Chang-Rae Lee - A Gesture Life

“You’re not going to stay?” I asked.

“No, Franklin, I don’t think so.”

“Not even for dinner?”

“Not tonight.”

I followed her to the foyer. “I’m sorry about Sunny,” I said. “She can be rude sometimes. I’ll speak to her.”

“I don’t want you to do that,” she answered, her voice strained and rising. “Please, Franklin. She’s not rude. Not in any way. Never have I known a girl of eleven to be as polite as she is. She’s never said an unkind word, and she’s never complained. I truly thought she was happy today, to be together with me. She seemed happy. But the second we got home, the day was over. All at once, it was over. Just like that.”

“Did Sunny say something?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. She was perfectly fine. But it was as though she was serving her sentence with me for the afternoon hours, and when we got home, she was released. It’s not her fault. You’ve raised her impeccably. She doesn’t have to have a deep feeling for me. There’s no law.” She lifted her purse from the hall table, curling the strap over her shoulder. They had been at the club, and she was still wearing her white tennis clothes, a short pleated skirt and blouse and a light sweater.

“I feel so unbelievably tired all of a sudden,” she said, exhaling deeply. She touched my forearm and squeezed it gently. “Let’s say good night now, Franklin, okay?”

“I’m very sorry.”

“It’s no one’s fault. Least of all yours.”

“Yes,” I replied, though not intending to agree. I tried to think of an explanation, a way to tell her that Sunny was in fact a good-hearted girl who would never mean to upset or offend. But already I sensed the lateness of my providing any reasons, at least for Mary Burns’s sake. For Mary Burns, it seemed, I was often too late. And the other truth was that even after several years, Sunny felt no more at home in this town, or in this house of mine, or perhaps even with me, than when she very first arrived at Kennedy Airport, accompanied by a woman from the agency. I noticed something even then. She was clutching a rough canvas bag of her things, the zipper flapping loose at one end, torn from the plain, soiled fabric. When I tried to coax it from her she crossed her small arms tightly around it, carrying it all the way to the car herself, the whole small picture of her both endearing and pathetic. She followed behind me and the woman, who was talking excitedly about the various projects the agency was developing for the benefit of Asian orphans. Whenever I looked around to acknowledge my new daughter, to try to catch her eye, she neatly tucked in her chin and pushed on, as if she were headed into a long and driving rain.

Mary Burns, I’m afraid, did not soon give up with Sunny. I saw how it was affecting her and tried to suggest that she cease, that she simply make an accommodation and not attempt to be intimate with the girl, who seemed to be growing more and more untouchable, becoming more and more distanced from her and myself and everything else.

“You don’t understand, Franklin,” she finally told me one evening, at the end of yet another day. “She’s just a girl, and a girl needs a woman. To be there, if nothing else. I don’t care if she doesn’t love me. One day she’ll have a feeling for me, perhaps, but that doesn’t matter. I’m going to spend time with her, and that’s that.”

She continued scheduling their weekend outings, and attended the after-school activities that I could never go to because of the store, the soccer matches and the Brownie meetings and, of course, the piano lessons and recitals. Indeed, she was there, and always there, and had they looked remotely like each other, had they anything physical in common, I’m sure they would have seemed like all the other mothers and daughters, but even more so, arriving and departing together hand in hand, with hardly a sign of rancor. In fact, some of the mothers who came by my store would make sure to mention how delightful the two of them were, how gracious with each other, how wonderful it was that a woman like Mary Burns and my daughter could be so “good” together. It was wonderful, yes, yes indeed, how all girls and ladies had things in common. Of course I always thanked them, was appropriately pleased and proud, not saying otherwise, but I also wished secretly that for once I’d hear about Sunny speaking insolently, that they had had a terrible row in front of everyone, that once and finally Mary Burns had been most cross and vehement and had scolded her with great wrath.

But I never did hear that. Or ever would. And I remember vividly one of the last times Mary Burns and I spent together, this in the weeks before we drifted apart, when our relationship finally came to an end. She was sitting poolside while I swam in the August heat, her long fingers wrapped around a tall glass of iced tea. It was toward dusk but the air was still downy and insufferable and she was waiting for Sunny to come out. The two of them were going to a teen dance at the tennis club, Mary Burns having been asked to be one of the chaperons. She was of course dutiful that way. She looked pretty that evening, in a shimmering linen dress without sleeves and matching silken shoes. Her legs and arms had a glowing tan from all the tennis she played, and I thought she was the warm picture of goodness and health. She had been quiet on arriving, however, and as she didn’t seem particularly interested in talking, I suggested she come outside and keep me company while I did my laps, for in the warmer weather I swam extra lengths in the evenings as well. I had originally planned to attend the dance myself, as Mary Burns’s escort, but that afternoon Sunny had come to the store and asked me if I would be kind enough to stay at home.

“It’s obvious you’re not going to dance anyway,” she had said right off. As she grew older, Sunny had a way of speaking unusually crisply, and with gravity, as if she were somehow in charge. Her English was of course impeccable, and had for a long time been much better than mine. “I don’t see why you’d want to go. It’s silly. You’ll just sit at a back table and sip punch and watch the whole night go by.”

She was right, certainly, as that was just what I’d probably do. There were no good reasons for my presence, except to be there for Mary Burns, as all the other chaperons would certainly have the company of their partners. And yet it was not for Mary Burns’s sake that I pushed Sunny to explain her wishes.

Still, I said, “But who will accompany Mrs. Burns?”

“Mrs. Burns? She doesn’t need anyone. It’s her country club. She knows everybody there. She’ll be busy all night with her club friends. In fact, she’ll have a better time without you.”

“But she’s asked me to come.”

“I know,” she said, quite serious. “But I’m asking you not to come.”

Her tone wasn’t petulant, or fretful, for she was possessed of a remarkable equanimity, more the way one thinks distinguished, older people to be than young teenage girls. The way Mary Burns would no doubt conduct herself were she living now. But then Sunny displayed a ferocity as well, a flinty, coal-like hardness that should have been beyond the ken of her years.

I then asked her: “Are you afraid you’ll be embarrassed by me?”

“Of course not,” she replied. She was idly binding her wrist with a roll of sterile gauze. Whenever she came to the store, she played with some item or another. “Why should I be embarrassed? You know very well how much everyone likes you. Even my friends. In fact, they like you better than they like me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It is true. And it’s the same with everyone I meet. But I don’t care about that. I would like to be there by myself, on my own. I know Mary has to be there at this point, and I wish she weren’t going to be, but if you come, too, I’ll be the only one with my whole family there. I think that’s a little strange, don’t you, to be with your family at a dance just for kids?”