Chapter Thirty-Two
Kansas City
Helen
My first winter in America, I realized that marrying Philip had been a mistake.
He was not a man of many words. So much of our quarreling could have been avoided if he simply told me what he was thinking, but no marriage was perfect, and I could tell he was trying. The problem was the gambling.
The habit started out like a weed. A paltry thing at first, limited to late-night games of mahjong a few times a month. I didn’t suspect Philip was addicted until it was too late.
“I have to go,” he’d say. “Sam Bou is organizing, and if he wants to gamble, we have to play. Else he might not pay us.”
“You and Francis do all the work, why does he get to keep all the money?”
“Just bear it for now. Once Francis and I open our own place, things will be better.”
I didn’t trust Sam Bou, and I resented his influence over Philip. But what could I do?
I didn’t know about my husband’s debts until the loan sharks came. There weren’t many Chinese in Kansas City, and I thought I’d met everyone. Then, one Sunday night in early April, a white Buick pulled up onto the street outside our apartment.
It was late. Francis was still at the restaurant, Philip was in the shower, and I was getting ready for bed. Our heater wasn’t working, and despite it being spring already, outside there were still mounds of snow. I was putting on an extra sweater when someone knocked on our door.
I thought it was Francis, who often forgot his key. I opened the door, a lecture on the precipice of my tongue, when my words stopped short.
A muscular bald man leaned against the doorframe. “Where’s Philip?”
He spoke English even though he was Chinese, and on this frigid night all he wore was a short-sleeved shirt—no jacket, no hat, no scarf.
He caught the door before I closed it. “You tell your husband to come out.”
I stared him down. “You have the wrong house.”
“Helen.” Philip appeared out of nowhere, his voice low and intense. “I’ll take care of it.”
I followed Philip as he stalked toward the bed we shared, digging underneath the mattress for the dollars I had painstakingly saved.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed. “That’s my money!”
“It’s our money,” he said, shouldering me aside. Though our home was barely fifteen paces from one end to the other, he rushed as though it were a hundred to the man at the door. “Here, every dollar is there. Good night, Uncle Fok.” He bowed. “Thank you for your patience.”
When the door closed, Philip coughed. The sound was loud and hacking, and his breaths grew short.
Had we not been fighting, I would have brought him to sit and put a blanket over his shoulders and boiled water for him to inhale the steam. But I was livid. “Who was that?”
Philip leaned against the wall gulping air until the wheezing subsided.
Then he turned around, his shoulders squared. “Next time, ask before you open the door.”
“Next time, ask before you take my money,” I snapped. “Who was that man?”
“I’ll explain tomorrow.” He went to the basin and filled a cup of water, which he finished in one gulp. “I’m going to bed.”
That was it? I couldn’t stomach the thought of sleeping beside my reprobate husband. While he retreated to the bedroom, I stormed into the kitchenette. On the counter was a stack of mail and magazines. From the bottom, I took out my English workbook and started practicing my letters.
Some minutes later, Philip emerged from the bedroom. “Aren’t you coming to sleep?”
“I’m not tired.”
Philip’s shadow fell over my work. “You didn’t tell me you were learning English.”
“Why are you surprised? This is America, shouldn’t I try to speak the language?”
“You should have told me.”
“You gamble away our money without telling me.”
“I’m your husband. I made that money.”
“What do you think I do in the restaurant all day, dillydally with the customers? I work as hard as you and Francis.”
He knew this was true, which turned him petulant. “I didn’t say you could learn English.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
“I mean it, Helen. You keep learning English, and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?” I spat. “You’ll fire me? I already work for free, what more can you do to me?”
My sharp words goaded Philip. “I’ll divorce you.”
“Go ahead. I wouldn’t be worse off than I am now.”
I thought he would hit me, but he pounded the sofa instead, letting his frustration out on the pillows. Once he was calm, he came to me. “Close the book. I’ll get the money back.”
“Not by gambling you won’t.”
“I know.”
So often, I wished I had married a man with a different vice. Even a mistress would be better. At least then the hours I spent working would go to our future—instead of paying off Philip’s debts.
It could be worse, I told myself. I thought of Baba sitting on the sedan in his den, pale as an apparition, lapped in a cocoon of smoke. I wondered if he even knew I’d left Hong Kong.
“Why can’t I learn English?” I demanded.
“Because . . .”
“Because what?”
He swallowed visibly, too proud to say it aloud. No, too ashamed.
I stalked off to the bedroom and turned off the light, ready to sleep without another word. Philip followed, sitting on the edge of our bed. He was quiet a long time.
“I know it hasn’t been easy for you here,” he said in the dark. “I heard you used to have a rich boyfriend, and you used to sing in nightclubs and model for calendars.”
“I never modeled for calendars.”
“I don’t care what you did,” Philip said. He finally lay on his pillow, facing me. “I know I’m not rich or good-looking. I know I’m sickly. My friends say you’ll run away once spring comes. They tell me I’d better pin you down with children or—”
“Keep me from learning English?” My jaw clenched. It made sense. If I couldn’t speak the language here, where could I go? “And you listened to them.”
“Life here hasn’t been easy for you. You’re unhappy.”
I couldn’t deny that. “Were you like this with your first wife?”
He tensed, and I didn’t think he’d answer.
After a while, he replied, “I never told you, but my late wife . . . she . . . she made her living serving other men. It was during the war—she had no choice if she wanted to survive. She had a baby boy when I met her, and I raised him like my own. Three years later, they both got sick . . . There was nothing I could do.”
I heard pain in the rawness of his voice. “I didn’t think I’d marry again.”
I shifted so he couldn’t see my face. Philip had been abandoned once, by a wife whom it sounded like he’d loved. Obviously it wasn’t her fault—or his—but years later, the wound in his heart hadn’t healed. I knew what that pain was like. I still felt it every day from losing Lily and missing Mama.
Empathy was different from forgiveness, though. The latter had to be earned.
“I’m not going to leave you if I can speak English,” I said. “I will leave if you act like you own me.”
“I know,” said Philip.
The next day, he bought me a book called Goodnight Moon, which he said many children used to learn English.
It was an odd story, about saying good night to sundry things inside a room, including socks, a rabbit on a rocking chair, and the moon itself.
I didn’t quite understand it. I wished he had bought a fairy tale like the ones Lily used to read.
Still, he was trying, so I dropped the fight and didn’t bring it up again. He wasn’t a perfect man, far from it. But I’d chosen him. I’d chosen this life.
I wouldn’t run away.