Trade Me Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Courtney Milan
though, my phone rings. I jump, like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t, and pause the video.
“Tina!” My mother sounds happy when I answer. She doesn’t say anything about the twenty-three missed calls. “You’re so busy these days. Sorry to call and bother you.”
I shift my phone closer to my ear. “You’re not bothering me.”
I turn away from the grinning child Blake, frozen on YouTube, to contemplate my room.
Technically, it’s not just my room; there are two twin beds crammed in here. Also technically, it’s not a room. It’s a converted garage, for very relaxed definitions of the word
converted.
Large carpet remnants mostly cover the concrete floor; there’s a rough bathroom and shower in the back. It’s a lot cheaper than the dorms. It’s also a lot farther from campus.
“How is everything?” I say. “Did you get my check?” Thirty dollars. I know there are some students who can drop thirty dollars on a single night in a bar, but I find that kind of extravagance bewildering. Thirty dollars is more than I spend on food in a week. It hurts to write that check, but that thirty dollars means gas to the pharmacy and the Medicare copay for Mabel’s ADHD medication. My little sister just started high school, and now everything she does will be part of her record for college. She does well when she’s on her meds. But my mom doesn’t always believe what doctors tell her.
There’s a little bit of a pause. “Yes, yes,” my mother says. “We got it. This is why I had to call you.”
My heart sinks. “What happened?” I try to sound calm. “Is Dad okay? Did something happen to him?” I can remember the last time Dad’s leg acted up. It’s a painful, visceral memory—of Mom working two jobs while trying to keep her other projects afloat, of my father refusing to go to the doctor because he couldn’t afford the visit. Of the infection that followed and a late night trip to the emergency room when his fever wouldn’t break. They’re still paying down that debt.
“No, not your father,” my mother says. “It’s Jack Sheng. You know Jack, right?”
I smile involuntarily. “I don’t know Jack.”
The idiom sails over Mom’s head. “That’s right. You never practice anymore.”
I make a noise in the back of my throat.
“No, no,” my mother says, “this is not a guilt trip. I promised you, no more guilt trips.”
I pull back from my phone slightly and look at it askance. She
did
promise me there would be no more guilt trips, but let’s face it, if it were possible to make a living running a guilt travel agency, Mom would be rich. She can send me on a round-the-world guilt cruise on two minutes’ notice. If I complain, she’ll tell me that it isn’t a guilt trip; it’s a guilt
journey.
I should know the difference; I’m in college now.
“About Jack Sheng,” she says. “His petition was denied. The IJ said his testimony was not credible. Why is Jack Sheng not credible?”
Listening to my mother talk always used to confuse my childhood friends. She speaks English with a thick accent. After my parents’ petition for asylum was granted, allowing us to stay in the US, she devoted all her spare time to helping friends navigate the immigration system. And Mom has many, many friends. Those friends also have friends, and both Mom and her many friends are on the internet, which raises the enterprise to a whole new level of acquaintanceship.
After years of helping others, her vocabulary is larger than most people would expect. It’s also peculiarly specialized.
Long experience allows me to translate my mother’s immigration shorthand. One of my mother’s many, many friends/distant acquaintances/internet message board buddies from her Falun Gong practice also tried to get asylum in the United States. The immigration judge—that’s the
IJ
my mother refers to; she’s picked up all the immigration lingo—didn’t believe that her friend had actually been
“Tina!” My mother sounds happy when I answer. She doesn’t say anything about the twenty-three missed calls. “You’re so busy these days. Sorry to call and bother you.”
I shift my phone closer to my ear. “You’re not bothering me.”
I turn away from the grinning child Blake, frozen on YouTube, to contemplate my room.
Technically, it’s not just my room; there are two twin beds crammed in here. Also technically, it’s not a room. It’s a converted garage, for very relaxed definitions of the word
converted.
Large carpet remnants mostly cover the concrete floor; there’s a rough bathroom and shower in the back. It’s a lot cheaper than the dorms. It’s also a lot farther from campus.
“How is everything?” I say. “Did you get my check?” Thirty dollars. I know there are some students who can drop thirty dollars on a single night in a bar, but I find that kind of extravagance bewildering. Thirty dollars is more than I spend on food in a week. It hurts to write that check, but that thirty dollars means gas to the pharmacy and the Medicare copay for Mabel’s ADHD medication. My little sister just started high school, and now everything she does will be part of her record for college. She does well when she’s on her meds. But my mom doesn’t always believe what doctors tell her.
There’s a little bit of a pause. “Yes, yes,” my mother says. “We got it. This is why I had to call you.”
My heart sinks. “What happened?” I try to sound calm. “Is Dad okay? Did something happen to him?” I can remember the last time Dad’s leg acted up. It’s a painful, visceral memory—of Mom working two jobs while trying to keep her other projects afloat, of my father refusing to go to the doctor because he couldn’t afford the visit. Of the infection that followed and a late night trip to the emergency room when his fever wouldn’t break. They’re still paying down that debt.
“No, not your father,” my mother says. “It’s Jack Sheng. You know Jack, right?”
I smile involuntarily. “I don’t know Jack.”
The idiom sails over Mom’s head. “That’s right. You never practice anymore.”
I make a noise in the back of my throat.
“No, no,” my mother says, “this is not a guilt trip. I promised you, no more guilt trips.”
I pull back from my phone slightly and look at it askance. She
did
promise me there would be no more guilt trips, but let’s face it, if it were possible to make a living running a guilt travel agency, Mom would be rich. She can send me on a round-the-world guilt cruise on two minutes’ notice. If I complain, she’ll tell me that it isn’t a guilt trip; it’s a guilt
journey.
I should know the difference; I’m in college now.
“About Jack Sheng,” she says. “His petition was denied. The IJ said his testimony was not credible. Why is Jack Sheng not credible?”
Listening to my mother talk always used to confuse my childhood friends. She speaks English with a thick accent. After my parents’ petition for asylum was granted, allowing us to stay in the US, she devoted all her spare time to helping friends navigate the immigration system. And Mom has many, many friends. Those friends also have friends, and both Mom and her many friends are on the internet, which raises the enterprise to a whole new level of acquaintanceship.
After years of helping others, her vocabulary is larger than most people would expect. It’s also peculiarly specialized.
Long experience allows me to translate my mother’s immigration shorthand. One of my mother’s many, many friends/distant acquaintances/internet message board buddies from her Falun Gong practice also tried to get asylum in the United States. The immigration judge—that’s the
IJ
my mother refers to; she’s picked up all the immigration lingo—didn’t believe that her friend had actually been