Waiting for Home

John Chen

There was always the dark green bag that had the cheap Motorola in it and the signature LV purse. There was always a box of tissue, and overstuffed back pockets of the front seats, filled with my mucus. There were always the same trees along the sidewalks, the same markets, the same kindergarten, the same elementary school, and the same middle school. And there were always the two of us running in the direction of home.

When I began kindergarten at the age of three, my aunt would pick me up and give me a piggyback ride until we got to my school. I would lean against her back and enjoy the rhythm of her steps. I would brush my face against her short smooth hair. I would feel the warm sun wrapping around us. The kindergarten was only a fifteen minute walk, but for a person with the height of five feet and carrying a giant baby, it was a workout. In the tropical weather of Taiwan, my aunt and I would be stuck together with sweat by the time we got to school. She would drop me off, walk home and come back again at noon to pick me up.

My aunt began taking care of me when I was five days old. My parents had just started their own company when I was born; therefore, they needed someone trustworthy to look after me when they were busy. My mom turned to my aunt and asked if I could stay with her on the weekdays. My aunt accepted the proposal since she had taken care of all my cousins and my brother since they were five days old. She was professional at being a mother. She changed my diaper, washed my pee-soaked sheets, and sang lullabies until I fell asleep. When I got sick, she would stay up the whole night worried that I might feel any discomfort. She gave me the maternal love that I did not get from my busy mother.

When I turned four and was too heavy for my aunt to carry around on her back, she bought a bicycle. She would bundle me up behind and say, “Don‟t ever let go!” I would lean on her back and feel the bumps as she rode. She would take me to traditional markets in the morning to buy fruits, vegetables, and meat for the meals that day. The markets were always loud and crowded. I would be scared of the chickens locked in cages screeching at me, the strings of dead pigs hanging on the meat stalls, the living fish with their eyes wide open, the owners yelling “come buy!” at me. Then all the panicking stopped when she placed me on a choo choo train ride and bought me a cup of sugarcane juice. After our daily adventure in the market, she would take me to my kindergarten and pick me up at four. My aunt said that I was older now, so I had to stay in school for lunch. I hated that because the meals could not compare to my aunt's. But I never cried because I knew she was going to be at the gates at four. Then we'd ride back home under the orange sky, with my hands holding on to her shirt as tightly as possible.

My aunt got a divorce because my uncle gambled away their only bicycle. She never wanted to marry the man, but because her mom thought the man would give my aunt the perfect life, she obeyed my grandma's order.

“I used to date a young gentleman, who was so nice to me. Not only was he nice to me, he was nice to my whole family. He took me out on my first date. He bought me my first earrings and necklace. He picked out my first dress,” my aunt would say with her watery eyes, “but he was too skinny, and my mom thought he wasn't manly enough. The next day, she told me to break up with him. So I did.”

After my aunt broke up with that gentleman, she was forced to marry a man she did not love. She did it anyway, because girls were supposed to listen to