Chapter 32

The neighbor's house sits three doors down from my mother's, a pale yellow ranch with white shutters that I remember from childhood because Mrs. Kowalski used to give out full-size candy bars on Halloween. The woman who answers the door is younger than I expected, maybe forty, with reading glasses pushed up into her dark hair.

"You must be Sarah." She steps back to let us in. "I'm Mei Lin. I moved in about two years ago."

The living room smells like jasmine tea and old books. She gestures toward the couch but doesn't sit herself, hovering near the doorway like she's not sure how long this will take.

"Your mother gave me something last week. She was very specific about when you should have it." Mei Lin pulls an envelope from the bookshelf, cream-colored and thick. "She said to give it to you after your first visit. Not before."

My name is written across the front in my mother's handwriting, the characters precise and careful. The envelope is heavier than it should be.

"Did she say anything else?"

"Just that you'd understand when you read it." Mei Lin finally sits, perched on the edge of an armchair. "She came over for tea sometimes. We'd talk about gardening, mostly. She never mentioned being sick until that last week."

Daniel's hand finds mine. I don't open the envelope.

"She was private," I say.

"She was lonely." Mei Lin says it gently, without accusation, but it lands like one anyway. "I think she wanted to tell you things. She'd start sentences and then stop. 'My daughter,' she'd say, and then change the subject."

The envelope bends slightly under my grip. I make myself loosen my fingers.

"Thank you for doing this."

"There's something else." Mei Lin stands, disappears into another room, comes back with a small cardboard box. "She asked me to keep these too. Said you'd know what to do with them."

Inside the box: my mother's jade bracelet, the one her mother gave her. A stack of letters bound with string, the envelopes yellowed and addressed to someone named James. A key on a red ribbon. And underneath everything, a photograph I've never seen before—my mother, young, maybe twenty, standing next to a man who isn't my father. They're both laughing, and her hand rests on her stomach in a way that makes my own stomach drop.

"I should go," Mei Lin says. "Take your time. Just lock the door when you leave."

She's gone before I can thank her again. Daniel and I sit in the silence of a stranger's living room, surrounded by evidence of my mother's secret life.

"Do you want to open it now?" he asks.

"No."

"Okay."

"But I'm going to anyway."

The envelope tears easily. Inside, pages and pages in my mother's handwriting, English and Chinese mixed together the way she used to write her grocery lists. I start reading.

Sarah—

If you're reading this, I am already gone, and you have seen me in that place. I am sorry you had to see me like that. I am sorry for many things.

You asked me once why I never talked about my life before America. You were twelve. We were making dumplings, and you wanted to know if I had made them with my mother the way you made them with me. I told you my mother was dead and changed the subject. This was not entirely a lie, but it was not entirely the truth either.

My mother is alive. She lives in Taipei. I have not spoken to her in thirty-seven years.

The words blur. I blink and keep reading.

The man in the photograph is James Chen. We met in college, in California. He was studying engineering. I was studying literature, which my parents thought was foolish, but they were in Taiwan and I was here, so I did what I wanted. James and I were going to get married. I was pregnant. We were happy.

Then his student visa was denied for renewal. Some paperwork problem, some bureaucratic mistake. He had to go back to Taiwan. He said he would fix it, that he would come back, that we would be together. I believed him.

He died in a car accident three weeks after he returned. His family blamed me. They said I had distracted him, that he was upset about leaving me, that he wasn't paying attention to the road. Maybe they were right. I don't know.

I lost the baby two months later. I was alone. I couldn't tell my parents—they would have made me come home, and I couldn't go home. Not after everything. So I stayed. I worked. I survived.

I met your father five years later. He was kind. He didn't ask too many questions. We built a life together, a good life, but there was always this space between us where James used to be. Your father knew. He never said anything, but he knew.

When you were born, I thought maybe I could finally let go of the past. But you looked so much like James—your eyes, your smile, the way you tilt your head when you're thinking. Every time I looked at you, I saw him. Every time I held you, I remembered what I had lost.

I know I was not the mother you needed. I know I was cold. I know I kept you at a distance. It was not because I didn't love you. It was because I loved you too much, and it hurt too much, and I didn't know how to do both at the same time.

The key in the box is for a storage unit in Oakland. The address is on the tag. Inside you will find the rest of James's things—letters, photographs, some of his books. I couldn't throw them away, but I couldn't keep them in the house either. Your father understood. He helped me rent the unit. He never asked to see what was inside.

I am telling you this now because I am dying, and because you deserve to know why I was the way I was. I am not asking for forgiveness. I am only asking that you understand.

The letters in the box are from James's mother. She wrote to me for years after he died. I never answered. I couldn't. But I kept them. Maybe you will read them. Maybe you will understand something I never could.

I am proud of you, Sarah. I know I never said it enough. I know I never said it at all. But I am proud of the woman you have become, the life you have built, the way you have loved Daniel even when love seemed impossible. You are braver than I ever was.

Take care of yourself. Take care of Daniel. Take care of the life you have made.

Your mother

The last page is just a phone number and an address in Taipei. No name. No explanation.

Daniel's arm is around me, but I don't remember him moving closer. The letter shakes in my hands.

"She had a whole other life," I say.

"Yeah."

"She lost a baby."

"Yeah."

"She never told anyone."

"She told you."

"She waited until she was dying."

"Maybe that was the only time she could."

I fold the letter carefully, put it back in the envelope. The photograph stares up at me from the box—my mother, young and happy and in love with someone who isn't my father. Someone I never knew existed until ten minutes ago.

"The storage unit," Daniel says. "Do you want to go?"

"Not today."

"Okay."

"Maybe tomorrow. After we visit her."

"Okay."

I pick up the photograph, turn it over. On the back, in faded ink: James and Patricia, Berkeley, 1986. Three months before.

Patricia. My mother's name is Patricia. Was Patricia. I've been calling her Mom my whole life, and I never knew her real name was Patricia.

"I don't know who she was," I say.

Daniel takes the photograph from me, studies it. "Maybe nobody really knows their parents. Maybe we just know the version of them that they let us see."

"That's depressing."

"Yeah."

The jasmine tea smell is making me nauseous. I stand up, put everything back in the box except the letter. That I fold into my pocket.

"We should go."

"You sure?"

"No."

We lock the door behind us. The sky has gone from purple to black, and the streetlights cast everything in orange. My mother's house is dark three doors down. Tomorrow we'll go back to the hospital. Tomorrow we'll sit with her while she doesn't recognize us. Tomorrow we'll pretend everything is normal.

But tonight, I have this letter. Tonight, I have this box. Tonight, I have a phone number in Taipei and a key to a storage unit and a photograph of my mother looking happy in a way I never saw her look in real life.

My phone buzzes. Another text from the unknown number.

I forgot to mention—your mother wanted you to call that number in Taipei. She said to ask for Mrs. Chen. She said to tell her that Patricia is sorry.

I show Daniel the message.

"Are you going to call?"

"I don't know."

"What do you think she's sorry for?"

"Everything. Nothing. I don't know."

We get in the car. Daniel starts the engine but doesn't put it in gear. We sit there in the dark, in front of a stranger's house, holding pieces of my mother's past that she never meant for me to have while she was alive.

"What if I call and she doesn't want to talk to me?" I ask.

"Then you'll know."

"What if she does want to talk to me?"

"Then you'll know that too."

"What if everything I thought I knew about my mother was wrong?"

Daniel finally puts the car in gear. "Then you'll know the truth instead."

We drive back to the hotel in silence. The letter burns in my pocket. The box sits on my lap. Somewhere in Taipei, a woman named Mrs. Chen is waiting for a phone call that might never come. Somewhere in Oakland, a storage unit holds the ghost of a man I never met. Somewhere in a hospital bed, my mother is forgetting everything, including whatever it was she wanted me to understand.

I pull out my phone. The number for Mrs. Chen glows on the screen. My thumb hovers over the call button.

"Not tonight," Daniel says.

"No. Not tonight."

But soon. Soon I'll have to decide what to do with all these secrets my mother left behind. Soon I'll have to figure out who she really was, and whether knowing the truth will make any difference now that she's already gone.

The hotel room is exactly as we left it. I put the box on the desk. I put my phone next to it. I don't look at either of them.

"I'm going to take a shower," I say.

"Okay."

The water is too hot, but I don't adjust it. I stand under the spray and think about my mother at twenty, pregnant and in love and about to lose everything. I think about her at twenty-five, alone and grieving and meeting my father. I think about her at thirty, holding me for the first time and seeing someone else's face in mine.

I think about all the years she spent carrying this weight, and I wonder if telling me was supposed to make it lighter or if she just wanted someone else to carry it for a while.

When I come out, Daniel is sitting on the bed with the box open in front of him. He's holding one of the letters from James's mother.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have—"

"It's okay. What does it say?"

He hands it to me. The letter is in Chinese, but there's an English translation paper-clipped to it in my mother's handwriting. The date is from 1989, three years after James died.

Patricia—

I know you will not answer this letter, just as you have not answered the others. But I will keep writing because I need you to know that I do not blame you for my son's death. I blamed you once, in my grief, and I said terrible things. I am sorry for that.

James loved you. He talked about you constantly. He showed me your picture. He told me about the baby. He was so happy. I have never seen him so happy.

When he died, I wanted someone to blame, and you were easy to blame because you were far away and I could not see your grief, only my own. But I know now that you lost him too. I know now that you lost the baby. I know now that you have been carrying this alone.

Please write back. Please let me know you are all right. Please let me be part of your life, even if only through letters. You are the last connection I have to my son.

With love, Margaret Chen

There are more letters in the stack. I don't read them. I can't.

"She never answered," I say.

"No."

"She kept them all, but she never answered."

"Maybe she didn't know how."

I sit down next to Daniel on the bed. The letter trembles in my hands. Somewhere in Taipei, Margaret Chen is probably dead by now. Somewhere in Oakland, James's books are gathering dust. Somewhere in this hotel room, I'm holding the pieces of a story that ended before I was born but somehow shaped my entire life.

My phone buzzes again. This time it's a voicemail notification. I don't remember hearing it ring.

I play the message on speaker.

"Hello, this is calling for Sarah Mitchell. This is Margaret Chen calling from Taipei. Your mother's neighbor gave me your number. I hope that is all right. I—" A long pause. "I heard about Patricia. I am so sorry. I know we have never spoken, but I would very much like to talk to you, if you are willing. Please call me back. Please. There are things about your mother that I think you should know."

The message ends. The room is silent except for the hum of the air conditioner.

Daniel looks at me. "What are you going to do?"

I stare at my phone, at the number from Taipei, at the voicemail icon that means somewhere across the world, an old woman is waiting for me to call her back and ask about a mother I'm realizing I never really knew at all.