Last July your husband’s eldest aunt passed away, very suddenly. She broke her ankle and was rushed to the hospital. Although her bloodwork was not good, her scans came back clear. It did not make sense, the doctors said. Until the next day, when they found multiple tumors everywhere: her ovaries, her spine. Her spine deteriorating. Her kidneys shutting down. She had come in for a broken ankle and now they were rushing her to dialysis when she died. Your husband’s mother had just landed in Toronto and never got to say goodbye to her sister. This would interrupt the grieving. This would prolong the grieving. At the funeral, you met the aunt’s eldest son for the first time, and he said he’d practice Cantonese with you; the family gathers many times that weekend to share large meals together. Six months later, your Cantonese has not improved. But your husband’s family checks in regularly, on what has become of your country. The broken ankle is not a metaphor. It really happened. This too is really happening.
You tell them that you dream of moving to rural Iceland and raising exactly eight sheep on a sheep farm with your husband. That you would have two Icelandic horses with Icelandic names taken from the Saga Age, when warriors were poets. You would not slaughter those sheep. You would not allow anyone to slaughter them, those large, little-legged bodies that smelled like stillwater and unfounded earth. There are days you swear never to eat meat again. Often you visit homes in which it is offered, and you don’t want to be rude. Often you forget your promise altogether and order steamed pork dumplings— six for a dollar— and eat them under the Manhattan bridge in East Chinatown, as a fickle but big-hearted snow blows in and cover the shoulders of you and your husband. You forgot your promise to practice Cantonese on the regular. You forget, sometimes, too that time never forgives.
What present is sustainable?
What is already wiped out before it’s completely gone?
You call your parents. You call your niece. You Facetime your husband’s parents. You write to your husband’s cousins that you are feeling very low about the state of things, and that you know you cannot run away to Iceland and raise sheep, that even if you had the financial means, it’s not the things poets nor warriors do. Your non-poet mother never backed down from a fight, and would never let you either. But it is not a metaphor, the sheep. Sheep are undeservedly blamed with human cowardice and stupidity, overlooked for the bonds they have with one another. You’ve seen a lamb carried off to slaughter at an uncle’s house. This is not a metaphor either. This is not a metaphor. This is really happening.
There is a pause. Then a cousin who makes her own clothes and handbags writes: Listen, if you move, I’ll come visit. I’ll buy the wool.
And you write back as if this is the one of the most real promises you’ll keep: I’d just give it to you. I’d give it all away.