Janice Lee: The Expatriates

Her mother speaks again now.

“That woman has responsibility too, Mercy. She choose you to help her, and these things can happen. It is not all your fault. You can live your life. You are allowed.”

“I don’t think she’s telling me I can’t be happy. I think she just wanted to reach out.”

But people like Margaret are aliens to her mother. They are so far apart they will never be able to understand the other’s motivations or predilections. To be her, to be Mercy, always traveling back and forth from these different kinds of people, is to be exhausted. To straddle all those viewpoints and be the translator and the mediator and never know what you yourself should be thinking.

“Thank you, Mom,” she says. They sit with their simple Korean meal, spooning up the spicy stew, feeling it burn its way down their throats, nourishing them.

She will handle the Margaret issue by herself, but she does not feel alone anymore.

IT HAS BEEN RAINING nonstop for a week. The sky opened up and never closed, and torrential, steady rain has been flooding the island. The mountains are crumbling onto the roads, where the concrete, swollen with moisture, has been caving in and creating soft, porous potholes. The sea is a muddied, swirling green full of sand and sediment; the beaches are a sodden, sorry mess.

Margaret comes across a book on the balcony, left behind by a forgetful Daisy. Now a bloated pulp of soft, tender paper, it smells rich and sweet and musty. She throws it in the garbage. The never-ending rain has made her feel hopeless but also secretly pleased that she doesn’t have to go anywhere. She stays in, empties the dehumidifiers, and regulates the temperature of her house, as if she’s in survival mode.

She enrolled Daisy and Philip in the first session of summer school with the promise that they might take a vacation after. They grumbled but acquiesced. So the summer days resemble school days a little, except slower, more soothing, the pressure let out.

Clarke e-mailed her a tentative itinerary that had them going back home in late July. He said he was going to book it unless she said no. She didn’t respond, so she assumes he has booked it. He is learning.

Today is the day she is going to meet up with Mercy.

A few days after she sent her e-mail and then found out about the pregnancy from Hilary, she received a brief note back, thanking her for reaching out and suggesting that they meet in person. Mercy suggested a few days but could only meet after six, as she worked in Kowloon now. Not a word about the pregnancy, although Margaret didn’t really expect her to tell her over e-mail. They arranged to meet in Kowloon, close to Mercy’s work.

She calls Clarke. “I’m going out tonight,” she says. “Is it possible for you to come home early, since I have to leave by five?”

“Sure,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“I’m meeting a group of girls for dinner,” she says. If she keeps it general, he won’t ask who.

“I’m really glad,” he says. “It’s good for you to go out and spend time with friends.”

When she comes back through the kids’ rooms on her way out, she comes upon Daisy sleeping, book splayed out next to her, unusual because she is too old for naps. It must be the rain. Daisy’s hand is in the pocket of her hoodie, and it looks uncomfortable. When Margaret pulls it out, it’s clutching a bead necklace. This girl. She can break Margaret’s heart a million different ways.

If life is a continuum, and Daisy is at the beginning of an adult life and Margaret is the midpoint, where, what, is someone like Mercy? She seemed so unformed, so unknowing, a mere child still. For the first time, Margaret considers that Mercy has a family of her own, a mother, a father, possibly siblings. A family, a history, a background. All she saw before was someone in relation to herself, how Mercy could be helpful to her family, to her, for her. What Mercy did to her.

Margaret leaves to meet Mercy, wondering what, or who, she will find.

WHEN SHE AND MARGARET see each other, she swallows, hard. Beautiful Margaret, still perfect looking, if a bit drenched from the rain. They sit down at the coffee shop, an out-of-the-way place in a touristy hotel. She places her hands under her belly. Margaret, always polite, doesn’t say anything.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Mercy says.

“I knew,” Margaret says.

“Really? How?”

“Hong Kong is so small,” Margaret says. “You know that.”

“It’s due in October,” Mercy says. “A Halloween baby.”

“And what will you do?” Margaret asks. An open-ended question for a fluid situation.

“I don’t know,” Mercy says. “Jeez. This has gotten intense so quickly.”

Margaret smiles. “Yes,” she says. “Maybe we should order something.”

“Don’t you think it’s funny,” Mercy says, “that people always have certain rituals? We need to meet for meals or nourishment to mark certain occasions, and we have to observe certain customs before we get into what we really feel.”

There she goes again, saying inappropriate and bizarre things at the worst times.

But Margaret smiles. “Yes, otherwise it would descend into chaos, I suppose.”

“One small way for us to distinguish ourselves from the animals.”

“You’re very smart, Mercy,” Margaret says. “I think you always have been.”

“About everything but life,” she says.

She hadn’t known what to expect, but this is okay.

The waitress comes over, and she orders a chocolate milkshake while Margaret gets a coffee. “Cravings,” she says apologetically.

“I know,” Margaret says. “I had different ones with every child. With my first, it was BLTs with fries, all the time, and with mint-chip ice cream. I gained fifty pounds!”

“I think I’m well on the way to that,” says Mercy.

They look at each other.

“So,” Margaret says, “how have you been?”

Mercy is quiet. “Not good, obviously,” she says. “But I don’t want to talk about me when it’s your family I’ve impacted so much.”

“It’s weird,” Margaret says. “I’ve thought about you so much, but in a way, I’ve not thought about you at all. Only about G.”

Silent again.

“I got a job,” Mercy says. “Through my mom at the church. Oh, my mom came over, and she’s living with me for a while.” She feels that these are okay things to talk about with Margaret, virtuous, noncontroversial things like mothers and churches.

“Oh? What kind of work?”

“Selling Korean antiques. One of the church ladies has this store. It’s just down the street, and that’s why I couldn’t meet you earlier. I work there kind of as her sales assistant. She’s nice.”

Margaret’s eyes fill with tears.

“Sorry!” Mercy says, stricken. “I’m so sorry.”

Margaret shakes her head. “I’m sorry too.”

“No, you don’t need to be sorry!” Mercy says. “I’m the one. I’m the one to be sorry forever.” As she says this, she realizes she has never apologized to Margaret, never seen her since what happened. There was the note, but that was it.

“I know,” Margaret says. “I didn’t know for a long time, but now I think I know.”

“How are Daisy and Philip? And Clarke?”

“I think everyone is doing better than me. I’m the one dragging everyone down. They tiptoe around me.”

“It’s hard to move on,” Mercy says.

“How did this all happen?” Margaret says, gesturing to Mercy’s belly.

“Oh, this,” she says. “It’s complicated. It was unexpected, to say the least.”

“I don’t mean to pry,” Margaret says. “Have you thought what you’re going to do?”