for almost twenty years.

  I’ve seen a picture of you, she says. On the Internet. I feel like I’m looking into a mirror.

  Everyone in my family looks alike, I say. Island genes—they’re strong.

  But it’s like looking directly into a mirror, she says. Do you understand what I’m saying?

  I think you may be my aunt, I say.

  Please, help me, she says. I’ve been looking all my life. Please.

  The hotdog man is gone. A girl smokes outside the Holiday Inn. She’s on a bench, talking on the phone. She sips soda out of a green bottle. On her knee, half a sandwich in plastic wrap.

  I’ll try to help you, I say. Tell me what you know.

  I know that for every birthday of my entire life, I’ve woken up wondering if my mother remembers the day. If she’s thinking of me. If she looks like me. If she knows.

  Let’s start from the beginning, I say. Where were you born?

  Hollywood, Florida, she says. That’s somewhere between Miami and Boca Raton.

  I know it, I say. I was born around there, too. When?

  July 11, 1976, she says. 7-11. It’s one of the few things I know.

  My sister and I speak to each other every morning and every night. We check in all day. I can’t focus on anything but her. The pictures of her face, the way her voice sounds like my mother, the words that she uses to describe the moon, the descriptions of her house, her favorite movies. She leaves me voice mails singing Joni Mitchell songs—we both love Joni, we have all the same favorites—and I play them and replay them, my sister, my sister can sing, my sister. We send each other photos all day long, and I zoom in to see her face more clearly. I want to see every beauty mark. Every angle of her teeth.

  At night, we go through the lists: What is your favorite meal? What is your favorite memory? Do you like mustard? Can you drink or do you get Asia Glow? Who was your first kiss? What is your husband like? What is your girlfriend like? Did you always know you were gay? What are my nieces like? What was your childhood like? What is our mother like?

  My mom is kind, I say. She always smells good. She writes a beautiful letter. You’re going to love her. I constantly correct myself: Our mom. Ours.

  Marjorie Brooke Gelbwaks, Contestant #2, Miss Florida Pageant, 1999

  It is like preparation for death, I think. Describing my mother—her entire life. Who she’s been as a person; who she is now. I am used to talking about my father this way—you would have loved him—but never my mother.

  We fall asleep, one of us still talking, the other mumbling into the phone.

  Are you still there? one of us will say.

  Yes. Keep going, please, talk.

  The relationship we have is nothing short of obsessive. Hannah is worried. She does not want me to have my heart broken. Careful, she says. She can already tell I am in love.

  I just wonder, I say. What do you think she looks like naked? Do you think we have the same hips? The same legs? Are our breasts the same size and shape? Do you think hers are fake? Will I look like her in twelve years?

  Why don’t you meet each other first?

  How long should I wait before I tell her I love her?

  Meet each other, she says.

  My sister has had a flight booked for months. To New York, the following week. She owes her best friend a visit, she says. My mother has a flight booked to New York, the same week. She owes me a visit, she says.

  I can’t tell Mom on the phone, I tell my sister. I’ll sit down with her. Explain. We’ll go from there. I’m sure she’ll want to meet you, too.

  My sister says, Thank you, thank you, I’d like that, but I can tell she does not have her hopes up.

  Marjorie’s profile photo, Ancestry.com. Account created January 2014.

  WINTER, 1988

  COCONUT GROVE, FLORIDA

  My mother has skipped her period once, twice, three times by now. She was told after the first child that she had an ovarian obstruction, twists and bumps inside her, little chance to ever be pregnant again.

  I thought there was no chance, she tells my father now. She is sitting on the floor of her living room. She is trying to tell him something.

  What are you trying to tell me? You said it was impossible, he says. He is pacing the room. He pumps his fist inches from the wall of her canary-yellow apartment as if he will let it go, as if he will smash this entire wall down and expose the stars, but he does not.

  Get rid of it, he says.

  I will not get rid of it, says my mother. I won’t.

  I’ll have nothing to do with it, he says. I have a family. Goddammit you know I have a family. I don’t have the money.

  I’m keeping this baby, says my mother. Maybe you should have considered your family sometime in the past eight years, but I haven’t heard much about them till now.

  She wants to tell him. She wants nothing more than to tell this man, my father, that her stomach has been stretched this way before. Her stomach had been stretched over a living, breathing heart. Her body molded to it. She was sent away to live in an apartment complex with her fourteen-year-old sister; she pumped this baby with her own blood, fed and nurtured it. Her stomach stretched, and then it was emptied, and ever since there has been a cave behind her ribs where her daughter once lived. She wants to tell him everything, to finally tell someone this secret, the way her father smashed a vase when she told him, the way he drove her to one group home, then the next, before settling her into that apartment where her baby would be born, then taken. She wants to be held like a child again, but instead my father is pacing, he is shaking his fist and he is saying, Goddamn it Goddamn you woman You did this to hurt me Goddamn this you must get rid of it, will you? Don’t be such a goddamn woman. Look at me when I’m talking to you I have a goddamn family I have a wife, two children, I don’t need a bastard child.

  Then leave, says my mother. Don’t see me anymore.

  What?

  I’m keeping this child. I need this one thing. You can leave, she says.

  She wanted to tell him. Thirty-five years together—she never did.

  My mother moves back in with her sister while she is pregnant with me. The two of them watch horror movies, eat stacks of Saltine crackers (it’s the only thing my mother can stomach); they match up the grooves of puzzles on the living room floor; they tend to Tanya and Teagan. My Aunt Tao rubs lotion on my mother’s feet and they are girls again, young again, catching up, doing this very thing all over again. My mother is reading The Great Gatsby. Sometimes, she recites passages aloud.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, says my mother. I like the sound of that. The letter in front. Powerful, yeah?

  You’re right, says my aunt. Those with the initial names.

  I want a powerful child, says my mother. My child won’t be a coward. And I’m going to put a letter in front. No other name, no abbreviation, just the letter.

  You’re crazy, says my aunt. You can’t just put a letter in front.

  Maybe T, says my mother. You’re the one taking care of me, aren’t you? You and these girls. My baby may be fatherless but she’ll always have women. Yes, I’m gonna call her T.

  Ao ʻaumākua is a place in the afterworld in which all of one’s ancestors are waiting. I always liked this legend best, the idea of this place, where all family ties remain solid, intact, where nothing on Earth ever mattered. It is the place in which all fami
ly members are reunited, and I like to imagine that everyone shows up young, healthy, so much bright life in the face. In all the realms of heaven and hell, Ao ʻaumākua is most desired among the people of Hawaiʻi.

  Once the family is reunited, each spirit is encouraged to visit their own idea of home. Home can be in the depths of the sea, in the treetops. A spirit may choose their grandmother’s lap in her rocking chair, the sour smell of malasadas.

  Ancient legend describes it as the place of your greatest responsibility.

  Others define it as returning to one’s rightful place, or one’s greatest duty.

  The Hawaiian word for this is Kuleana.

  SPRING, 2016

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  My mother opens her bedroom door, walks out, chugs water in the kitchen, walks back in, shuts the door, opens the door, shuts the door, walks into the bathroom, shuts the door, opens the door, walks back to the kitchen, drinks more water, joins me in the living room, sits on the couch, opens and shuts her eyes, opens and shuts them, says things like Who, and What, and What will I tell your father?

  He doesn’t know, she says. She is shaking. There’s so much—

  He’s dead, I say. You don’t have to worry about that.

  She’s not here, my mother. She’s somewhere else, I can tell, replaying something, reckoning with something; she’s in another time.

  Don’t worry about Dad, I say, and don’t worry about me.

  In the next five minutes my mother scrambles on in incomplete sentences: Where is she? The girl? Does she hate me? Do you hate? How can you even look at me? Where is? What does she look like? Her name? Where is she? How did? Did she? Who found whom? My daughter, does she hate me? It wasn’t me who let her go. I was scared. You have to understand. What happened was this. But where is she?

  I break down the facts. I repeat them several times, until she is steady, until she can hold them. Her name. Where she lives. What she does. Here, look, I say, offering a photograph. She’s had a good life, I say.