Dad didn’t start acting like a human being until after the divorce. Five, maybe six years ago. Before that, he was all about being strong. For the family, allegedly. He played the part—husband, father, the whole stoic Asian dad package—even while he and my mom were at each other’s throats, even while my sister was quietly vanishing into her own private hell. Post-divorce, he moved in with a widow from his old Taiwanese Naval crew. My sister got stuck with my mom. Lucky her. Lucky everyone.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” my mom asks in Chinese. She’s implying that the casual acquaintance she’s had over the past forty years is my father’s new girlfriend.
It is, of course, but I keep my eyes glued to dinner, shoveling rice into my face. That’s my usual M.O. at Mom’s house: come in, eat dinner, listen to Angela talk crazy, chain-smoke on the drive home. The confirmation came months earlier, at my grandmother’s funeral. My mom had arrived unexpectedly at the wake and saw my dad sitting next to her at the banquet afterward. She sat at a round table across from theirs, and they exchanged awkward glances between bites of food.
“That’s fine. What makes him happy.” She pauses. “Your sister thinks she’s ugly, but I tell her that’s not a very nice thing to say.“
Mom eats up that last sentence like it’s Jello chocolate pudding eaten with a tiny, tiny spoon.
Amy Ai-yi, otherwise known as Aunt Amy, or basically, Dad’s girlfriend, took him on trips. A vacation to Brazil and Argentina here, a cruise to Alaska and Hawaii there. Growing up, I never knew him to take a vacation, unless it was a family trip that erupted into a screaming match, or a journey back to Mainland China with his naval buddies. The calm in these new photos stings: now, years later, I walk through the house he shares with his girlfriend and notice pictures I’ve never seen before. There’s a photo of him and his girlfriend, posed in front of a backdrop, both smiling in a way he never did at home—a prom or dinner cruise smile. Another photo shows him in full military garb, proud and upright, taken maybe five or ten years ago—a photo I’ve never seen in the house. I imagine the other photos he hasn’t put up yet, pressed with memories I was never invited to. Maybe there are pictures of him and his girlfriend in Rio de Janeiro, flanked by Carnival dancers, his smile wide, while he wears a white Kangol hat and linen pants, Christ the Redeemer in the background. I’m sure he’s in the background of a Flickr photograph somewhere, happier than I’ve ever seen.
This month, Dad and his girlfriend are off to Spain for a couple of weeks. I keep picturing him in Ibiza, sunburned and confused, trapped in a foam party while some DJ blasts a remix of LMFAO’s “Shots.”
I do this because it’s easier to turn him into a joke than admit I’m jealous.
Realistically, it will be a bunch of his Taiwanese naval buddy friends. Perhaps, in the near future, they’ll all meet at a grandiose Catholic church, greet each other, and talk about who died of a heart attack this year. Then, reminiscing over the years they’ve shared camaraderie, they’ll find a tour company, where a polite mainland Chinese exchange student living in Barcelona will show them around. Later, my dad will try tapas for the first time and make a face, because it’s not soup noodles or cold pickled dishes he’s used to at home.
I don’t know what did it. Distance from my mom and sister? The girlfriend? Just getting old? Whatever it is, Dad went soft. A couple of years ago, at Hometown Buffet, he slid a red envelope across the table, like he was trying to sneak contraband. Awkward, but weirdly sweet.
“What’s this?”
“Hongbao.” Chinese New Year’s lucky money. Something my dad stopped giving me when I was ten or eleven.
“Dad, I’m in my mid-thirties.”
“I didn’t know this, but Amy said you’re still supposed to give this to any family members who are single.”
I had contemplated telling him about my new boyfriend in Miami, but I bit my tongue. “Not married, at least,” I thought to myself.
I took the hongbao anyway. Twenty bucks. Not bad.