This Fish Is Fowl by Xi Xu

Author:Xi Xu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000 Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, BIO022000 Biography & Autobiography / Women
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska

The thing about fairy godmothers is that they’re only interested in the forever happily ever after.

This is not my home, shouted Mum, a few years after she had been living in her renovated home. Our two Filipino helpers were in a panic. This was when my mother was still reasonably mobile with a cane and would go out with us or one of the helpers for lunch, walks, and church. By the time I got the call and rushed back home from my university office, both our helpers were following Mum down the hill away from our building, one with the wheelchair, trying to coax her into it, the other nervously trying to hang onto her so that she wouldn’t fall, while Mum kept shoving her hand away.

I caught up with the convoy. Hi, Mum, I said, let’s go home. She glared fiercely at me. Who are you? It was still early in her not recognizing me, and I had not yet accepted this eventuality. Your oldest daughter of course! I told her. No you’re not, you’re cheating me. I let her walk away, trusting time and prions to do their work. A few minutes later, I approached her again, and this time she asked me to help her and shooed the helpers away. They’re trying to take me away, she confided, pointing at them. Don’t worry, I said, I’ll make sure they don’t and take care of you. Where do you want to go? I asked. Home, she replied. We were a few hundred feet away from our building, past the park, down near the mini bus stop. Where do you live, I asked. Now, she hesitated, unable to answer, and finally retorted, don’t you know? I waited a few minutes for her to forget again. You live at number 67, don’t you? I asked. Yes! Yes! she exclaimed happily, reassured by the familiar number. In order to confuse her, we walked a circle downhill and around the block to bring her home because she refused to go back up the hill. Soon, she succumbed, exhausted, to her wheelchair and said to the helper, can you push me please? By the time we brought her back home, the security guard did his best to make her recognize him, greeting her in Cantonese by name, pointing to the name of our building, which we repeated in English and Cantonese, hoping some memory would trigger. It did. She returned home without further incident.

This home-that-is-not-home continued for a time. There were other incidents, including the time she tried to hail a taxi to take her home. She managed to run away from us, albeit never far from our reach, almost all the way down the hill, which is at least a seven-minute walk. We got into the taxi together and brought her home. Her doctor modified her prescription of psychotropics, and things calmed down.

These days, Mum no longer carries a handbag, money, or keys.

She used to confound us, weighing down her handbag with things.

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