Page 59 of The Big Break

Still, she’d find something. Jun had a healthy skepticism of traditional medicine, and all the chemicals it prescribed, a philosophy passed on to her by her mother. She had been grateful that the doctor at the ER had checked out Po and found him healthy, but she wasn’t about to seriously consider a child psychologist. Po was just four. He could barely write his name. What could a psychologist possibly do?

Even though you’ve all but run out of options? Jun thought to herself. Maybe Kai was right. Maybe that’s why she was so angry.

She’d tried all kinds of things to help Po get better, to help him be less afraid, to help him stop biting, and yet, what did she have to show for it? A trip to the ER, getting kicked out of day care, and nightmares that never stopped. Some days, she felt like the worst mother in the world. And that feeling made her feel even less inclined to ask for help. It was those moments in her life, the ones where she felt at her worst, that her mother’s hard lessons kicked in, that, instinctively, she turned inward. The only person I can rely on is myself, even when I’m messing up.

Am I messing up? she asked herself, as she did every day she woke up and made decisions about Po. And now there was Kai. The man she’d told he absolutely couldn’t have sex before his competition and then she’d let him kiss the life out of her? What was she doing?

She thought about Kai kissing her on the beach, his body on hers, and the way she liked how it felt, even though every fiber of her body knew she was just a convenient distraction, just one more excuse Kai would use not to face his own issues. She’d be an empty vessel for him, a warm body, just like the countless other women he’d used the same way. It scared her that she’d been so close to letting passion rule her life once more.

Just like with Po’s father. The last time she’d let herself be carried away in the moment, she’d gotten pregnant at nineteen. She thought about the brief fling that took her virginity and felt the old shame, saw her mother’s sharp disapproval and felt the sting of her slap. She wouldn’t be that helpless person again, that dumb, naive girl, who trusted that everything would work out. Po’s father and her own mother had taught her to never take anything for granted. And never trust anyone but yourself.

“Mommy?” Po’s sleepy voice caught her and she realized she’d been standing at the kitchen sink, absently rubbing the same dishes in the now-murky water. She’d been too distracted to finish the dinner dishes. She jumped at the sound of his voice, wondering if everything was all right. She’d put him to bed nearly half an hour ago.

“Is everything okay?” Jun turned, glancing at her little boy in his Spider-Man pj’s, fearful that he’d had another nightmare.

“I can’t sleep,” he told her, and for once, she was happy to have a regular toddler problem. “Can I sleep in your bed?”

Jun opened her mouth with her usual curt refusal but stopped short. She’d been walking the boy back to his bed every night for weeks, and the only place it had gotten either of them was little sleep and now, for Po, night terrors. The doctor said they could be caused by lack of sleep. Was her insistence that Po sleep in his own bed causing him to wake up in the night screaming? She couldn’t shake that persistent fear that somehow, as his mother, this was all her fault.

Her head spun with the repercussions of it all. Her mother had always been so confident, so sure her way was the right way, and yet Jun was plagued with doubts daily, second-guessing herself at every turn. Babies were supposed to sleep in their own beds, weren’t they? She’d done all that hard work when he was a baby of letting him cry it out in his crib, and now here he was at four, begging to sleep in her bed. She felt, as she had so many times before, parenting was like trying to take a casual stroll in quicksand—she was up to her neck before she knew what hit her.

She fought with herself, wishing, for a fleeting moment, she did have someone, a grown-up, in her house she could ask for help. Someone to tell her she was doing the right thing—whatever that thing was. Or someone to at least talk it all out, reason through it and come to a decision. She envied her sister her loyal husband, who, as far as she could tell, was always the voice of gentle reason. She wished she had one of those. The doctor said Po needed more sleep. Maybe he’d sleep better in her room.

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