David Wright Falladay (5:37)
There were three pages to go, and it was already past midnight. Lou had asked her big daughter to edit her report for tomorrow's purchasing meeting. This daughter, who was 11, excelled at things like that. Mom, the girl said, why did you ask if a ghost hit the back of my head? Because you told your father I was home late, and I specifically told you not to do that. So why did you? Did a ghost hit the back of your head? Oh. Ha. They were whispering back and forth in two languages, the girl in English and Lou in Cantonese. Tomorrow was a school day, and Lou could guess what husband would say if he woke up and found them still working. The girl yawned and made further corrections to the page. This part here where you say 10 teapots and nine lids. That's funny, and I get what you mean. But I think you should just say supply doesn't equal demand. You know way too much about sales tax. And now I do, too. Don't be sarcastic. Like you? Me? I'm not sarcastic. Life is sarcastic. We're almost done. The English is all okay now talk. Talk. Just finished my work already, Mom. Would this girl never be quiet? What's good about being my age? This particular daughter already seemed to be bending under life's troubles. And it might be Lou's fault. All these late nights the girl had spent helping her find the right words, regret washed over Lou. You tell me. If I knew, I'd be happy. Lou rubbed her eyes, reached for the teapot, and refilled both their cups. You'll have to pee all night, she said apologetically. I hate people. The girl burst out, her eyes reddening. What happened? Who's bothering you? Can't I just stay home and read books and learn about the world that way? In books, things happen for a reason and everything ends as it should. Lou smacked the table. Should? What is should? If I could give you a pill that would change your whole life, let you go back in time and fix things and maybe be a whole other person, would you take it? Of course. Seriously. All my life I've wanted to change shapes, change skins. That was my dream when I was your age. Brightening now, her daughter said, oh my God, mom, you're so weird. You're the one who just said you want to learn about life from books. I wanted to learn from living life. But then I got married and had you. So thanks a lot. The girl giggled. Look, 1am Lu said. Stop kicking tangerines around. What? You know exactly what I mean. Stop wasting time. The next morning Lou was late for the department meeting. She hurried through the swinging glass doors, an apology on her tongue. Her coat was wet with rain. Copies of the report slid from her arm, and the donut box was crushed on one side. But the conference room was empty. A fountain pen gleamed at the head of the table, Sheila's expensive Parker with its marbled green shell. It was Tuesday. Lou checked her watch. 8:43. Not a single soul. Bewildered, she placed the Duffins box on the table, turning the mangled side to the wall. After a moment she put the reports down, pulled off her coat. A seaplane was descending toward Burrard Inlet, seeming to accelerate even as it slowed. This view from the 29th floor could hardly be believed. The plane's nose was tilted up very slightly, as if it disliked getting its face wet. Down it went, hurrying to meet the water. Liu felt as though someone had punched her in the chest. Really? She wondered. That old panic here now. Big ball of wax. Messed up string. Crushed lungs. Sweat matted her forehead. She slid into the nearest chair, and just as she settled, the seaplane touched down. It seemed to rush effortlessly forward, the curl of dark sea in its wake reminding her of the fold of an ankle. The white walls, the massive table, the 12 swivel chairs. Her two hands seemed like objects recovered by someone else's memory. As unexpectedly as the panic had arrived, it fled. She breathed, breathed again without pain. Neither wax nor string. No explanation. It felt strange to be alone in the conference room. Two walls, from floor to ceiling, were entirely glass. Liu gazed out at Stanley park in the North Shore mountains, at the morning sky reflecting in the water. A thread of traffic, no more than a series of tiny lights, crossed the Lionsgate Bridge. Yellow sulfur hills glowed on a distant dock. On her first day at the Company, she'd felt the unstoppable joy of rising past floor after floor and stepping out into a floating world. The purchasing department. She'd entered another life. That was 14 years ago. The door opened. Lou? She turned. Antoinette peered at her lovely thick hair tousled on top of her head, gray jacket and slacks, soft pink blouse. Lou said, hello, relieved that there was a meeting after all. I saw you rush by, antoinette said. Didn't you hear? What do you mean? Everyone got a call this morning. There's no meeting because of the investigation. Lou, uncomprehending, said. Oh, I mean, you won't be surprised, I guess. Antoinette was still holding the glass door, which caught the light with each small movement she made. Are you surprised? Lou looked at her and wondered what this meant for her report. Oh, well, she said. And then here are the donuts. My turn this week. Antoinette studied her curiously, impatience, amusement, and also derision passing across her face. Or that was what Lu sensed. Sheila was looking for. You, antoinette said. You should probably go to your office, not wait around here. Such was life, Lou thought, standing in her windowless office, or at least her current life, waiting in line for the dangled carrot of understanding. She watered her three plants. They had been bequeathed to her when Bob Jarvis retired in 1980. Lou had been promoted to his position, senior purchaser, the same title she held now, almost a decade later. At the time, Bob told her, if the plants keel over, let them die. Got it? Stand up to the team or they'll fritter your time away with pointless work. Conquer that exam and get PMAC certified. None of them bother. So if you excel, sky's the limit. Got it, Lu? Sky's the limit. Ten years was a long time for plants to stay alive in a windowless room. They must have been living off their memories of the sun. All three were snake plants, otherwise known as mother in law's tongue. She thought of the plants always as the mothers in law. Lu had warned the three of them that they all had to share this space. Everyone's leaves would be cut back so that no one keeled over. Light and air were precious. Supply chain management was crucial. And if all goes well, you will outlive me. Maybe you will be promoted to the corner office or even the atrium. Lou had a habit of keeping her car keys in the soil. She stuck them in the pot on arrival, fished them out at day's end. Those keys gave her a rush of happiness whenever she handled them. Husband called the car her second home, but she called it Mrs. Benchy, hands down. The only thing she'd ever Bought that gave her pleasure every day. Mrs. Benchy was an emerald green Mercedes, used but dignified. She'd bought it for $6,000. Big improvement on the rattling copper colored van she had when her side job was as a delivery driver. That had started about a year after she joined the purchasing team. Her friend Ardruis Wu, a florist, had given her the extra work and paid her cash. Ardruis father had swum from China to Hong Kong in 1957. Wu father had told his wife, we've got no future here. You know what that means, don't you? It's like dying before you're born. Eight hours in Deep Bay, then crawling on hands and knees over oyster beds to freedom. Wu father survived, but his wife did not. Broken, he adopted the son of a distant relative, adding an English name, Arduous, to the baby's Chinese one, Qin Hay. Ardruis grew up working in his father's plastic flower business. Wu father sold the business sometime in the 70s and he and Arduous immigrated to Canada. Arduous started his own fresh flower emporium and swam regularly at the Hastings community pool. He had attractive shoulders and hands that smelled of lilies. When Arduous died suddenly four years ago, Lou, in her copper colored van, what was it her big daughter called it? The flower coffin, made their final delivery to his funeral. First stop, St. Francis Xavier Church. Last stop, Oceanview Cemetery, where she arranged the flower stands and rings around his grave. Argos wife and small children held Wu father tightly in the rain. Lu returned a week later to collect the flower stands. The wind had toppled them. So many flowers face down in the dirt. She cried despite herself, pouring Arduous three shots of cognac straight into the soil. Arduous. Woo, you old playboy. See your broken hearted lilies. You're a wrapped candy. Ardrus had liked to tell her when they lay naked in bed. Occasionally happy, there's something sweet and all too soft in your center. Take your time, she would encourage him. Good things want to last. Bless you, Hwang. Look. You're that kind of pleasure. He was married. She had husband and two girls. She was a mother. What kind of thing was a mother? A balloon tied to her wrist. If too much time passed, the balloon would lose pressure. Descend the way you watch men, Ardruis had once said playfully. I see what you're looking for. Life doesn't ask us to pay a debt of shame, Wang Luk. I see everything you feel. Liu enjoyed the feel of different lovers, the newness of strangers, her present interest was a former prosecutor from Shanghai, now working in a warehouse in Port Moody. He had a disrespectful look in his eyes. His skin, the softest she had ever touched, had an addictive fragrance, but he was not what she'd hoped he'd be dissatisfied with other aspects of his life. He needed to control everything in bed. Which was why she already knew it would have to end. Sheila was in the doorway, watching her. Here you are, Lou. I called this morning, but you'd already left. Lou nodded, holding up the Duffins box. Sheila chose the honey dip, a popular option, resting it on a square white napkin. So, she said, nudging the door closed behind her. How are things, Lou? Not too bad. There's something we need to talk about. In a roundabout way, as if sewing on a button, her boss disclosed the situation. Expense reporting, Campbell river and dinners. Dinners. Lou did not follow. Then complaints against the senior manager. Financial irregularities on the Campbell river file. Inappropriate behavior. A matter for personnel. They had brought in an external investigator. All members of the purchasing team, plus clerical support would have to be interviewed. The mothers in law were doing something strange, as if their leaves had glimpsed something. The door had slid open and the hallway lights beckoned nutrients. Their stems swiveled almost imperceptibly toward the opening. The investigator will likely want to see you this afternoon, but things could move faster or slower. I understand. Thank you. I know this will be a difficult process. You were well friendly with John Sadler. Yes, he is everyone's friend. The leaves fluttered, wriggling as if they were wearing something itchy, but it was only a draft from the vent. Sheila cast her eyes over Lou's office, the stack of reports, the frame PMAC certificate on the wall, the Archos flowers desk calendar beside the beige phone. She paused, seemingly nostalgic. You're an invaluable member of our team, Lou. You were hired the year before me, right? Right? She nodded. In 75, most of the team had been together for more than a decade. Sheila shifted the honey dip to her other hand. Even when we care about him, or hope he cares about us, we have to act in a principled way when he does wrong. Especially if there's a pattern to this kind of thing now. Got a mess on our hands. She reached for the door and hesitated, surprised to see it already open. I am not sure I know anything. Sheila turned back to her, and Lou felt as if Sheila were laying a hand on her cheek the way one might caress a child's face with a mix of wonder and benevolence but she was actually standing three feet away, her gaze radiating understanding. You feel as I do. I know, as we all do. Wishing neither to agree nor to disagree, Lou tilted her head to indicate, I'd rather not get involved, or I prefer to eat peanuts while watching the movie. But she didn't think Sheila would understand this idiom. I'm relying on everyone to pull together. Especially you, Lou. Sheila smiled gently before turning and going out. Late afternoon and Lou still hadn't been summoned. While waiting, she'd updated the preferred vendor list and readied herself for Wednesday's operational efficiency briefing. Spreadsheets sat freshly printed on her desk. She called home. Her two daughters had a new game, making Holy Communion by crushing circles of Wonder Bread between a Bible and a dictionary. That was probably what they were doing now, and why it was taking them so long to answer. At last they picked up. The big one told her they were just reading. Just reading? Lu said doubtfully. Oh, mom, they were snickering. How's tricks, Ma? The small one said, her voice garbled. Liu knew the child was squishing her face into the germ laden phone. Pull your face back. She cried. How troublesome they were, huh? Liu sighed. Stop with the tricks. They bounced her words around for fun. Mom doesn't miss a trick there. She goes up to her old tricks. The big one shouted. Something about their father, about ordering Hawaiian pizza. It was two for one Tuesday, and Dad said it was cool. Fine, lu agreed. Okay. Must go. Okay. Wake me up before you go. Go. Lu hung up. Her daughters were mystified by her English. It was the one thing about her that seemed to both entertain and perturb them. They deployed her expressions to taunt her and the world at large. I have eaten more salt than you have eaten rice. They shouted at each other, at their dolls, at strangers on the street. Would it be improper to leave early? She could take Mrs. Benchy for a spin to Spanish banks, where she might do what others throw rocks repeatedly at the water the Mothers in Law counseled against. Her liaison with John Sadler had lasted three months. If lightheartedness were a species of happiness, those final months in 1988 had perhaps been her happiest and recent memory. Sadler had been a confident lover. He had wanted to luxuriate while she, always behind schedule with something professional or personal, felt pressed for time. Okay, okay, he'd said after locking the door of their hotel room and turning around to find her half undressed. Nobody's going to barge in. I get carried away. I need to act quickly. Come here we have all the time in the world. Sadler, in his smooth way, seemed to believe his own assurances. But he was wrong. There were spouses, bills, dishes, and in her life, the kids. Still, they agreed on other thingson the importance of seeking out risk and pleasure and the joy of a temporary room with its own evolving rules. I don't really know, lou tells the mothers in law, whose command of Cantonese is exemplary, why I rarely get attached to Saddler or someone else. To the very good sex, to tenderness. I always feel that pleasure shouldn't become habitual. By December she'd found his jokes less original. When they lay spent on top of the sheets, she thought of faraway people and things. What's up? He would ask when she drifted off. Lovely expression when it came from him, as if moments were an ascent, an unstoppable rise. Lou knew enough to end an affair when it was at its most satisfying, when it gave her new senses, a different body, a changed reality, and therefore courage. Only with arduous who had read her so effortlessly, could she have kept going forever. He was the lover she would never have turned away from. At her desk she clicked open the year end data sheet for Campbell River. Sheila had referenced financial irregularities. Lou began proofreading the document entry by entry. The jangling telephone made her jump. Lifting the receiver, she expected to hear the unhappy tones of the Shanghai man. But it was just husband fretting. Hwang Luc. You plan to sleep there? It's already 8:00. I promised to work Kun's shift tonight and now I'm late. You don't care enough to remember. She grabbed her bag and coat, shut the door, ran past the empty offices in the underground parcade, Mrs. Benchy clicked open to welcome her. The car was fragrant. The car was peaceful. Mrs. Benchy purred her way from P4 to the surface. Lou drove on quiet roads, rain needling down, the beat of the wipers calming her thoughts. She had found nothing questionable in the financial documents. She felt it was impossible for there to be irregularities that she had missed. So what was the true accusation and whose was the real guilt? A spreadsheet, she thought, was a set of conditions, with every cell holding a value, and each value recorded. Certain cells were products of formulas, of derivations upon derivations of knowledge pieced together across the whole. Those cells were recipients of data, single circles in an ever circling form. She felt tall in her car and drove with confidence. The truth was, even though she had reported to John Sadler for a time, even though Sadler had lobbied for her promotion when Bob Jarvis retired, he had barely entered Lou's thoughts. He was handsome, yes, but he was a regular sort of person. Most of his being, Lou thought, sat easily on his surface, open to view. At first, all of them, Lou, John, Antoinette, Miranda, and Billy had been a group. Friday drinks had been fun, but after a while Lou had felt herself to be, as her mother might say, unfit for the occasion. Something appeared on certain faces each time Lou spoke, an expression of forbearance, distasteful that was difficult to name. It appeared in their eyes so quickly that they could hardly be aware of it. Recalling Bob Jarvis's advice, she paid for PMAC courses out of her own pocket and studied ferociously. Certification would be indisputable proof of her expertise and fitness for the job. In fact, she loved the technicality of procurement in supply chains, where optimal efficiency depended on exacting details. She enjoyed seeing goods move swiftly, painlessly, to where they could be properly utilized. She thought of herself as reliable, a team player, but others mistook her for a natural subordinate. She didn't register the misconception until it was too late. As the others were all promoted, the years slipped away. The rest of the group was, as Lou's daughters would say, tight. Others came and went, but the core group held. They blurred the categories of their lives, mixing private and professional needs. It was their way of belonging wherever they went. On the positive side, Lou did not feel obligated to socialize with them on Friday nights anymore, without husbands knowing, the evenings could be put to better uses. A year ago, around the time of Campbell river, the team had settled on regular Friday night dinners, which Lou attended once in a while, reluctantly. It unsettled her to see how the group could twist the way a crowd does, turning on one person and then the next. After Antoinette returned from the Gulf of Thailand, where her favorite brother, Jared, had married a local woman, Miranda and Billy had teased her cruelly. Antoinette wanted to talk about snorkeling in tea plantations in the Cameron Highlands, but they wanted to discuss squat toilets. Also pedophilia. Thai girls, women, Miranda corrected. They all shot a quick glance at Lou, who wasn't Ty or Malay, they reminded themselves, but had become, Lou thought, implicated. Lou had finished her supper, taking comfort in the restaurant's stunning viewthe floating lights. John picked up his cigarettes and went out. Antoinette described in detail how her brother had gorged on spiky, hairy rambutans and got sick. Billy, laughing, spluttered out her drink. The team was smart but acted otherwise, as if this kind of bravado were proof of freedom. It hadn't been like that in the beginning, but midlife dissatisfaction was what was new. The women joked about who loved Thai food the most. John can't get enough of it, miranda volunteered, then colored and stared down at her empty glass. Lou thought she might take her leave. She had an exam coming up on supply chain management for major projects, which was necessary to keep her certification up to date, and she wanted to go and study in Mrs. Benchy. Her presence felt superfluous. Sadler returned and said he had another engagement. Antoinette began to cry, repeating, God, I'm sorry, I'm so embarrassed, and Miranda squeezed her shoulder. Lou filled out the paperwork for everyone's meal reimbursement, minus the wine. Billy had already gone home. It was just another Friday. The following Monday Sadler came into her office and stood beside the mothers in law. Forgive me, Lou, I shouldn't have abandoned you at that dinner. I'm sorry. They agreed to have a drink together after work. She was curious. Was Saddler sorry the world was the way it was? She knew he'd like to hear about how she had grown up at the end of the war, lost her father and brother when she was 15, immigrated to Canada on her own, and struggled with a language completely foreign to all her ancestors. But those weren't the stories she thought worth telling. People said all the right things until they didn't. Lu was accommodating until she wasn't. And yet she felt bonded to her colleagues in a hard to explain way because co workers were strangers upon whom she relied, and they seemed to want, in some intangible fashion, not her respect but her love, to know that she thought well of them. Lou missed the retired managers, Mr. Gordon and old Bob Jarvis, who had seemed to genuinely care for her and want her to rise. Both came from blue collar families and had considered her perhaps one of them. At the bar, she and John Saddler both ordered spritzers. You've been there, I guess, she said as they waited for their drinks. Mrs. Benchy looked distinguished parked out front, as if she felt at home in this well kept neighborhood. Malaysia? No, but I've traveled to lots of places. Yes, I have too. There were two women in the conference room with Liu. They were Susan Harris, the external investigator, and the clerk. Penny. I'm sorry we couldn't meet with you yesterday, Mrs. Hong, Susan said. Thank you for your time. Now my aim is to make every step of the process as simple and clear as possible. Yes, Susan. Call me Liu. Great. So Liu, you've been with the company for 14 years, right. 14 years. If the hand of fortune passes over you, Lu's mother used to say, you should be grateful. To be overlooked is its own kind of fate. And perhaps freedom. It was strange, Lu thought, how Mother rose in her thoughts every few years, as if memory had its seasons. Panic hovered in her chest. You don't worry enough about remembering, mother had often told her. She must remember to repeat this to her own daughters. Susan asked a string of questions, almost none of which Lou felt she could or knew how to answer. Susan's face softened as she came around the table and settled in the chair beside Lou. She rolled the chair backward to keep a small distance. I've spoken to the purchasing director, she said, angling forward. She told me you may not feel confident providing a verbal statement. She says that your written English is strong. Impressive, in fact. Lou thought of her big daughter and smiled sadly. Susan continued, I have a Microsoft file you can work through on your own. Is that something you'd prefer? For a moment she felt at a loss. She recalled the sensation of being inside a crowd searching for power within itself. You were transformed by such crowds when you were young, she thought. The crowd swallowed you up and gave you a common purpose. In Kowloon, she and her five sisters used to squeeze into the crowded tram on Nathan Road. Her sisters had been her life, a part of her own self. All five had immigrated, each to a different country. No one left. In Hong Kong. When Mother died quietly in her sleep, they had put all their savings together so that one of them could fly home. Over the years, Liu's colleagues had sometimes looked at her as if she were someone's forgotten coat. But it hadn't mattered to her all that much now. She had a clear feeling that Sadler had protected her, or tried to. Long before that brief affair, John had lauded her. He had argued for her to be further promoted, which would have meant a better salary, an easing of financial burdens, a three bedroom apartment for the family. But she had been left to twist in the same position for 10 years. Despite her tireless efforts, Lou had stayed near the bottom of the ladder. A strange calm washed over her, her professional stasis and all the reasons that things had turned out the way they had. All the lost chances for advancement and security. No. Lou stared at Susan for a long time. The investigator's growing discomfort was like a weight passing into Lou's hands. Investigator, Susan cannot read me, which makes her nervous, but also resentful because she's the one in charge. But here Lou's powers of discernment ended. Lou now saw her colleagues laying nets she had to avoid lest she get entangled. She could not say why they drew lines between one person and another, or why they had to pity certain people in order to see them. It was true that their measure of Lu had never aligned with her worth, but when had she ever confused her worth with their opinions? Such self effacing routes were not for her. I understand, susan said, that there is a history of behavior, things said and done by someone in a supervisory position that should not have been said or done. Should not. Susan frowned. Liu couldn't help mirroring the expression and frowned back. As one of the people you report to, susan explained, John Sadler is your superior. We have an expression for this. Lou said to eat from a bowl and then turn it over. Susan was thrown by Lou's non contextualized English and responded by nodding seriously. It means to betray somebody and play them for a fool. Were you played for a fool, Louis? Oh. Susan was more alert than she let on. Liu liked the challenge. We all were. Even John Sadler. That's life. No, that is not life, susan said. Others have given statements. He took advantage of your position as an outsider and a subordinate on the purchasing team. You were not the only one. It's not you who should feel ashamed. Lou couldn't stop looking at Susan, couldn't stop wondering who was it who had demanded shame? 14 years at the company. Where had all that time gone? Was John Sadler responsible for that? No, she said. No one takes advantage of me. If I lived that way, I would have vanished long ago. Susan was saying other things, but Lou had already floated free that night when the phone rang. Lou got to it first. No one responded to her, irritated. What? So she switched to Cantonese. Hey, who's there and what do you want? Huh? Lou? Oh, for heaven's sake. John Sadler, husband was at the stove making ketchup rice. What's up? Lou said, turning away from husband and toward the girls. They were lying on the floor pretending to be dead. It was always the holidays for them. I'm such an idiot. I don't know anymore. I don't know, Lou. I'm so sorry. She waited. Wasn't I fair to you? Wasn't I good? Yes, you were fair and good. She nudged her small daughter with her toe. There were crumbs in the girl's hair. Motion for her to get up off the floor. The girl just rolled over and looked at the ceiling with glazed eyes and a silly smile. We had an affair, that's all. It's over. He began crying. I wasn't the one who ended it. I'm not, Lou. I'm truly sorry. But I didn't do what Miranda is saying, what they're all saying. I didn't. I'm alone, he said. I'm all alone now. She didn't have an answer for him and said nothing. He cried harder. We're having dinner now, she said at last. I must hang up the phone. The line clicked. She stood with the receiver, comforted by the weight of it, a balloon tied to her wrist. She thought, what was it to live as a mother, as a wife, and as herself? A balloon that loves the ceiling, that floats away in order to touch it? She must have muttered some of this aloud because her small daughter giggled, shouting, I'm ballooning. She curled into a ball and opened in beautiful slow motion, all her limbs reaching as if forced apart by the pressure of the tide. Liu laughed too, until her eyes became watery, thinking of the sea. That night Lou sat down at the family computer. She pushed the floppy disk Susan had given her into the drive and opened the file. She stared for a long time at the first question. In this space, please tell us what you witnessed. I saw other women grieving. Delete. In this space, please tell us what you witnessed. I never grieved. Delete. Lou tried switching to Cantonese. She printed the page and wrote by in this space, please tell us what you witnessed. I saw the lines of a long net in which we were all trapped, caught up. I saw men and women who all excelled within these lines but also wanted to escape them. I saw my children growing up without their mother, and that's why I never left my marriage. And for 14 years I came to know a power that was more shadow than substance. But wait, before you say that I know little about power, let me tell you that shadows have a strength nothing can dissolve. These quiet things which are nourished by what is within reach. And the other kind of power, the kind that kept me in my place. Well, my co workers say they do not see it. And do I? I have learned not to. I have learned to cross the street and look the other way because you can't stop someone else's contempt. You can't change the earth, the sky above your head, the disrespect. You can't change the electrical wires in your path, but you have to teach your children to sense their presence, to step over them smoothly without a single note of fear. They have to keep moving. After all, why am I writing this in a language you can't understand? So that my dead mother can read it. She already knew. Lou re read the paragraph. Only her big daughter would know how to translate it. But something turned over in her. It was out of the question to ask the child, was this something after all, that a mother should do? She crumpled the page and dropped it in the bin. In this space, please tell us what you witnessed. Lou returned to English. Two people had an affair. Nothing more, but also nothing less. Save after the investigation ended, the purchasing department was reorganized. It took months for everything to be finalized. Fortuitously, around this time, husband's firm offered him a good job in Silicon Valley. Sometimes she was visited by an image or a memory. That stunning view from the 27th floor, the controlled landing of a seaplane in the blue of the inlet. It wasn't just the investigation that brought things to a head. It was the human nature that the investigation had revealedthings Lou couldn't account forall the sorrow and spite, the vitriol and piety that suddenly had free rein. Sometimes when justice prevailed, it left a bad taste. Sadler was hospitalized. No one knew exactly why. Some people in the company pitied him, others didn't. It wasn't about pity anyway, Lou thought. It was the web of understandings and almost loyalties that bound them together, lines quietly zigzagging through, their legs tied and retied in the same old ways. Miranda was promoted to John Sadler's position and became Lou's immediate supervisor. Lou was not surprised. The next day she handed in her notice and took the Mothers in Law home. They flourished, half hidden from the window. Soon afterward, she and husband moved the family to San Jose. Lou started teaching night school. She taught import and export regulations, nafta, trade rules, and supply chain management to new immigrants. The course was at the community college, and her students had meager incomes. Their ability to remain unfazed, combined with their original uses of English, their distance from the right words, made it hard for them to thrive as employees. They had little savings but were determined still to grow their own fortunes and be their own bosses. It was the only way to really live. These were good years for Lou. The student's entrepreneurial spirit gave her comfort, and nothing felt wasted. She enjoyed the steep walk up to the College and taking Mrs. Benchy indulgently on long drives to the Golden Gate Bridge, admiring the views of what others had named the Valley of Heart's Delight. Overnight, it seemed, her girls went off to university. Her panic attacks, that ball of wax, crushed lungs and and then a slow release like forgiveness, recurred every few years you are reenacting your mother's death, she told herself. Stop it. By now Lou was in her 50s. I want to change my shape again, she thought. But how morning could sink into nightfall without her noticing? As if while she gazed at the surface of her desk, at the shine of her screen, the supply of hours crept away behind her back. She did not dwell on her lovers, but sometimes she remembered a long rise of pleasure, a touch, a knowing look. She remembered how belonging and ecstasy mingled together. She would die in her sleep one day. She would change shape quietly, without causing any inconvenience. She felt sure of it. Her husband would grieve his unfaithful wife and eventually remarry and find a different species of happiness. That was life, she wanted to tell her daughters. You wanted to change it, but it changed you, remodeled you for every age. One day you were an immigrant, loaded down with inexplicable shame. The next you were middle aged, a mother. And all the risks you'd taken to live freely, to not be subdued, also made you feel ashamed, as if you'd done nothing but kick the tangerines around. But if by then you didn't have it in you to explain the world away, to reduce it or be certain of it, maybe you never would. Lou accepted that in herself. She'd eaten from the bowl and turned it over. She had been unfaithful and yet faithful. Wrong and yet right. Lonely and yet beloved. And that was the bitter, that was the sweet quandary of it all.
