Catching Up to You

Chapter 26 - Intergenerational

"So, were you ever going to tell me if we hadn't met!" Mateo's voice boomed across Sera's backyard. Trang was internally grateful for the fact that there were tall fences around the yard and the closest neighbor's house was a few blocks away.

Trang had expected no less of a reaction from the truth that she felt forced to spill in that moment. She just stood in front of him, baring herself everything she imagined she would've done at a much later time, perhaps a more preferred belated chance encounter between them. She took comfort in the idea that at least her future child would not be upset at her for keeping their father away from the truth. Trang pressed her hands softly against her belly, rubbing it in clockwise motions as if she was trying to soothe the baby from bearing witness to the upsetting scene. She let out a deep sigh of relief knowing that there was still a lot of time left before the baby would come out to this world of theirs.

After an unflinchingly curt "no'' leaving her mouth, Mateo left on his motorcycle with dark gray fumes scorching behind. Though Trang had no idea where he had gone off to, she was not surprised by his reaction, considering how common sight for him to deal with his problems by riding his motorcycle as far away from them. In that moment, though, she understood him. It became clear to her then why they gravitated towards each other from the beginning: they were both too similar in the ways that pulled them apart.

A pattern hitting far too close to home for her as she recalls nights of explosive arguments between her parents and their families. No one knew who had the worst of days coming home from work. On a typical day, her parents would come home, too tired to smile and listen to how their children's school day went or if they had tried to listen over dinnertime, much of their responses would come out as "mms" and blank stares. Their lingering despondence was like a ticking time bomb for her and her sister because it would be much later when suppressed tension between family members became more palpable - this happened more when they visited other family members over the weekends. Memories of loud nights filled with shouting between adults (or how Trang preferred describing them as "children in adult bodies") and banging of pots and table surfaces were unwanted, heavily discounted souvenirs Trang wished she could resell to someone else. She needed a Marie Kondo who could deal with the trauma she's been through.

One time when she was ten years old, their grandparents' house became so violently loud that a police officer came knocking at their door to make sure that no one was being hurt. The next door neighbors must've called them to check, feeling too embarrassed and concerned to see for themselves. All she remembered that night was how her grandpa couldn't stop chasing his grown children around the house for having lost thousands of dollars of their savings from gambling the night before. The savings were supposed to go toward the mortgage. Her mother had not joined them that night, only clicking her tongue to herself at how disappointed she was toward her siblings, how she would never do what they had done. She vented to her father as they drove home that night and they both sneered at her family. "Karma's going to come out and get them for what they've done," and "No matter how little I make, I would never have done something stupid like that," they said. Little did anyone realize that her parents were next on Karma's hit list.

Everything else that tragically happened afterward, including her father's death, began with someone getting yelled at during work or realizing how little they made from their earnings (oftentimes, finding themselves in debt after spending three-quarters on bills and groceries for the restaurant and then rest for their children and sometimes, their extended family members) , then eating dinners in silence, then leaving the house to "buy something" only to return hours later without anything in their hands to back up their errand claims. Like Mateo on his motorcycle, Trang's parents would leave without a reason. During times of stress, they would - either separately or together - tell Trang and Linny that there were some tasks left to be done at the restaurant, leave the house late at night in their run-down Ford, and return to the house, plopping themselves in the living room couch, sometimes at midnight and other times, between 3 to 5 a.m. in the morning. The sisters had only assumed that they were gone to prep ingredients or fix one of the kitchen appliances before the next day started- until they began noticing the pungent tobacco smell lingering on their hair, clothes, and even their breaths as they spoke after they returned home. Neither of their parents ever stayed outside with their aunts and uncles for a smoke before. As they counted how many times they had to hold their breaths from breathing in the toxic cigarette odor whenever they passed by the couch or rolled down their windows in the Ford, the more suspicious they felt towards their parents. What in the world could they be doing? Were they secretly addicted to killing their lungs while everyone else was sleeping?

"Mum" would be the word whenever they asked for specifics. The parents' responses to questions were no less reassuring with their vacuous smile and growing dark circles under their eyes. The only time they seemed alert was when they went back to the restaurant, making sure one order after another was recorded correctly and every customer was taken care of. It was as if they had decided to jump into someone else's life to recover themselves.