‘Suite for My Father’ was originally published in Words and Women: Four (Unthank Books, 2017). It was the regional winner of the Words and Women 2016 Prose competition and was the basis for my being selected an apprentice with the Word Factory. Although this is a work of creative non-fiction, I consider it one of my starting points for Peach Blossom Spring. In many ways, the confluence of good fortune and good people in my writing life that made Peach Blossom Spring possible originated with these words. The print, commissioned by Words and Women for the piece, is the work of Vicki Johnson.
Suite for My Father
I. Lunch
He stands at the stove, vigilant over that cast-iron frying pan, the small one, the one my mom complains that he never washes properly. His wooden chopsticks with the burnt ends push around bits of Napa cabbage, carrots sliced in diagonal ovals, green chillies, and pickled radish roots from the dirty, dusty, Chinese food store 100 miles away. Sometimes he adds tiny pieces of pork or peas from last night’s supper. In a wok, next to the frying pan, hot oil shimmers. There is a great sizzle and spatter as he pours in eggs mixed with chopped tomatoes and scallions. They puff up, he stirs quickly, they fry in seconds. Paul Harvey drones on the radio. When I hear the tagline, ‘And now you know, the rest of the story,’ he turns off the radio.
‘Little girl, come eat.’
He comes home every day for lunch. Leaves work exactly at 11:30, drives his 1977 red Honda Civic over the bridge back to our side of town, arrives at 11:45. By noon he has made his lunch, Paul Harvey has told us the rest of the story, and he sits to eat. If I am lucky, it is summertime and I join him. We serve ourselves big bowls of jasmine rice. The steam tickles my nose. Dividing his concoction between us, he picks out pieces of pork from his bowl and puts them in mine.
‘Here, you eat this,’ he gestures with his chopsticks.
He never leaves behind a single grain of rice. I don’t either.
II. Relations
He is speaking on the phone with his cousin. I don’t need to understand Chinese to know that he is angry. His voice gets louder and louder then catches when he can’t summon the words he wants because his mother tongue is rusty. When he sees me watching him, something in his expression shifts. He holds the phone away from his ear, looks at it, looks at me, then puts the yammering handset on the floor and walks away.
The slap-slap-slap of his homemade slippers down the hallway is punctuated by the closing of his bedroom door. The phone issues a continuous stream of foreign frustration.
I am too frightened to pick it up and too frightened to follow him. I leave it babbling to an empty living room and go practice the Raindrop Prelude, knowing that I can earn his praise by my diligence and that of all the composers, he loves Chopin best.
III. Study
No one else is at home. I sneak down the hallway, slide the accordion door open, and step into his study. The far wall is lined with books. I cross the room and run my forefinger along their spines, mouthing the titles to myself: The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Quantum Field Theory, Classical Electrodynamics, Mathematical Methods. Pulling one down, I find an envelope used as a bookmark sticking out from the top. I tug at the envelope; it is covered with equations that have strange symbols instead of numbers. One day I would like to break this code. Putting the book back, I roll the desk chair over to the bookshelf and climb on the seat. I stand on my tip toes to reach a round, navy blue tin. The chair shifts under me as I lean forward. I wobble, but catch my balance, grabbing the shelf to steady myself, and plop down in the seat, heart thumping. The metal sides of the tin are a cool invitation to my damp hands. As I lift its lid, a dark, sweet echo of tobacco rises. I examine the contents: a rubber band ball, stray washers, caps without pens, mechanical pencils with no lead, a few coins. Curiosity satisfied, I replace the lid and leave the tin on a low shelf.
I push the chair into the middle room and start spinning in it. Each time I swivel around, I give myself another boost from the front of his long wooden desk with my bare feet. When I finally get too dizzy, I close my eyes and let the last whirl spin to a slow stop. On opening them, I discover I am facing the wall. I twirl the chair around and scoot back over to the desk. As I slide open the top drawer, a potpourri of band-aids, pencil lead, and Vaseline Intensive Care greets me. This drawer is home to a small black pair of wrought-iron scissors with D-shaped handles and sharp tips that we use to cut our nails. Mine look grubby with dirt from the garden, I decide they could do with a trim. I sit back and start to clip, bits of fingernail fly through the air with each tiny snip.
At the other end of the house, keys jangle and the front door is opening. I put the scissors back, shove the drawer closed, hurry down the hallway to my room, flop on the bed and pick up a book. My fingers smell like metal.
IV. Hands
It is because of his hands that I love books and ice cream. Because of those smooth, dry hands, fingers long and broad, usually sporting a tattered band-aid on his left thumb to soothe the chapped, cracked tip, his skin never meant for climates like this. Because on some Saturdays, I put my left in his right, and with my other hand hooked under a stack of books, we walk the full mile to the library.
We walk past sprinklers watering parched front yards. Droplets overreaching the grass at the edge of the sidewalk spray my toes. When my arm begins to ache from carrying the books, we switch sides. My right hand in his left, the books cradled in my other arm. Soon that arm tires and I hand him all my books. He shakes his head. ‘Too many books, little girl,’ but he carries them anyway. I count sidewalk squares and avoid the cracks. ‘Step on a crack, break your mother’s back’ I say, hopping from square to square.
Once there, I go one direction for more stories and he goes the other. Working my way down the aisles, I stockpile a new hoard. After the librarian stamps the back cover of each and slips in a card with the due date, I head to the newspapers and magazines. He is always behind the pages of The Wall Street Journal. He puts the paper down and we leave, hand in hand, stopping for a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. And, so that I can lick my ice cream and hold his hand at the same time, he carries my books as we walk the full mile back home.
V. Solitaire
He plays game after game of solitaire, sitting cross-legged on the floor after work and watching The Nightly Business Report.
‘Okay,’ he says, when he wins. Then he shepherds the cards in front of him, stacks and taps them straight, cuts the deck, rips the shuffle, whirrs the bridge, brings them together. One card snaps against the next as another game is dealt out.
‘Okay,’ he says, when he loses. Then he shepherds the cards in front of him, stacks and taps them straight, cuts the deck, rips the shuffle, whirrs the bridge, brings them together. One card snaps against the next as another game is dealt out.
‘Can I play? Can I help you?’
‘It’s solitaire, little girl, that means just one.’
‘Teach me, then.’
He shows me how to set up the game: Seven columns, increasing in length from left to right. Like an upside-down staircase. The bottom card of each column faces up. Turn over your remaining cards in groups of three. One-two-three, flip. Try to play the top card. The numbers count down, the colours alternate. Red jack on black queen on red king – seven of diamonds on the eight of clubs. One-two-three, flip. An ace, an ace always floats to the top. One-two-three, flip.
To win is to play all your cards, hold nothing back, and turn everything over.
You lose if your aces are buried.
You lose if you cannot play anything from your hand.
You lose if you get stuck in an endless cycle.
You play against yourself.
I sit next to him on the floor, cross-legged, playing game after game of solitaire and watching The Nightly Business Report.
VI. Bedtime
I am in bed, in pajamas, surrounded by my new books from the library with a vague intention of reading them all that night. The hallway is dark and the house quiet, but I keep my ear tuned for the muffled sounds of the TV coming from the living room. When the TV goes silent, I switch off my light and wait in the darkness. Once the slap-slap-slap of his homemade slippers has passed my room, and his bedroom door closes, I turn the light back on. I read until I can keep neither my eyes nor my book open.