Latchkey Children

By Miyu Liang, Del Norte High School 26'

Artwork by Yilin Chen

Summer, age: 2

Mother tells me I was born in a ghost month. My ancestors bubble from beneath my blood to haunt her with my grandmother’s eyes and my great-grandfather’s nose. When I begin to speak, she shushes my first mumbles of 妈 Mom until my lips learn to form 爸 Dad instead. I learn the words 我爱你 I love you at school instead of home. 

Winter, age: 6

I learned it is impolite to look an elder in the eyes. Instead, I watch veined hands flip between the pages of my grades. I watch young hands point and shove and wave. I watch mother’s hands place walnuts and peeled oranges in front of me. Her fingertips are as shriveled as the ridges of the fruit. 

That night, as I wish her goodnight: 妈妈，我爱你 Mom, I love you

嗯 Uh-huh

Spring, age: 10

I learn I am not enough in the backseat of the car, when our driver has just pulled out of the school parking lot. My mother’s face is white as she orders the car to stop. It blotches red as the flatness of her hand and the roundness of her lips press me into fish-stained cobblestone. We are alike in a way, stripped down to trembling bones while passersby look away. We taste blood on fish-hooked lips and tongues bitten for silence. We are scaled down to stomach and ribcage, the way a mountaineer scales a cliff before plummeting. I can feel my heart plunging to the bottom of its cage. 

As she locks the car door: 妈妈,我爱你 Mom, I love you

嗯 Uh-huh

Fall, age: 12

I move to America the next year. American school playgrounds are just like the jungles, with monkey bars and snake slides. Just like the jungle, there is screeching and screaming and shrieking. Just like the jungle there are monkeys and bananas and insects. Just like the jungle, no monkey wants to talk to a grasshopper.

To nothingness: 我爱你? I love you?

Winter, age: 19

I am alone in an empty house, with locked doors and blinds drawn tight. 

To hope: 我爱你 I love you

Spring, age: 20

My father’s mistress visits us today, and we gather like a happy family for the New Year. I talk to my half-empty teacup and the lazy susan while Father boasts about his thirteen-year-old son, his new prodigy. As we leave the table, I watch the boy’s uncracked lips mouth my forbidden words. 

我爱你 I love you

Love you too, son.

Over the years, I have learned

A daughter has…

No voice

No status

No use

No worth