Lisa Ko - The Leavers

“Real far.”

Deming could see the relief in Michael’s face when they got home. He brought the bag of clothes to the bedroom, unpacked as quietly as he could, and heard Michael saying, “We went for a walk, Mom.”

Mom. Deming fell asleep on the couch, woke to drool caked on the side of his face. Much later, after Leon came home, the sky cracked open and it rained, drops splattering against fire escapes, running down rooftops, giving the air conditioners a free bath. A slow, humid breeze trickled into the bedroom, Michael’s limbs flailing in a distant dream. Deming watched Leon sleep, the rise and fall of Leon’s chest, pressing his arm against Leon’s back. He needed Leon to stay.

But they were safe, for now, humbled and seething. They were two men without her.

LEON SAID IT WAS no big deal: that his woman had split and nobody knew where she was. He made a little laugh, a joke — She left me! Isn’t that crazy? — but Deming saw how the skin on his neck was droopy and crinkled, deep brown circles blooming under his eyes like a wet cup on a paper plate. “I’ll get another woman, you hear?” Leon said, sitting at the kitchen table in the dark.

The summer dragged on. Deming heard Leon and Vivian talking, hid in the other room so they wouldn’t know he was listening: At work, a falling hog had smacked Leon and he skidded on the slick floor, coming to on his back. Got probation. He sliced the wrong veins, let an animal drift on by like a graceful ocean liner, large crooked knife slashes against the meatgrain. He was given the second of three strikes, his hours docked. The landlord had already given two extensions for late rent; the loan shark’s men were less understanding.

Mama’s co-worker Didi — Leon’s buddy Quan’s wife — had called screaming about the nail salon, how the boss had been involved in something shady. “Do you think she went to Florida?” Vivian said. But Didi had tracked down the number of the restaurant, and when Leon called, the owners said Mama never showed up.

Didi had called the police, Immigration, and they said there was no record of her. So Mama was okay, not in danger like Deming had feared, just took off on her own. Leon told Vivian he’d gone to a lawyer, one Quan had found, whom Quan had to help translate. Back home Quan would be a freak, an American-born Vietnamese Chinese who could only speak a drop of Chinese, but here Quan was a big shot, because of his English, and here Leon was a nobody, because of his Chinese. It drove Leon crazy that he needed Quan, a little guy with a big voice who spiked his hair into mini spears.

Leon had wanted to belt the lawyer when he asked, “Did she know anyone? Any other men? You might think you know a woman and you don’t.” When Quan translated, Leon said, “Tell him to go suck his own cock.”

Vivian said they couldn’t keep bothering the police, not without papers. All they could do was wait to hear from her. Deming heard Leon say how he was wiring the loan shark Mama’s payments, almost double what she’d been able to afford. At dinner, he snapped at Deming. “Playing with your food again, no respect.” But the next day, he took Deming out for donuts at the Vietnamese coffee shop, offered up maple-glazed, powdered-sugar, Boston cream. “I spent three months on the boat coming over from Fujian,” he said. “Washed with sea water. Slept on soggy cardboard. Think about your bed. Think about your bathroom. You can sleep.” Deming concentrated on his donut. The cream oozing out — where was the Boston? — like something obscene. On the boat, Leon said, the enforcers had nearly beaten a man to death for stealing a packet of instant ramen from the captain’s quarters. One man had tried to stop the crew from doing something bad to a woman, and the enforcers kicked him in the face and threw him into the ocean. Leon could still hear that woman’s screams.

Deming licked cream off his fingers. “Mama came on a plane, not a boat.”

That night, Leon didn’t come home until morning. Deming couldn’t sleep, waking up every few hours to find the other side of the mattress still empty. When he heard Leon’s voice in the hallway, he got up.

“Yi Ba, where were you?”

“Get out of the way. I need to go to bed.”

“You smell like a bar,” Vivian said. “Must be nice to stay out all night doing whatever you want. Wish I could do that.”

“Go out all you want,” Leon said. “I don’t care.”

“You don’t care? Who cooks the meals? Who cleans up your garbage? Who washes your clothes? Who takes care of your Polly’s son while you stay out all night drinking and pissing money away?” Vivian picked up a pair of Leon’s underwear and threw it at him. “Wash your own panties! Find another girl to take care of this child!”

“Will you be quiet?”

Vivian slammed the bathroom door and opened it so she could slam it again. Leon pushed past Deming and fell onto the bed, landing on Mama’s pillow.

TEN DAYS LATER, LEON was gone. Left in the middle of the night. Vivian said he had gone to China.

Michael started to cry. “Is he coming back?”

“Not for a while. He found a job there, in our cousin’s business. Lots of people going back these days.”

“We’re not going, too, are we?” Michael asked, and Vivian shook her head.

It was like the time he fell off a swing and the wind got knocked out of him: boom. Deming wanted to cry, but held it in, kept his face as still as possible. There was a rock inside him, a boulder.

“He would have said good-bye,” Vivian said, “but you and Deming were sleeping.”

Deming knew this was bullshit. Leon had left because he was a coward. He hadn’t said good-bye because he knew he shouldn’t have left, and he had left because he felt bad. As Deming watched Vivian comfort Michael, a wall hardened around him.

THREE WEEKS LATER, VIVIAN announced that she and Deming were going out, the two of them. They were going to buy new clothes for school.

“Why can’t I come, too?” Michael said. “I want new clothes.”

Ever since Leon had left, Michael and Deming no longer bothered to walk past Sopheap’s apartment or try to find change for Mister Softee. They stayed inside, despite the heat. In the shower, Deming balled his fists up and hit his thighs. He had to pretend things were normal.

“This is Deming and me time,” Vivian said. “We never spend time together, right, Deming?”

“Michael should come, too.”

“I’m coming, Mom.”

Vivian told Michael to stay inside the apartment. “I’ll be back soon.”

“No, don’t leave.”

“Put the deadbolt on right away. I’ll make you a nice dinner tonight.”

Michael was crying again. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’ll be back very soon.”

“I’ll? What about Deming?”

“We’ll be back.”

Michael stopped crying. Vivian and Deming waited in the hallway, Vivian holding a plastic bag, until they heard the lock click shut. Deming heard a loud sniffle from inside the apartment and wanted to go back in, but Vivian was already walking toward the staircase.

They got on the Bx12 bus, taking a pair of seats near the front. Deming wondered which stores they would go to.

“Face it,” Vivian finally said. “Your mother isn’t coming back, and you need a good family. I can’t provide for both you and Michael right now. I’m sorry, Deming. I don’t have the money. I’m going to have to move to a smaller apartment, get roommates. I’m getting people to look after you until Leon makes enough in China so he can come back to New York. You’ll be okay, and when Leon returns, we’ll see each other again.”

The wall tightened. He could barely breathe. “When?”

“Soon,” Vivian said.