A Glasshouse of Stars Read online

  You are fearful that Ma Ma is going to ask for it back before bedtime, and your fingers clench tightly. You sit in the backseat stiffly and don’t make a sound, even though, inside your head, another version of you is pressed up against the window, looking at the tracks of the rain and humming a happy tune.

  It isn’t a proper restaurant, it is only the fried chicken chain at a run-down shopping center, but you have seen the ads for it on TV so you are excited. You approach the counter, a little shy, and the girl behind the counter smiles at you. Ma Ma, though, is less enthused. She takes one look at the menu above the counter, her face goes red, and she says that the prices are ridiculous and that you are leaving right now.

  Ba Ba tells her to stay, to order something small. Ma Ma looks at him like he is mad and calmly says that she would like to instead buy her daughter a new school uniform or pay back Mrs. Huynh for the groceries she has brought over and hasn’t accepted any payment for. She does not want “something small.”

  Ma Ma goes to leave, but Ba Ba refuses to go, and the next thing you know, Ma Ma and Ba Ba are having an argument inside the store. You stare in disbelief, and it’s as though the cheerful radio music playing has suddenly been shut off and inside your head is a piercing drone.

  The girl behind the counter is embarrassed and angles her body as if to go, but she must be forced to stay when there are customers. Your mind searches for that black-and-white cat to lead you away. Her face comes into view, sniffs curiously, and then pulls back. She cannot help you here.

  Eventually, Ma Ma storms off.

  You want to tell her that being upset might make the baby decide to arrive on the spot, but Ma Ma is standing in the parking lot with her back to you and her hands over her ears. The drive home is silent and upsetting. You discover you have nervously rubbed the skin around your middle finger red.

  * * *

  Once home, you expect everything to be safe and okay again, but it is the beginning of something worse. In the hallway Ba Ba admits that he quit his job this morning.

  “So you decided that the smart thing would be to take us somewhere to spend the little money we have left?” Ma Ma is shouting angrily.

  “I wanted to do something nice for the family!”

  “You wanted to soften me up! You wanted to be the good guy in front of Meixing!”

  You shrink against the wooden paneling, and it suddenly feels as though either the wall is too tall or you have become too small. You press against Big Scary, and the house curves herself to shelter you.

  “I can’t keep doing it anymore. They make me do all the worst tasks and the heaviest lifting. It’s killing me, Ping.”

  Ma Ma pauses to rub her tummy.

  “Why don’t we sell this house? We can buy something smaller and have some money left over,” says Ba Ba.

  “We are not selling the house!” Ma Ma yells, and then painfully restrains herself. “This house belonged to my brother.”

  “So he finds it fit to leave us a house in his will, but no money to run the thing? Do you know how much electricity, heating, and cooling cost to run a house this size?”

  You hope Big Scary cannot hear your parents talk about her in such an impersonal way. You find yourself sucking your thumb like you did when you were a baby, and you toss your hand aside, disgusted.

  “My brother left all his money to the local cat shelter because he is a good person, okay? Do you know how selfish you sound? He wanted us to live in this house as a family. If it wasn’t for his invitation, we wouldn’t be here!”

  “Life was better before,” Ba Ba says quietly.

  He is defeated, but Ma Ma does not look like a winner.

  “Sometimes I wonder why we ever came here,” says Ba Ba.

  You know why they came here. They came for you. To give you a better life, to give you a better education. You’d rather you not exist and you close your eyes. You can feel a second heartbeat along with your own and you know it is Big Scary saying that she is with you and not to give up. You touch the dark brown wood, and underneath, your fingers glow a neon pink.

  “Let’s not fight about it anymore,” says Ma Ma in a whisper. “I will talk to Mrs. Huynh next door. They run a little bakery in the city. Maybe they will feel sorry for us and can get you a job there.”

  “I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for us,” replies Ba Ba.

  “Chun! Don’t turn your back on me!” pleads Ma Ma. “I’ll sell my grandmother’s ring if I have to. Can we please talk?”

  Ah Ma’s ring, you think with a stab in your heart. You nervously hold your finger.

  Ba Ba leaves. The front door slams, and the amber panel violently shakes but holds in place. The argument is closed. Ba Ba on one side and Ma Ma on the other.

  You hear the car start and you listen to its engine, trying to follow what turns and which streets it might be taking, until all you can hear is the silence of the rain.

  Ah Ma’s ring, you say to yourself again.

  “Ma Ma?”

  You find her sitting in the kitchen with her face in her hands, and she is gently weeping. You take the box of tissues out of the pantry and place it quietly in front of her. You lay your face for a moment across her shoulders and you try not to let a sigh accidentally escape, try not to touch her too much.

  “You’re a good girl, Meixing,” she says in a breath between sobs. She puts a hand on your arm. “I learned a new local word today. ‘Amazing.’ Amazing Meixing!”

  She tries to laugh. You think she is wrong, though. You are not amazing. You are a disappointment, a burden, and a coward. It feels as though it’s only a matter of time before everyone realizes these things. That your parents made that trip all the way here in the hope that you would be something special; but you are just not worth the effort.

  There is a soft knock at the front door and you find Mrs. Huynh standing there with food-filled containers, balanced on top of one another. She seems to have an endless supply of plastic boxes, even though the ones she brought yesterday are still sitting in the sink, unwashed.

  Ma Ma cannot speak her language and, in turn, Mrs. Huynh cannot speak yours. But they have become friends through gestures and smiles and bump gazing. Mrs. Huynh has learned that your parents don’t eat beef and are wary of her spices and sauces, so she has pared her cooking down to that point where both cultures agree to meet. Shredded chicken and noodles in broth. Stir-fried vegetables and tofu. Spring rolls, as everyone, anywhere, loves spring rolls.

  Mrs. Huynh sees a hot, crying Ma Ma, and the first thing she does is put a gentle hand on her back. You see the loving expression on Mrs. Huynh’s face, the deep lines that appear around her eyes, her forehead, her lips, and you think she is so kind. At the same time you cannot help but feel jealous that Mrs. Huynh is allowed to get so close to Ma Ma when you have to be so careful with her all the time. You thought you were her Amazing Meixing.

  Looking down at your scrawny body and your shaking hands, you back off. Mrs. Huynh opens the pantry and takes down the tin of cocoa powder.

  * * *

  Out in the backyard, with the long grass flattened over your scrunched-down body like a green cocoon, you worry for everyone. You worry that your father is being bullied. You worry that your mother is finding it hard to cope. You worry that when your baby brother or sister is born, they will not know the happiness that you had known when you lived on your island.

  Big Scary has nothing to say to you. She has gone dark and it’s possible that she’s fallen asleep. Maybe she can’t help you when you’re out here. But you don’t want to go back inside because you want to be free.

  A scraping sound comes from the fence and you think maybe Kevin is back again. It turns out to be the black-and-white cat, looking very formal in her tuxedo, having a second think about the long grass.

  To show her that it isn’t scary at all, you gently lift her off the fence and down onto the path that you have flattened from the back steps to the middle of the garden. The cat winks at you, j
umps out of your arms, and is gone—through a broken pane in the glasshouse.

  That’s when you make the decision to follow her. Be brave, you tell yourself as you twist the handle of the door. It opens, you step inside, and your world changes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN Oranges

  The glasshouse is a broken-down thing on the outside. Smashed and rusted, the remaining glass panels are milky and opaque. One entire wall is missing and has been mended with mismatched doors and windows. But like people, sometimes things aren’t the same on the inside as they are on the outside.

  The first thing you think is that it is much bigger in here than you thought it would be.

  The second thing is that you finally understand where First Uncle kept all his orange trees.

  Spread out before you is an entire orchard. You stare in surprise at what is in front of you. You look behind you, and it appears that what is inside cannot be contained, as the whole backyard is now filled with orange trees. You leave the door open.

  A pink serpent, looking for all the world like it escaped from the neon glow of Big Scary’s wardrobe, hisses at you as you approach. You take a step back and it disappears into the branches of a tree. You aren’t scared because the sun is spreading reassuring rays over to you from the east. This is a sun you can stare straight at, and she has a beautiful face.

  Above, beyond the ornate arches and through the glass roof, it feels as if you can see on and on until forever. Higher up, the full moon with a hint of a smile on her full red lips is sleeping in the sky. You want to know why the sun and the moon appear at the same time, but you don’t think there is anyone around to answer your question.

  Until you see the shape of a person in the distance, all the way in the back of the glasshouse. You run toward the shape, and although it feels as if you’re covering an awfully long distance, at the same time it feels as if you’re running on the spot.

  You reach out your hand and close your eyes, and you compel your mind to take you where you want to go and need to be. Everything goes silent. The voice of your mother shouting. The voice of your father shouting back. The voice of you, scolding yourself. It all goes quiet, and you are floating around in the space where your stories and your drawings come to life. That special place that is yours and yours alone, where nothing is denied and everything is possible. You feel yourself propel forward and away you go, free.

  You are puffing when you reach him.

  “Hello, Meixing. I wondered how long it would take you to get here.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be dead, First Uncle,” you reply.

  So you can talk, despite what Kevin or anyone at school or even your parents think. You can talk when you have a chance to breathe.

  “That I am,” he says with a chuckle. “It happened so suddenly, I almost didn’t even realize. I would say it was the thing I feared the most when I was alive. Now I realize it just means I have more time to do gardening.”

  “I also thought I was supposed to be scared of you, now that you’re a ghost,” you say.

  “Maybe you are confusing ghosts with the cruel people of this world,” Uncle says.

  The air is filled with the scent of sweet, pale blossoms. First Uncle has been picking oranges and piling them into his wheelbarrow, and he shows you the one he has in his hand. It is the most orange-colored orange you have ever seen, with dark, waxy leaves. The pink serpent slithers past his shoulder, but Uncle doesn’t seem scared of it.

  “I have very fond memories of oranges,” explains First Uncle. “When I was young, they used to be a rare and special treat for Chinese New Year and other occasions. Would you like to plant something yourself?”

  On the gardening table you find a wooden case separated into little compartments, which—to your surprise when you lift the lid—contains every single seed in the world. But only one of each. There are some enormous pods that you believe will grow into giants, but you pass your hands over them and select a tiny black seed, no bigger than a speck of dirt really. First Uncle squats with you while you poke a hole in the ground, drop it in, and spread the dirt back on top.

  “Why isn’t anything happening?” you ask as you stare at the ground.

  “You haven’t watered it,” says First Uncle, passing you a metal can.

  “Oh. I see.”

  The single drop of water reflects the world, but upside down, falling in slow motion and shattering into a million pieces as it hits the soil. The plant inside the seed unfurls within itself. It becomes a million things all at the same time, because here, under the glasshouse of infinite possibilities, it can. From that one seed, a million seedlings grow and a sea of green rushes outward from you.

  As the seedlings grow and form new leaves and shudder under the atmosphere, you see your entire life grow from when you were a baby. You were born a long way from the home of your parents on a little island. Ma Ma and Ba Ba came there with the other families when they opened up the ground with machinery, to help take out the precious Earth Dust or, like Ba Ba, to help scratch out a little settlement from the jungle. Ba Ba was not good at painting (he’s color-blind) and not very good at woodwork (everything he made was wonky), but he was pretty good at driving around a concrete truck, so that’s what he did most.

  You used to watch the bright red crabs migrate every spring from the jungle down to the ocean, and you would stand on the edge of the water and squint, hoping you could see the New Land. Ma Ma told you that she and Ba Ba were too old to make the very most of what the New Land would provide, but one day it would all be for you. They were the guardians. You were the hope.

  The seedlings mature into plants and they bud and flower. As far as your eye can see are blue forget-me-nots. You kneel down among the paper-thin petals and you feel your heart become unbearably sad. The sky is blue. The ground below you is blue. Everything is blue, including you.

  “Meixing? Meixing, where have you gone?”

  At first you think it is First Uncle talking to you, but then you realize it’s Ma Ma’s voice, coming from a very faraway place that you don’t know if you can return to. Or if you want to.

  But the voice keeps calling, more urgent and plaintive this time, and you realize you must try. You get up and you run, stirring up the forget-me-not petals so that they swirl around you like blue confetti and threaten to stick to you and stain you forever. You bolt through the orange orchard, running for the open door. The pink serpent hisses at you.

  “Uncle, why are there no stars in the sky?” you shout, the question suddenly occurring to you. But it is too late, you have tumbled out; the door closes and everything is ordinary again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT Blues

  You bend over to pick a leaf up off the ground; it is still fresh, dark green and waxy. You look around, but the world and all its orange trees have disappeared.

  It’s getting dark outside, and you wonder how long you’ve been gone. It could have been minutes; it could have been years. The frantic sound of your mother’s voice makes you abandon your thoughts and race up the back steps. The black-and-white cat jumps hastily out of the way.

  “Where have you been?” Ma Ma exclaims, standing there looking entirely lost within herself. “I thought you’d gone missing too! Ba Ba hasn’t come back.”

  Ma Ma sits down at the kitchen table with her face in her hands. She starts sobbing, and Mrs. Huynh puts a reassuring palm on her shoulder. You’ve never felt so useless in your life.

  “Maybe he’s gone to buy me that toy pony.”

  Those are the words that escape from your mouth, and you realize too late that you are only thinking of yourself when you should be thinking about Ma Ma. You should be speaking the right words of comfort. You should be that filial daughter in your Old Language learner books. Ma Ma cries even harder. But that blue inside you wants her to acknowledge that this is your pain too.

  Ba Ba will be back soon, you reassure yourself. He will cool down and realize that an argument over fried chicken and money is not worth stayi
ng out in the cold and the rain, and that he should come home, where it’s warm and where his family is. At the very least, he’ll get hungry and he’ll be back for dinner. Mrs. Huynh has brought over her own chicken dish, and it’s probably better than the one at the shop anyway.

  Dinner comes and goes. Ba Ba is still not home. It is dark now. Ma Ma is still sitting where she was hours ago. Mrs. Huynh is still here. You start wondering about adult things like should she go home and have dinner with her own family, because Ma Ma is currently not available to think these thoughts. She sits there opposite you like a statue with only the eyes moving, blinking every so often. The frown on her face is fixed.

  Presently, there is a call from the front door, and you all turn expectantly, hearts lifting in hope, but it is the voice of Mr. Huynh. Mrs. Huynh goes to let him in, and he pops his head through the kitchen archway. Unexpectedly, so does Kevin.

  You stare at Kevin. He is wearing some sort of fluffy robe with a superhero on it riding a large green cat, belted around the waist. You think he might be wearing pajamas underneath. Kevin sees you staring at him, and he goes red and kicks at the baseboards. Mrs. Huynh reprimands him, and he scowls and mutters things under his breath that could be swear words, until Mrs. Huynh twists his ear for it.

  There is some discussion among the Huynhs in a language that is not yours and not the New Language, either, and Mrs. Huynh sends them off. You expect that she will send you to bed too, since it is late, but she lets you stay at the kitchen table and do some drawing.

  It feels forbidden that you should be doing anything but staring at the clock on the wall and worrying alongside Ma Ma. As you start making a tiny new stapled-together book of drawings, you feel guilty about acting so normal. You can hear every single scratch the lead pencil makes on the paper and it etches itself into your heart.