instant family

I wonder if she ever thinks, "I should have just left her in China." The daughter who had lived there twelve years of fifteen. It happens often enough, the intercontinental "I'll be back for you later," for reasons that sometimes I know about, sometimes I don't. None of my business. But people talk to me, parents and children, and sometimes I wonder what it's like for them when they go home.

"You never say, 'I love you?'" I'm not sure where this conversation came from, or who asked her, but there's a dictionary out.

"I don't like my mother." Her classmates are a little aghast; she might as well have gone out front and stomped hard on a crack. As if that would have meant anything to anyone but me.

"But I love my brother." I know there are two steps, ages seven and three, Chinese-American boys she had met but never lived with before January 7. Instant immersion, both language and familial. And considering that one has busted her iPod and disabled her computer, the fondness in her voice makes me smile. It seems as if it could be so much harder at this point, and perhaps to her mother it is.

After all, she's suddenly parenting a girl 24/7 who not only refuses to give up her Chuck Taylors but insists she will grow up to be a school bus driver instead of the pre-ordained medical professional because, to her, "It's so cool." That's gotta be a phase, but at the moment, she means it; I'd say the fact that it gives her mother apoplexy is only a perk, but I don't think she knows her well enough to deliberately antagonize yet, and isn't concerned regardless. She just is who she is, and for now that's kind of the catch.