Chloe

Feb 24, 2014, Monday.

It's been almost one week since I've restarted at BreadTalk, and my boss, Devan, has finally allowed me to help the team design the special item for the next month. This job is a lot more physically tiring than serving at Tropic Falls, but it still does not drain me as much. As I walk back home with a bag full of experimental pastries, my steps have a slight bounce to them—a bounce that has been missing for a few months now.

As much as I hate to admit it, RJ might be right in convincing me to change jobs. No, no, I should stop thinking about her again. She's dead to me now.

Māma is home when I get back. She is lying on the couch and massaging her eyes, but she sits up at the noise and lights up when she sees me.

"Oh, Chiarong, jīn tīan huí laí dè zǎo à!" You're back early today.

"You're back early too, Māma," I reply in Mandarin Chinese as I take off my shoes.

"Yeah, lucky me." Māma flashes me a big grin as she taps on the space next to her. "Come sit next to me, dearest daughter, and tell me about your day."

I suppress a sigh. Today has been a lot, but I don't want to tell my mother that I left the classroom in the middle of the day and bawled for twenty minutes. Instead, I simply say, "Today was fine."

Māma frowns. Her vision may be getting worse, but her keen perception of emotions is still as sharp as ever. "What's wrong? You can tell Māma."

Dropping my bag to the floor, I float to the couch and collapse into her extended hands. Where do I even begin to explain what is wrong? I decide to start small.

"I failed my Chemistry quiz," I admit. "I'm sorry, Māma."

Māma scoffs in an exaggerated manner. "That's not something to be sorry about. As long as you try your best, I'm proud of you."

That is my mother's usual mantra for anything I do. I know it's supposed to be encouraging, but I find myself slumping further into her arms.

"I don't think I did my best at all," I mutter. After all, what even is my best? I'm not focusing in class, I'm not earning as much money as I could with my new job, and I'm not doing well with my broken heart. Every aspect of my life is not at its 'best', whatever that is.

"Nonsense!" Māma chides, holding me tighter. "What you are doing right now is beyond your best. Way beyond. It hurts me seeing you work so hard like this, dearest daughter."

The more my mother holds me, the more I bury into her. "It hurts me more seeing your eyes get worse."

Māma sighs. I am ready to argue with her on this topic again, but she changes the subject instead. "Where's your friend? Ruijun? Are you going to invite her over again?"

My heart drops to my stomach. "She's... Um, I don't think she'll be coming back," I say in the calmest possible voice. I am glad my face is planted against Māma's chest because I don't want her to see my expression.

"Oh, that's too bad. She was a nice girl, and you seemed to have a good time with her. I thought you'd bring her over more regularly."

Memories from that weekend flood into my mind. I am suddenly remembering our baking adventures, the long grocery trips, the even longer nights... and I can't help but let out a cry.

Māma's body tenses. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing..."

"How can it be nothing?" Worry fills her voice and she tightens her embrace. "What's wrong, Chiarong? You can tell me."

Silence ensues as I contemplate what I should tell my mother. Finally, I sigh and say, "I'm just so stupid."

"Aiyo, how can you say that?" Māma exclaims. "Chiarong, you're the smartest, most hardworking, most thoughtful, most well-behaved daughter in the whole world."

I sigh again as I sit up. "That's just not true..." Before Māma can admonish me again, I add, "I- I think I like someone, Māma."

Her brows furrow. "That's okay. You're seventeen going on eighteen. That's normal."

"But I shouldn't have," I mutter, my voice cracking, "I liked someone I shouldn't have..."

The tone of my mother changes drastically. "Who broke my dearest daughter's heart? Who made you this sad? Tell me, and Mama will give them a big slap in their face."

Despite feeling like absolute crap, a laugh escapes my throat. "It's my fault for falling so hard. I'm stupid."

"Don't say that again. You are not stupid."

"But I am. I don't have time. I'm failing all my quizzes, I'm worried about your condition, I'm trying to earn money to help you, I- I don't have time to be dating or liking anybody. I know all that, and yet I still let myself fall in lov..." The last word is stuck in my throat, and I gulp. That word is not to be used freely.

Māma stares at me for a long time before she cries out to the sky, "Aiyo, Chiarong, you're being so hard on yourself! You are not stupid at all to fall in love and feel the things you feel! You know who's really stupid? Me."

I gasp. "What? How can you say that? You are not stupid."

Māma chuckles at the sudden role reversal. "Have I told you the story of your father?"

The mere mention of my father ignites an age-old fury within me. "I don't want to listen to any stories involving him," I huff. "He's a bastard who left you. I'd rather hear stories about grandpa and grandma."

"But I already told you everything I know about your grandparents."

"And I'd rather listen to their stories a thousand times over that man's. Grandpa and grandma didn't leave each other."

Māma half chuckles and half sighs. "Don't be like this, Chiarong, he's not all that bad."

"He is! He left you!"

"He did, but he was still very good to me." Māma's sereneness wins me over, and I quieten to listen to her. "I met him when I was attending National Taipei University. I think I just turned twenty-two then. I was in the middle of my schooling, barely recovering from your grandparents' passing, and barely keeping up with my studies. Those were the darkest times in my life, Chiarong, and I desperately needed some light—any light—to keep me going. I would have dropped out of college and ruined your grandparents' last wishes for me if he hadn't come into my life.

"He was like a guardian sent to me by the angels in heaven. He was the Resident Assistant at my dorm, a sort of a mentor for people living in the dorms, and when he noticed I was missing classes, he extended his help to me. Soon, he was helping me in every aspect of my life. He helped me in my classes, helped me get my degree, helped me with my first interview, helped me secure my first job. And for many years, he was the only listening ear I had, the only person I trusted."

I blink rapidly. Māma's recount oddly resembles how I feel about RJ...

"He- He sounds very kind..." I admit in a whisper.

"He was." The moon's reflection swims in Māma's eyes as they glaze over. "We spent two years together in Taipei, two blissful years, and then his visa expired and he needed to go back to his home country, Singapore. I was in a dilemma about whether to follow him or not, but I soon found out I was pregnant with you. And that's when I decided to follow him here. He actually welcomed me for a few months, he helped me settle some paperwork, helped me get this flat... and then, a few months before you were due, he disappeared from my life. I had to go through the pregnancy all by myself, in a foreign country."

Any traces of warmth I had towards my father vanish. "Asshole," I spat.

His resemblance to RJ once again shines through. Two assholes, abandoning me without another word, putting me through an emotional rollercoaster that I desperately want to get off.

Māma laughs. "He is an asshole for doing that, but you know, he had given me many signs, Chiarong, many that I chose to ignore. Firstly, he had never committed to being with me. And when he first mentioned needing to move out of Taiwan, he told me not to follow him. He told me he had other plans, and he told me to stay in Taipei and start a life without him. I didn't listen, well, because I was pregnant with his child, but also because I was just... young and stupid. Young me—stupid me—insisted on loving him, insisted on following him, despite everything he told me."

"Still an asshole," I insist with a pout. "You're not stupid, Māma, he's just an asshole."

"Well, if I'm not stupid, then you're not either." Māma pinches my cheeks. "None of us are stupid, Chiarong, love is just... difficult to figure out."

My mind wanders back to RJ, back to our memories, back to the wave of emotions that wrecked me over the past few days. I close my eyes. "It really is so difficult..."

"That's love, that's part of being human. And you know what? I don't regret the difficulties it brings. If I were to replay my life, I'd pick all the same choices, and I'd live through that heartbreak again."

I open my eyes and stare at my mother incredulously. "What? Why?"

She squeezes my cheeks. "Because those are choices that gave me you."

Tears well up in my eyes. "Māma..."

"I wouldn't trade the years spent with him for anything. Most of all, I wouldn't trade the years I got to spend with you."

"You had to take care of me all by yourself, why... why would you want to keep the experience of raising me..."

"Because whenever you call me Māma, whenever we get to hug like this, whenever you confide with me with your problems, it's like everything is worth it," Māma says as she wipes my tears away. "The biggest regret in my life is not your father, or coming to Singapore, or being pregnant without a husband. My biggest regret is that I am not earning enough money for you to enjoy your life, that I am forcing you to give up your youth for me. It's my biggest failure as a mother."

I shake my head so vigorously Māma's hands fall away. "No! You're the best Māma in the whole world."

"And you're the best daughter in the whole world." Māma chuckles as she smoothes my hair. "Look, love is hard, but it can be worth it. So don't ever call yourself stupid for falling in love. Instead, tell me if someone breaks your heart. I will first find them and beat them up, then I will hug you all night long. I'm here for you, dearest daughter."

Blinking my tears away, I take a good look at her. I always forget to observe my mother as closely as I should, and I always forget to notice how old she's getting.

Her black hair, peppered with silver strands, is short and neatly trimmed—she cut her own hair for years, and her experience shows. The wrinkles on her face have increased, especially those next to her forever-smiling eyes. Her slight hunch and half-closed eyelids are the only hints she ever shows about the fact that she's done a century's worth of work in her short lifetime.

I have the best mother in the world, and everything I've worked for, all the exhaustion, all the hours spent in Tropic Falls—and now BreadTalk—are all worth it. So worth it.

Maybe I understand what my mother is trying to say about love. It is difficult but worth it.

"I like RJ," I blurt. "I- I like her, like, um, romantically."

Her smile widens. "Silly girl, I could tell from the start."

"And- And you're okay with that?"

"Of course. I just want you to be happy, and you seem so happy with her."

My cheeks burn, and I lower my head to hide them. "Well, she's... ignoring me right now."

"Oh?" Māma scowls. "How dare she? Should I scold her for you?"

Chuckling, I tease, "Maybe you should."

"Okay, I'm coming with you to school tomorrow to knock some sense into her."

"No, don't do that!" I say in between my laughter. Then, I snuggle back into her arms. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Her arms wrap around my body, and I feel like a child again.

"Of course, dearest daughter."