Free Bitter Melon by Cara Chow Page A

of her, no negatives, no copies.”
    I have no answer for her. Not putting it up isn’t an option, but displaying the big scratch also seems offensive. Instead, I avoid the issue. “Don’t move,” I say. I get a broom and begin sweeping away the glass so she won’t get hurt. Mom stays frozen like a large round boulder. The photo in her hands has become a part of the boulder, like a piece of quartz embedded in stone. Even her tears are frozen. They are vibrating just under her eyelids, but no sobs come forth. I continue sweepingaround her in a circle, like a satellite revolving around the earth.
    I turn over the broken television.
    “I worked so hard to buy that TV,” Mom says.
    It is thirteen years old. It’s black-and-white, even though everyone else has color. But to Mom, it’s still money. She mourns every grain of rice that is not eaten. She cringes at every pair of panty hose that runs, scorning its owner for her carelessness. She stoops into gutters to pick up pennies, as if each penny were a nugget of gold. Quietly, I shuttle the TV away, to remove this assault from Mom’s field of vision.
    In the kitchen, our cabinets and drawers are all open. The porcelain bowls, plates, and cups, and ivory chopsticks have spilled onto the linoleum floor. After cleaning the living room, I begin stacking our dining ware, separating out the broken pieces. Once that is organized, I sweep those floors as well. Mom is still hunched over in the living room.
    After cleaning up the kitchen, I proceed to the bathroom and then to the bedroom. As I clean, I notice how this work wears down the body and saps the spirit. It seems endless, relentless. I want to take a break, stop for today and continue tomorrow, but I can’t. The punishment is cleansing, proof to Mom that I am not lazy or incompetent. I remind myself that this is how Mom must feel, day after day. No time for rest, no time for fun.
    Once I am done with the bedroom, I go back to the living room to tend to Mom. I peel her hooked fingers from the photo frame, remove the remaining shards, and place it back on themantelpiece in the shrine, ignoring the big streak across Popo’s face. Then I help Mom up from the floor and draw her a hot bath.
    We go over to Theresa and Nellie’s for dinner, but afterwards, we return home. Mom’s stomach is worse than ever. She is so hunched over that she is nearly crawling up the stairs to our apartment.
    Once we’re inside, I wrap Mom in blankets on the couch and make her a pot of loose-leaf oolong tea. Since we now have no television, I bring out my plastic childhood record player, another relic Mom has refused to throw away or donate. Under my desk, I find the stack of records Mom brought over from Hong Kong. She has Elvis; the Beatles; Peter, Paul and Mary; and several Canto-pop records from the sixties and seventies. I play one of the Canto-pop records. The music sounds like Western music with Cantonese lyrics. The singer’s voice is smooth and sweet, not nasally as in the Peking operas. I sit next to Mom, and the two of us scan the room. There is a giant crack running from one corner of the ceiling to the other.
    Mom heaves a deep, sad sigh. “Look at all these cracks,” she says. “I can work so hard to make everything perfect, to put everything in order, yet in one moment, all that can be wrenched away from me. It is a mockery of my efforts. That is how cruel nature can be.”
    I smart with indignation. I just spent hours cleaning up, but all she can focus on is everything I can’t fix, as if I haven’t done anything at all.
    Then Mom rises from the couch to survey the apartment. Immediately, I tense up. She will find some flaw with my cleaning. It will never measure up to her standards. But instead, Mom nods and smiles. “Good girl. The apartment looks so nice now, almost as if the earthquake had never struck.”
    This is the first time she has ever complimented me.
    “As long as I have you, they can take everything away