Vampire Weekend

by Mike Chen

“I feel sad for her, really,” Laura said. “Wu Jin-Yi. Mary, the instant we got here. She was eighteen, I was sixteen. The most American names they could give us. Our parents wanted our story to be one about taking a new future. Problem was they didn’t know how to give that. I left. And Mary met your dad, and they passed that on to you. And your brother. You just figured a way to escape.” She smiled, stroking the ears of the mini schnauzer that resumed snoring. “She was whoever imprinted on her. Our parents. Her husband. China. America. Her greatest tragedy is that none of them ever let her be herself. If things had been different, if she was a lesbian like me or heard punk rock like you or something else happened in her life, she might have given herself permission. But she didn’t. The barriers on her path were too tall for her, but no one ever told her to try. You want to know who your mom was?” Laura turned to me with clarity, despite the fact that I was probably nothing more than a human-shaped blur in her deteriorating vision. “She was not you.”