Ama

921 words

My parents and I have come to visit my grandmother. We live in Houston, TX, and she in Taipei, Taiwan, so this is no small occasion. After an 18-hour, $1000-per-person transoceanic flight, my mom and dad are tired and want to rest. I, on the other hand, am strangely awake.

First I put my suitcase in what will be my room for the next two weeks. (It actually belongs to my cousin, who I call Ge ge, or big brother, but he is currently serving his required 22 months in the Taiwanese military.) Then I pad down the stairs and through the living room into my grandmother’s bedroom.

She’s asleep, lying in the middle of her queen-sized mattress, swallowed up by a big flowery comforter. (Everyone else, including me, sleeps on stiff bamboo mats with only a few thin sheets.) A fan rotates back and forth on its stand, blowing cool humid air across the soft skin of my grandmother’s forehead. I sit in one of the big wooden chairs in the hallway and look in on her through the door.

Sometimes she doesn’t know who we are.

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