The accident happened, stupidly, like this: She clambered on top of the hood of a friend’s car and pretended to be surfing. The car jerked. She was 16 years old. She has been in a coma ever since.
Her mother, Chang Tai Tai, was a friend of the family’s. I did not know her very well; even though we were the same age, we didn’t attend the same school, so I saw her only at certain social gatherings. I thought she was a little full of herself. But in truth she was simply prettier than me, and wore more stylish clothes, which I envied.
In the first few months after the accident, we took shifts at her bedside so if she woke, the first person she lit on would be someone she recognized. But as the years drew on and she remained stubbornly comatose, we began to lose our resolve. When her high school boyfriend was married, no one mentioned her at the wedding.
I would not think of her for long stretches of time, then her face would break the surface without warning: When I sent a text message to a girlfriend, or as I lay on my side with my leg wrapped around my husband’s – a catalogue of technological inventions and sensual pleasures I enjoyed and that were stolen from her as she slept her sick sleep.
Her mother continued to visit her daughter every day. Rotated her limbs. Cut her fingernails and toenails. Gave her sponge baths. For her birthday and to welcome the new year, she rouged her daughter’s cheeks and painted her lips. And she cut her hair, keeping up with the prevailing trends with the help of fashion magazines.
Chang Tai Tai was very proud of the tensile strength of her daughter’s hair, an inherited trait passed down from generations of women on her side of the family. In her native village, her ancestors’ hair was used to make calligraphy brushes, whose fluidity, she claimed, inspired poetry about love, war, loyalty and sacrifice that could make the upper shelf of a general’s lip tremble.
This kind of talk the community endured with polite smiles, as they did her lackluster shrimp toast. We understood these boasts were her way of keeping her daughter’s foot in this world. We no longer even bothered to wish in private that the girl die quickly for her sake.
She was 26 when her family at last consented to remove the tubes that were keeping her alive. Several weeks later, Chang Tai Tai sent friends and family a three-coin lucky knot plaited with her daughter’s hair. When I received mine in the mail, my children howled in exaggerated disgust. My husband insisted I throw it out. I wrapped the knot carefully back in the rice paper it came in and slid the box in the attic.
A rumor began circulating that Chang Tai Tai was seen shopping at Ranch 99 Market wearing a wig woven from her daughter’s hair.
I, for one, do not believe it. How much hair can a person grow, after all, in her lifetime?
Her mother, Chang Tai Tai, was a friend of the family’s. I did not know her very well; even though we were the same age, we didn’t attend the same school, so I saw her only at certain social gatherings. I thought she was a little full of herself. But in truth she was simply prettier than me, and wore more stylish clothes, which I envied.
In the first few months after the accident, we took shifts at her bedside so if she woke, the first person she lit on would be someone she recognized. But as the years drew on and she remained stubbornly comatose, we began to lose our resolve. When her high school boyfriend was married, no one mentioned her at the wedding.
I would not think of her for long stretches of time, then her face would break the surface without warning: When I sent a text message to a girlfriend, or as I lay on my side with my leg wrapped around my husband’s – a catalogue of technological inventions and sensual pleasures I enjoyed and that were stolen from her as she slept her sick sleep.
Her mother continued to visit her daughter every day. Rotated her limbs. Cut her fingernails and toenails. Gave her sponge baths. For her birthday and to welcome the new year, she rouged her daughter’s cheeks and painted her lips. And she cut her hair, keeping up with the prevailing trends with the help of fashion magazines.
Chang Tai Tai was very proud of the tensile strength of her daughter’s hair, an inherited trait passed down from generations of women on her side of the family. In her native village, her ancestors’ hair was used to make calligraphy brushes, whose fluidity, she claimed, inspired poetry about love, war, loyalty and sacrifice that could make the upper shelf of a general’s lip tremble.
This kind of talk the community endured with polite smiles, as they did her lackluster shrimp toast. We understood these boasts were her way of keeping her daughter’s foot in this world. We no longer even bothered to wish in private that the girl die quickly for her sake.
She was 26 when her family at last consented to remove the tubes that were keeping her alive. Several weeks later, Chang Tai Tai sent friends and family a three-coin lucky knot plaited with her daughter’s hair. When I received mine in the mail, my children howled in exaggerated disgust. My husband insisted I throw it out. I wrapped the knot carefully back in the rice paper it came in and slid the box in the attic.
A rumor began circulating that Chang Tai Tai was seen shopping at Ranch 99 Market wearing a wig woven from her daughter’s hair.
I, for one, do not believe it. How much hair can a person grow, after all, in her lifetime?
1 comments:
I like the interweaving of materials science into such a poignant story.
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