A loose tooth has its drama. ''But it’ll hurt!'' even though it only hangs on by a limp strand of numb gum. A bit of floss tied to a door knob works for some. Daddy would tie mine to a post-tension anchor block, or a Brobdingnagian nut that went to a giant bolt from a bridge construction site somewhere. Triborough, Manhattan, Tappan Zee. My tooth was pulled by the Triborough Bridge.
***
Midnight? Too late, at least, for little girls to be up. We would drive home from a day spent with Aunties and Uncles and swirling constellations of kids in two age groups and it would be dark. We would be asleep less than a mile from hide-and-seek and dinner at the kiddie table. Mom and Daddy were in the front; silent lest they wake the children. Children piled safe in the back seat of the thrumming car, getting funny lines on their faces from the upholstery. Daddy was driving, and the New Jersey Turnpike would be deserted, and the asphalt would be smooth beneath the tires because he asked it to be so. I would wake up on the turn for our street and pretend to be asleep. I knew just when to brace a little for the turn-bump as the car pulled into the driveway. But if I kept my eyes closed, Daddy would carry me up to bed. Just me, the baby of the family. I’ve never asked him if he knew.
***
Mowing the lawn, making a swing, cleaning the pool, dismantling the old shed, tending the garden. He would show me how much sweat he could swipe off his well roasted forehead on a blinding summer’s day, with his shirt off and wearing those white socks and his sneakers. ''Look'' he’d say with a grin. ''My big brothers’ used to have a contest.'' Seventh of nine, he was the only one to live and work in the United States. One of only two to leave China. He worked in an office in The City. His suits would smell acrid and foreign as he stepped off the bus from walks on streets reeking of leaded gas and working with 4-packs-a-day. But he had been a farm boy, and that boy still peaks out now and then. He has a big shiny purple scar on his leg where he had fallen and cut open his boy’s shin on a plow blade. He could have bled to death. But he didn’t.
***
They HATCHED!!! A little phial of ''50'' silkworm eggs from my sister hatched unexpectedly soon one spring. The 100 or so resultant tiny dark grey crawlies were hungry and we had nothing for them. He tramped all over the neighborhood until he found a mulberry tree with enough new green to satisfy a hundred tiny eating machines. He was the one who showed me how to make them spin flat cocoons. He was also the one who figured out how to spin raw silk using the sewing machine.
***
The strong man. ''My dad can beat up your dad,'' I knew it to be true, even if I never felt the urge or need to say it. I remember being fascinated with his biceps. He would sometimes make a muscle for me to squeeze, and I could never dent it. And once, while he was lying on his back watching TV, with his arms stretched out, I decided to see what would happen if I pressed my foot onto his relaxed arm. I don’t know if he helped or not, but as I pressed down, his arm moved! I could make his forearm lift! Such power.
***
''Hsst! Look at this, I’m buying it. It’s not an antique, but they don’t make them anymore. She can’t do anything about it once it is home.'' An eager conspiratorial voice as we lagged behind Mom at the flea market. In his hand was a small perky ''bronze'' statue of a guardian lion with a tongue that moves. It’s currently in the dining room with the gong he and I picked out on a different trip.
***
He knows every route into and out of Manhattan Island. He can give perfect directions to Portland, Boston, Sandy Hook, Atlantic City, Norfolk, Washington, D.C., Tampa and the local mall. He is unbelievable with a map and has a perfect sense of direction. I have called him from Route 80 for directions.
***
His chair is the most comfortable; a big, squashy recliner in a direct line to the TV. Two people can sit on it if one is a small granddaughter or son. But the cat won’t share, and often he will sit on the couch rather than evict the cat. Sometimes he sits closer to the TV anyway, so he can hear it better.
***
He has collected all the deadwood in five acres. He has split hundreds of cords of firewood. He’s taken on a 1100 foot long driveway buried under several feet of snow for over a decade. Last summer he moved over a ton of rock by hand to build my mother a pond. He spent the entire summer sorting through the debris for edging stones. The woods are neat, the pond is beautiful, and he has bursitis in his left shoulder.
***
In his mid-70’s he is starting to move like an old man. He still has lots of energy and is very fit, but things are beginning to hurt; the old chronic back pain, bursitis in his shoulder, tendonitis in his elbow, repetitive stress injury in his wrist. He walks around the house having sprouted a tail. The heating pad strapped to his back or shoulder gets plugged in when he pauses for a snack, or watches TV. For an active man, this sedentary life is maddening. But, he’s split too much wood, shoveled too much snow, and shifted too many stones. He has to let it heal. So he reads a lot, and works on catching mistakes in the newspaper, and editing the newest edition of his 500 year old family genealogy. My own obsessions have cast a wide ripple effect and he is now reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. He quite enjoys it. He finds similarities in it to Chinese epics, and it suits his idealism.
***
He was in a car accident on Friday. Either he didn’t yield at the stop sign or she was going too fast. Perhaps it was a bit of both. No one was much hurt, he sprained his wrist. The car is in bad shape. And his peace of mind is wrecked. He has flashbacks and can’t sleep. And he no longer trusts his driving.
***
Sometimes I’m embarrassed that I live at home with my parents. It just doesn’t fit with what is expected of women of my age and background in my tributary of society. But, occasional embarrassment is a small price to pay for being an adult with my parents. You know, I never knew my father had had tuberculosis as a young man until I took a class on disease in history and literature. It just sort of came out in conversation about The Magic Mountain and the current state of multiple drug resistant tuberculosis. I don’t suppose it is something you just randomly tell your kids, but what about the time we watched La Boheme on PBS, or Camille, or La Traviata? There is a young man somewhere in there that I have never known.
***
I lived for several years on my own before I moved back. And I moved back to help them out. But, I didn’t move back to help out. They went to my grandparents to help out and thought they’d be there for years. They wanted someone to take care of their house while they were away. They wanted a safe place to run to when living in someone else’s guest room got too much and family politics made them sick. They weren’t away for very long. In a shockingly short amount of time, my mother was an orphan, and they came home. And I stayed.
***
I don’t have anything to prove about independence any more. I don’t need to run away from my parents just to realize that I am a skewed reflection of them, or even because that is what I am. Somehow, it would be more socially understandable in my circle of acquaintances if my parents were old and decrepit and needed me to take care of them. But, quite the contrary, they have been spry and quite capable of taking care of me along with the menagerie I brought with me. I like spending time with them.
***
What I didn’t expect was this. This watching as little things start to go. And it isn’t so much that they go, but that he is scared, and frustrated, and angry as it snowballs to the point in which he cannot ignore it. She is scared too. For him, for herself.
***
I turned 33 last Tuesday. A day of significance biblically, which means it is a day of resonance literarily, which means that it is important to me no matter how pragmatic I choose to pretend to be. I didn’t expect that this would be my revelation though. I didn’t expect to grow up so soon.