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Rhea Xie
To Fathers
I.
You are fourteen. Your father points at the crushed rat and tells you that’s your real father. You hate him. He is nothing like the neighbor. At least your neighbor calls you 招娣 1 , a name for hopes that the next child would be a boy. He likes to laugh at your name. But you like his laugh. Every time he laughs, he hands you a piece of bread. You see his fangs glistening by lamplight. You want to go to France with him. Hurry, hurry. The bread wrapper says it’s French mini bread 2.
II.
The rat has no hands. Your neighbor has one. Your father has two. What’s the use? One hand for drinking, the other for playing mahjong. Every night you walk out from among the drunken men. They make you call them father and light their cigarettes. You still have to feed your father dinner. But you were born knowing how to handle difficult men. One day, your neighbor knocks on your window. Marry me, he says. You say, I’ll marry, I’ll marry. We will leave for the France I have been dreaming of.
III.
There is no iron tower in France. The arch printed on the bread wrapper is nowhere to be found. You cry. I want to go home. Your neighbor kisses you on the forehead and says, The best gift I could give you is a husband. But this is not France. You only reach the next village. Celebrate, mourn, it makes no difference. They lift you onto a strange man’s cart. You could have run, but you call to him, your neighbor — first love, father — you can’t determine what to call him. He says nothing and leaves.
IV.
Who crushed the rat’s body? A man with one hand left a baby girl at his neighbor’s door, though she carried his blood. The neighbor took her in and named her 招娣. Gentle fathers: one who she makes meals for, one who gives her bread, neighbor, father. Fourteen years later, the man knocks on the window again. He says let’s sell 招娣 and split the money. The girl hears them talk from next door. She believes she was born to handle difficult men.
V.
The rat has no head now. Sleeping beside a strange man, 招娣 tells him of her life in France — those streets. Those golden leaves in fall. How enviable. Don’t open your eyes. Those aren’t stars. They are the pox on your groom’s face.
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1 招娣 /Zhāodì/ — In China, it means bringing a younger brother, a name once given to girls in hopes that the next child would be a boy.
2 French mini bread — A knockoff French bread sold in Chinese stores.
Rhea Xie is a writer and poet based in Pennsylvania.
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