CHAPTER ONE
When i was ten, my dad, Pat Wilson, joked that I should’ve had my tear ducts removed with my tonsils. I understood where he was coming from. I used to cry all the time. I cried when my crayons broke. I cried when I lost the red bow that was tied around my favorite stuffed bear. I cried when I broke the back door to the garage. Dad seemed like he was going to cry over that one, too. Hara, you’re eight. How in the hell did you pull the door off its hinges?
I can’t remember how I broke the door, but the reason I was crying when I was ten is still vivid in my memory. Why that’s the memory of my childhood that has stuck with me I can’t explain, but humiliation is like superglue. My elementary school days are a mosaic of failing the spelling bee, tucking my skirt into the back of my tights, not realizing I had peanut butter smeared across my sweater for a whole day, seeing my crush confess his feelings to another girl on the same day I was going to declare my fourth-grade heart, and then this one. I’d like to say that these past hurts stung and I moved on, but I can recall the day with perfect clarity. It was sunny and the school term was nearing its end. We were all anticipating summer break and perhaps that was why we were testy with one another. During recess, a couple of stupid kids asked if my face was flat because I’d fallen off the monkey bars and landed facedown. One, I had never fallen off the monkey bars. I was strong as hell even at age ten and I could fly across those damn things. Second, my face is not flat. If anything my face is too round. My chin is curved and my cheeks are plump. I don’t have a prominent forehead or deep-set eyes, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s an Asian thing.
Even though I knew this, I felt ashamed of my face and so I cried because that’s what ten-year-olds do when their feelings are hurt. The tears bothered my dad.
Hara, are you seriously crying because some kid said you had a flat face? What’s the big deal? Hara, tears aren’t going to make other kids stop making fun of you. Ellen, tell her to stop crying.
He wasn’t wrong. Crying didn’t change anything, and a year later, my tear ducts closed up and haven’t worked since—not even at times when they should, such as when the hero or heroine dies in a book after you were promised a happy ending or when Allie remembered it was Noah reading the stories to her in The Notebook or when I’m sitting in the funeral parlor with my dad’s body in a casket next door.
Even if I could produce tears on command, there isn’t much to cry about today. Dad and I hadn’t had much of a relationship since I was eleven and he’d decided that the fatherhood experiment wasn’t working out for him. He’d been busy finding himself, which entailed him taking boys’ trips to places he couldn’t afford, shacking up with women half his age, and generally making Mom miserable. I was glad he’d kept his distance, because any interaction between them ended up sending Mom spiraling. We once joked she cried enough for two people, but it wasn’t just a joke. She wished I would cry more and I wished she would cry less. I’d turned into my dad at some point, I guess. How depressing.
“Drink this. You look thirsty.” Mom shoves a mug into my hand.
“I’m good.” The thought of putting anything in my mouth makes my stomach roil. Not only is the body of my father lying in a box in the next room, but all the prep work for the deceased is done in this very building. I’d rather eat my own toes than digest this funeral food.
“You haven’t eaten or drunk anything all day. I understand if your stomach is upset, but at least put some liquids in you.”
I pretend to sip because getting into an argument over a cup of hot water at a funeral doesn’t seem like the best course of action. It’s easier to give in.
“Your eyeliner is smudged.”
That’s from earlier when I thought if I poked myself in the eye, it might produce tears. It didn’t, even though it hurt. Mom licks her finger and drags it underneath my eye as if I were a little girl again and had dirt smeared on my face. Her action leaves an uncomfortable wet spot above my cheek that I itch to wipe off, but because I don’t want her to feel rejected, I let my face air-dry. She’s already on edge.