THE CROFTON CHRONICLE
# 5
I nodded. But that day, like countless times when I was a toddler, I sat on the staircase and stared at the door. Baba will be back in a month. But tears betrayed me— and the lie I had made up to comfort myself.
Baba didn’ t return to Vancouver for four years. And he never made it back to China in time to see Grandma for the last time. Just as I once hated how slowly planes carried him away from me, he hated knowing he was only hours from home and yet, it was still unreachable. Distance, I learned, is not measured in thousands of kilometres— it’ s measured in helplessness.
Once a month, we FaceTimed on WeChat. Baba asked the same questions every time.
“ How is school?”“ How are your grades?”“ How is eating?”
I frowned and gave the same answers:“ Good.” But to desperately drag the FaceTime for just a little longer, I told him stories anyway— about performances he couldn’ t picture, jokes he didn’ t understand, a life that had continued without him. What else could I have said?
The distance between us had become a gulf of communication. I could no longer understand his accented Mandarin, and he could no longer understand the contextual experiences of my life.
When I flew to see him for the first time in four years, he hugged me at the airport. My body stiffened, unfamiliar with the weight of him. But when I saw him clumsily carrying my suitcase, his hands sweaty and trembling, my smile rose on its own.
On the drive home, he tried again.
“ How is school?”“ How are your grades?”“ How is eating?”“ Good.”
I watched the midnight road stretch endlessly ahead of us. I didn’ t know how to tell him about the things that mattered now. I didn’ t know how to build a bridge across so much space. But then, I impulsively asked,“ Baba, can you tell me my favourite bedtime story again?”
Baba’ s eyes, bloodshot from a long day of work, brightened.
“ The snake wanted to become a dragon. A god, that is,” he said.“ It wanted to fly, but it never did. Instead, it grew arms. Strong enough to carry water to the village during a drought, strong enough to hold the children it protected. It never became a god. But it learned how to stay.”
That’ s right. I was there. I had landed. And even without wings, without the right words, I was still reaching for him— just like I always had.
WHEN MY TRAPEZE COULD NO LONGER FLY