Free Planet Lolita by Charles Foran Page B

at me.” Though we’d retold the story a zillion times, I added something new. “That was when I knew animals could show emotions.”
    “Was it?”
    “We didn’t have Manga yet.”
    “When the boat arrived and we stepped across the gap, you panicked. I had to jump back onto the pontoon and grab you before the stern pulled ahead too far. ‘You almost left me behind!’ you said.”
    “And you answered, ‘The monks would have looked after you.’”
    “Which they would have,” he said.
    “And then I said the other thing?”
    “The sun was setting into the Chao Phraya,” Dad said with a full Kwok star smile, “paving it gold down the middle, and the moon was already out. You said, ‘When the moon is full it means God is watching us. When it’s only half-full …’”
    “… it means he’s only half-watching us.”
    He had a new thought as well. “That was the moment I knew it was okay to insist you receive First Communion. That I wasn’t seducing you into being a Catholic—her accusation.”
    When I’d said God was a restaurant, I was probably just thinking about the noodles. But whenever I remembered being on the boat, and noticing both the sun and moon in the sky, all I could see was the hopalong dog, and the orange-curtained monks, and the sleepy, happy face of the bronze Buddha lying inside another Bangkok temple—called a ‘wat’ in Thailand, which sounds like
what
but isn’t a question—that we visited. While I was wondering about this he pinched the cross, fallen over my pajama top, between his fingers.
    “Was it full or half-full?” I suddenly had to ask.
    “Hmm?”
    “The moon. In Bangkok.”
    “I can’t recall,” Dad said, “and neither can you, obviously. That’s funny.”
    “What—or ‘wat’—is?”
    He frowned. “Well, was God giving us his full attention that night, or just half? It’s sort of the point of the story.”
    “Maybe we don’t know yet.”
    He kissed me on the forehead. “We’ll have to go back and find out. Bangkok is perfect for a guy like me. Everything easy and casual. Everyone in it for fun.”
    “I love you, Dad. Even with stinky tumour hair.”
    “I should wear a cap when I smoke.”
    “Bad idea.”
    “Wouldn’t I look good in a Blue Jays cap? Or the Maple Leafs?”
    “Who are the Maple Leafs?”
    “You don’t know your hometown hockey team? What kind of children have we raised?”
    “Rachel says we’re fiddy-fiddy.”
    “Sorry?”
    “Half-half.”
    “You may be a higher percentage Asian.”
    My MacBook went
beep-beep.
Someone wanted FaceTime.
    “Must be her,” I said.
    “Didn’t she just—?”
    “She said she might call again.”
    Dad got up, lowering his gaze to allow us both to keep on trusting each other. “Those PJs are ancient,” he said at the door. “They don’t fit anymore. Don’t wear them just to please me.”
    I yanked the fabric down over my belly button.
I’m no longer your Hello Kitty?
I wanted to say. Manga wasted no time jumping back onto the bed, and I sat at my desk. The contact wasn’t oneI recognized. Thinking that Rachel was trying to reach me on a friend’s computer, I accepted the request. The screen opened onto another bedroom, not my sister’s. This room was much smaller, and the low, grimy lighting made me think it had no window. Within the frame was a bed covered by a red duvet and a table with a box of tissues, a squirt-bottle of hand cream, and a lamp encircled by a halo, like the Virgin Mary in some paintings. The walls were coated in cigarette smoke—I could almost smell it through the computer—and bare except for cheap New Year’s decorations of a fat baby and a grinning Panda. Positioned front and centre was a chair.
    “Hello?” I said. “Anyone there?”
    I heard muffled voices within the microphone range and, further away, a door slamming. But no one appeared. Only the flapping of the cardboard baby, caused by an off-camera fan, made clear that what I was watching was here and