CHAPTER 112 - Teach Your Children (2)

214 Rivington Street.

Saturday, 3 January 2009.

The cold penetrated her coat.

Luciana Mio had been warned, yet still underestimated the East Coast’s winters. She wore a coat that was a bit too big, given to her by someone’s aunt who had once lived in NYC. In the nook of her arm, Nozomi was bundled tightly in three layers, wearing a Disneyland Lost Boys hat that was another donation.

Her daughter was asleep, her tiny body heavy on her hip, and the cold bit her wrists and face and fingers, where they were exposed to the elements.

Her father and mother were already talking to the people in the building. They were like that, always talking, always friendly, never a stranger to anyone, chronically averse to personal space.

“You must be the family moving in!” An African-American man bolted back into the building after her father introduced them. “Hold on—”

Then the whole building started pouring out.

Reedley was the kind of small-town community where everyone knew each other. When they had moved to Los Angeles, it had been a jarring lesson in minding your own business, especially in K-town, where her parents did not speak the language.

What she had not expected at all was that, here in NYC, they would encounter a Reedley-style neighbourhood reception. The rubberneckers consisted of young families. There were two young guys from the second floor, and a girl her age, carrying a baby of her own, and innumerable aunts and grandmothers, who took to Mrs Mio in Spanish and in English.

The crowd hushed when their Association President appeared. She wore a Christmas sweater, a golden cross on display, and a thick housecoat that came all the way down past her knees.

She shook her parents’ hands, and then she came upon Luciana, large and looming.

“Luciana,” the woman said in a heavy accent. She sounded Dominican.

“Yes, señora,” Luciana replied politely, holding Nozomi a little closer.

“You sing?”

It was a weird question. Luciana said, “I used to.”

The woman nodded, as if confirming something she had heard or known. “Me llamo Tita,” she said in Spanish. “This is my building—anyone gives you trouble, you come to Tita. ¿Oíste?”

“Sí, señora.”

“Just Doña Tita is fine. We’re family.”

“Sí, Doña Tita,” Luciana replied, giving the woman her best smile.

“So adorable, just like the other one.”

The other one?

Ah… a blue-eyed blonde flashed across her mind.

Doña Tita pulled Mio’s mother aside and took her through the apartment and started speaking in rapid Spanish, and Mrs Mio answered in equally rapid Spanish, and by the time they were on the third floor, they knew everything they needed about one another. The next topic of immense importance was where the cheapest and the freshest groceries could be found.

That left the young men, who were already having trouble taking their eyes off her. Mio held Nozomi a little closer still and politely moved past them.

Her father started carrying the boxes up, and her new neighbours all offered to help. When she got up to the third floor, she realised that it had recently been painted and repaired. The newness made a strange optical illusion. Fresh paint over old repairs, made to look as if the public part of the apartment was neglected.

Inside the apartment, which had three rooms and a kitchen, everything was new and ticking. The radiator looked like it came out of the box a week ago. The floor was spotless. The walls had fresh white paint.

In the corridor, she stopped for a little while because there were barely perceptible indents on the wall that looked like…

ARE THESE BULLET HOLES?

Was there a shootout in here?

Was that why the rent was so cheap?

Her knees felt a little weak.

It was too late now. The boxes came up, not to mention three of the local guys were bringing up an old sofa. Plastic-wrapped mattresses were making their way up as well.

Luciana found a spot near the radiator so that Nozomi could keep warm.

By the time she calmed her heart, Eppie arrived.

In Mio’s eyes, Eppie always looked a million dollars. Even now, Eppie was wearing a coat that Mio knew belonged in a different economic stratum and a different street, a block from Central Park. She wore the smile of a saint who had done God’s work, and had no guilt to speak of.

Behind her, on the stair landing, were two additional silhouettes.

Both were familiar to her.

The first was a leaner man in his 30s wearing a coat worth probably a third of Eppie’s camel one. She recalled that the man’s name was Eric Lee; he was Sony’s lawyer.

She did not need to see the second man’s face to know who he was. The figure was enormous, and it had to turn sideways just to get past the balustrades. He had a very large box under one arm and a slightly smaller box over his shoulder. When he saw her, his whole body grew stiff. He carefully set down the boxes, and then he settled behind Eppie like a Great Dane waiting its turn.

Something funny tickled Mio’s throat. Her eyes grew a little heavy, but there really was no need for tears. It was all in the past now. She was well aware of how instrumental Lim had been in the final fate of William Chen. Were it not for the giant, the outcome might have been wholly different.

What troubled her was that there were two Lims in her heart.

The kind smiling man who spoke slowly and was kind to cats.

And the terrifying visage of his murderous face when he found her splayed like a spatchcock, bleeding out on the benches.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She felt shame. From him or her, she couldn’t say.

The rational part of her told her it was foolish to blame this man or reject this man. His martial brother was a monster, and monsters did what monsters did because they were monsters, and everyone else paid the price.

The consequence of that was also this.

The two of them stood about six feet apart, not daring to meet each other’s eyes.

“Luci,” Lim said at last.

“Lim,” Mio answered.

“I bought a cot,” the giant said, pushing the box forward. “Can I put it together for you?”

“Please,” Mio said softly. “That will be very helpful.”

On her shoulder, Nozomi switched cheeks.

Time seemed to slow, and the distance between them seemed to grow liminal.

“HI!” came the interruption from their mutual benefactor, Euphemia Fontaine. “I brought you a stroller. They told me this was the most pragmatically useful one.” The friend pushed forward what had to be an obscenely expensive stroller. “You know Eric, of course.”

Eric crossed the distance between her and Lim, and the two of them shook hands.

Eric knew far more of her ordeal than he let on. Eric had been there since the beginning, since Eppie returned to LAPA to uncover the truth. He was also there when they found her in Reedley. The Newfoundlander had been Eppie’s chaperone.

“Thank you so much, Mr Lee, for everything.”

“It’s nothing. Your daughter is so adorable. May I?”

The lawyer reached out, only to be met by cold rejection. Nozomi, who had been asleep and had been woken up by the commotion, leaned past Eric toward Eppie and made a cute noise that was not a word, but also did not need to be a word to be understood.

Eppie took the baby in her arms and allowed Nozomi to rest her face against her collarbone.

Nozomi’s goal had never been Eppie. She reached out, took a handful of that beautiful golden hair, and shoved it straight into her mouth.

“The cost of popularity.” Eppie sighed, melting. “Why don’t you two unpack everything? I’ll let you know when Nozomi is hungry.”

And then they were left alone, her and Lim, with an expensive-looking cot and a very expensive-looking baby carriage still in their boxes.

And that was their afternoon.

Without a word, Lim unpacked the cot on the floor in the bedroom that would be her and Nozomi’s, with an Allen key between his lips, and the Chinese instructions spread out across his knees.

Twice, her baby wanted the breast and Mio left the room to feed Nozomi, only to find herself back beside the giant, watching the frustrated Chinese accountant trying to cobble together what a factory in Guangzhou had promised to be an easy assembly. The sound of her parents speaking with their new neighbours, the roar of Doña Tita as she offered to make them dinner and her mother saying they could do it together, rapidly transformed the apartment from a strange place to a home.

It was cosy.

The kind of cosiness that, despite everything, Reedley didn’t quite capture.

In the family room, Eppie tried to change Nozomi’s diaper and had to give up and leave it to Eric. The lawyer, surprisingly, was very good.

“You know how many siblings I have?” he scoffed at the singer-songwriter. “You don’t hold a candle to what I can do.”

The room laughed.

In the bedroom, Mio ended up helping Lim because the man looked like he was about to snap. They fitted the side rails, tightened the bolts, placed the ribs in one by one, and installed the latch and key.

When they finally stepped back, they could see that the advertising had not lied.

It was a beautiful cot, a premium one.

“When are you setting up the chicken shop?” Lim asked.

“I’m not sure. As soon as we get the keys.”

Lim nodded. “Let me help.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Let me help,” the giant repeated. “Please.”

Mio licked her parched lips.

“There’s a lot of work,” Lim said, more pragmatically than sentimentally. “You need a POS terminal, maybe a kitchen ticket printer. The old fittings have to be stripped out and taken out. If we’re keeping the ovens and the deep fryers, we need to steam clean the whole thing. There’s gonna be a walk-in. Is the cold room cold enough? Is it clean enough? Is there mould? How are we gonna redo the shop sign? Are we gonna put up some Japanese and Peruvian flags? I know a lot of guys who do shop build-outs… for… reasons. Then we need the health department permit. Change the locks on the roller shutters…”

Mio listened to all of this as though they were the lyrics of a lullaby.

I… We… Us…

Fate and faith were funny things.

Father Parson had said that she had to be patient.

That God had a plan.

She had felt so guilty and so afraid because her parents had put everything into this one move, not for themselves but for her. If their shop failed, there would be nowhere else to go but back to Reedley, penniless, seeking charity.

Yet she had not even been here for one afternoon, and now she felt more confident and hopeful and safer. The frigid air flowing through the ajar window, or so it seemed to Mio, no longer penetrated her clothes.

“Are you still looking after cats?” she asked.

“Oh YES!” Lim’s eyes lit up. “You will not believe what Eppie’s employing me for…”

Then he paused, as if struck by lightning. “I need an assistant…” he said suddenly. The smile that appeared on his face was no longer wry and wan, but genuine and large. “You wouldn’t have any experience looking after cats, Miss Mio… would you?”

Mio’s answer was interrupted by the arrival of an African-American gentleman in a very expensive three-piece suit and a long winter coat that looked like it was from a classic movie.

He introduced himself as George, though it was obvious to Mio that everyone but her family knew who this man was.

“The landlord has a number of furniture items as well as white goods which are in storage,” the man said while looking at Eppie, with a subtle smile on his face. “I’ll send someone to bring it up. You could probably use a dining table, chairs, a spare fridge for the milk and the baby things, and a change table perhaps.”

Her mother was beyond thankful.

“No, no, it’s nothing,” the man called George assured them. “Fair warning though, Mrs Mio, some of the items might still be in their boxes… That’s how rarely they’ve been…ah… used.”

214 Rivington Street.

Evening.

Lim was the laconic type, a man who preferred thinking in the cold to talking. So he stood outside the apartment, watching his breath make little steam angels that dissipated under the streetlight.

His head was filled with thoughts about the girl.

Her face, the high cheekbones. Her depthless amber irises. The way she looked up to meet his eyes whenever they spoke. His nostrils had been filled with the scent of milk and the sweetness of the baby he had held in his enormous arms.

A baby without a father.

A father whose ashes were buried in that house in San Marino.

In the aftermath, Chen-ye had done something incredible. He had struck William from the ancestral hall. If and when Nozomi walked into that house, she would not see the source of her mother’s pain in black and white next to the auspicious photo of her great-grandfather.

The very last time he had met Chen-ye, when he left Omnia, Chen-ye had left him a final command.

“My grandchild cannot grow up knowing want.”

Grandchild.

Chen-ge’s daughter.

Mio’s daughter.

His breath escaped in spectral puffs. Lim wished that he had words like Eppie, so that he could explain this feeling inside his chest, this strange congestion of joy and longing and distance, so warm, and yet so oppressive.

And then he walked to Broadway, to oversee how the renovation of NYC’s first cat café was going.

He was not a father yet.

Though soon, he would adopt untold numbers of feline orphans.