Chapter 9 - THE RING
Mei and I returned to San Francisco two years after we found each other.
The old jewelry shop was gone.
The herbal pharmacy too.
A coffee shop occupied the building.
“Terrible coffee,” Mei said.
“You haven't tried it.”
“I can tell.”
“How?”
“I have gifts.”
We walked toward the station.
I had something in my pocket.
Again.
Twenty-seven years after the first ring.
This one wasn't extravagant.
Mei would have hated that.
Simple gold.
Inside, one line engraved:
NO MORE MISSED TRAINS.
At the platform, she stopped.
“Nathan.”
“Yes?”
“You're sweating.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“It's warm.”
“It's February.”
I hated observant women.
Apparently I'd built my entire family from them.
I took out the ring.
Mei stared.
Then covered her face.
“Don't cry yet. I have a speech.”
“That is exactly why I'm crying.”
“Rude.”
I got down on one knee.
People noticed.
Phones appeared.
I ignored them.
“Twenty-seven years ago, I thought I needed to become successful before I deserved to ask you this.”
Mei's eyes filled.
“I was wrong.”
I took a breath.
“I thought love was something you earned after proving yourself.”
My voice shook.
“You taught me love isn't a reward.”
I looked at her.
“Then we lost twenty-five years because other people made choices for us.”
She nodded.
“I don't want to spend whatever years we have left mourning the years we didn't.”
I held up the ring.
“Meiying Lin, will you marry the man I am now?”
She looked at me for a long time.
Then:
“Your tones were wrong.”
I stared.
“What?”
She started laughing through tears.
“You practiced that sentence in Mandarin, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“You completely ruined the third tone.”
“Mei.”
“You proposed badly.”
“Is that a no?”
She dropped to her knees in front of me.
People around us laughed.
Then she took my face between her hands.
“Yes.”
I kissed her.
Someone applauded.
Then everyone did.
My phone rang in my pocket.
Lily.
I answered.
“Did she say yes?”
I pulled back.
“How do you know?”
“Mom shared her location.”
Traitors.
“Yes.”
Lily screamed.
Mei took the phone.
“His Mandarin was terrible.”
“I knew it!”
I stood on a train platform holding the woman I had loved when I possessed nothing and listening to our daughter insult me from three thousand miles away.
I had never been happier.
Then Mei whispered:
“Nathan.”
“What?”
“There's something else.”
My heart sank.
“No more secrets.”
“Not a secret.”
“What?”
She smiled.
“Lily is bringing someone to the wedding.”
I frowned.
“Someone?”
“A boyfriend.”
“No.”
Mei laughed.
“Nathan.”
“Who is he?”
“She hasn't told me.”
“What does he do?”
“I don't know.”
“Last name?”
“No.”
“Background?”
“Nathan.”
“Does he have debt?”
She kissed me to shut me up.
It worked temporarily.
May you like
Fatherhood, I discovered, had introduced an entirely new category of anxiety.
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