Maiden, Beloved

A letter by Catherine Hu

Arrangement by Anthony Cudahy

Dear Mama,

In a world where “I’m sorry” is not deciphered as “I’m hideous, too far gone,” I’d be able to speak to you without the weight of a thousand unsaid words down my throat.

Ma, I know you won’t see this. I write to you in words that you will never comprehend because we cannot comprehend each other. My fumbling tongue, clumsy Chinese tones remove me from your arms.

Four tones. One. Two. Three. Four. Flat, up, down and back again. I spit them out, sharp and imperfect like the tang of the sour candy I have always despised.

You were right; I should have paid more attention in Chinese school, done my writing exercises more diligently. Our mother tongues are so close, yet so far, and our own little amalgamation of languages is too elementary to express what I want to say.

Let me begin.

The scars on your body mark the life you lost. I remember you tracing those tears along the skin of your belly with one hand while you held my little body afloat in the pool with the other. Marked in pencil, then carved with a knife. I remember wondering what monster could lay its claws on my mother.

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I’m sorry you found her replaced by a stranger. Your baby girl, your treasure – the one that dreamed she could outrun the sun, could chase the rainbow to the very end of the Earth—I killed her that day on the leather barber chair.

You used to pick magnolias off the grass for me after your morning walks. I would hide them in the pages of my textbooks and days later they would come out browned, pristine, and pressed.

Silver snips echoing the room. The sound of a hairdryer and prickly hair ends brushing my brow. Raven dark locks scattered on the linoleum floor, just like back then, when the last blossoms of spring fell to the ground, withered and brown.

I could tell you recognized that as the day your daughter became the monster that drew marks on your skin; another uncarved piece of stone she used to practice her sculptures.

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Do you remember all your breakfast recollections of how I was a fussy baby? Gentle sunlight, floral tablecloth, the soft sponginess of baozi. Rest assured I remember, Ma. I laugh whenever I do something that reminds me of my old self: the loud, turbulent girl. Grandma tells me how my little body would let out rivers of wails when I was held by the wrong person or when the texture of porridge felt wrong on my tongue.

I’m sorry I replaced those milk bottle cries with venomous disdain. I know my sharp tongue has hurt you more than once. I scramble and scream because there is no language in our language for what I know. I’m a destructive wind, please understand. Just like you, your mother before, and her mother before that.

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I’m sorry for the day that your halls will be empty, nothing but nine perfect squares hanging undusted on the wall. I know that when the birds return to their nests against the backdrop of a

blank-slate sunset, you will look at the indents on our sofa caused by years of love and mourn for what was once there.

I’m sorry I have to leave one day, Mama. I’m sorry you have to feel the coldness of marble when the ambivalence of time sweeps away your little girl’s warmth. Mama, your words have painted purple and blue on my skin, yet at the same time, they are your embrace over the phone. I want to forgive you, forgive myself, but my mistakes,—the weight of the past—bloom out of my chest for you. The words I love you are seldom used in Chinese because actions speak louder than words, but you used them once for me, and I wish I could use them for you – yet time and time again they sit on my tongue, heavy and sinking like a stone. Those three little syllables hold more weight than actions though, I’ve come to learn.

Never mind my ramblings. I’ll be home for dinner, as I’ll always be.

With love,

Your daughter.