Bone by Fae Myenne Ng

Author:Fae Myenne Ng [MYENNE NG, FAE]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2015-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

THE news about Ona ran through Chinatown like a wild dog. Leon let it loose. When someone knocked at the door, he opened it. When the phone rang, Leon answered. He didn’t care what other people asked; all he wanted to talk about was how much he loved Ona.

Leon was looking for someone to blame. All his old bosses. Every coworker that betrayed him. He blamed the whole maritime industry for keeping him out at sea for half his life. Finally he blamed all of America for making big promises and breaking every one. Where was the good job he’d heard about as a young man? Where was the successful business? He’d kept his end of the bargain: he’d worked hard. Two jobs, three. Day and night. Overtime. Assistant laundry presser. Prep cook. Busboy. Waiter. Porter. But where was his happiness? “America,” he ranted, “this lie of a country!”

Leon always brought up the Ong & Leong laundry, but Mah didn’t want to talk about how their business deal with Luciano and Rosa Ong went bad; she just wanted to forget. Mah went pale with shame just thinking about it. Not Leon. Leon talked about it to anyone who asked. He told the long and embarrassing story again and again. Mah didn’t understand how he could face people; how could he walk down the street? She wanted him to have a thick skin, but it was like he was walking around Chinatown with no skin at all.

I thought he was on speed. He couldn’t sit still. He went spinning around the house picking fights with Mah, with me, even Mason. He flew around Chinatown trying to collect every debt owed to him. He wanted somebody to pay him back for all his suffering. His old cronies started to avoid him. Even Mason stayed in the Mission as much as he could.

What could we say? What could we do? Leon took any kind of reaction—a blink, a sigh, a glance—as an invitation to go on ranting. I tried to look as bored as I could, hoping that he’d eventually get tired and leave.

“Good! Go!” Mah shouted at his departing shadow. “I don’t care what you say.”

But it wasn’t only the slam of the front door that lingered behind. Everything Leon said settled into Mah’s mind. One time, Leon spit out Tommie Hom’s name and Mah snapped right back, “And you? Are you so good? And you’ve never done wrong?”

So it went.

Blood and bones. The oldtimers believed that the blood came from the mother and the bones from the father. Ona was part Leon and part Mah, but neither of them could believed that Ona’s unhappiness was all her own.

Mah blamed herself for what happened. She locked herself in her bedroom and pulled the curtains closed, shutting out all light. I couldn’t get her to eat, much less talk.

Then the sewing ladies came and saved us. Luday, Soon-ping, and Miss Tsai came over on their afternoon break, still wearing their floral aprons. The three of them pushed in with their hello smiles, their arms full of food.

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