“Do you think I’ll make a good mother?” she had asked Wei Xiang once.
“Of course, no doubt, you’ll make a fantastic mother.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen you with kids. You are wonderful with them.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’ll be a good mother, even though I’m good with other people’s children.”
“Well, this shows that you possess some sort of a maternal instinct.”
“Having a maternal instinct doesn’t translate to being a good mother. I know a few teachers at the childcare centre, the younger ones, who are also good with children, but are happy being single, or happy being childless with their husbands.”
“Maybe you are at the age where you now want to consider having a child?” Wei Xiang looked at Ai Ling, searchingly.
“I don’t know. Are we ready?”
“We can be, if you are.”
Ai Ling knew Wei Xiang was being kind and accommodating; he had wanted to enjoy the first few years of their married life, just the two of them, before plunging into parenthood. He wanted to take it easy until they had everything in place: finances, the proper frame of mind, the ideal time. Ai Ling went along with his decision, only because she was still working out her own thoughts about being a mother. They were in their fifth year of marriage, and she was only thirty-two; the years stretched before them with other possibilities, other choices. Maybe she should give herself another year to think; maybe she would have a firmer decision by then. She had heard of women giving birth in their late thirties, even early forties, and the idea took the edge off her anxiety.
When Ai Ling had to stay late at the centre to catch up on her paperwork, she would look out for the boy’s mother so she could talk to her. From their brief, truncated conversations, Ai Ling found out that the boy was the eldest of four siblings, and that the mother was working as a part-time retail assistant at a chain supermarket. Nothing was said about the father. While Ai Ling was all praise for the boy’s good behaviour, the mother only cited incidents at home when he had misbehaved, how he could never sit still for a single moment, always climbing all over the furniture, how she was afraid one day he would fall and break his neck. The mother’s reproachful tone, whenever she spoke of these incidents, was nonetheless filled with bemused affection. It was clear to Ai Ling that the boy held a special place in the mother’s heart.
Once, when the mother came to pick up the boy later than usual, she would not look Ai Ling in the eyes, and busied herself with helping the boy put on his shoes. The boy’s mood changed in the presence of his mother, becoming more subdued. When the mother finally looked at her as she was leading the boy out, Ai Ling saw the dark bruises near her right eye. Ai Ling asked casually about the bruises, but the mother brushed it aside with a vague reason. She dared not meet Ai Ling’s gaze; the boy remained hidden behind a blank expression, his large, unblinking eyes moving between his mother and Ai Ling. The next day, when Ai Ling tried to find out about the family situation from the boy, he remained tight-lipped, turning his full attention to whatever he was doing—drawing with coloured pencils, building wobbly towers out of building blocks, or playing catching with his newfound friends. For a while, Ai Ling felt helpless at being merely an observer, and also angry at the woman for her passivity. But she knew her ambivalent, fluctuating sense of helplessness and anger was fuelled only by speculation—what did she actually know about the boy’s family? Nothing, except for the little she had seen. She was being a busybody, and it would do her no good to meddle in other people’s affairs. She knew she had to stay out of it.
Then one day, the mother did not turn up to pick up the boy, and after an hour of fretful waiting, Ai Ling decided to send the boy home herself. From his records, she found out where he lived, a housing block only three streets away. The boy, who had been sitting on the bench beside the shoe cupboard and glancing out the window, went submissively with Ai Ling. When she offered to carry his haversack, the boy shyly declined.
It took less than ten minutes to locate the block of flats. The boy seemed hesitant when they were in the lift, his hand clutching the long strap of his Winnie the Pooh water bottle. At the flat, the door was wide open; Ai Ling peeked in and saw a man lying on a sofa, watching a game show on TV, with two younger boys and a girl crowding in front of the screen. The mother was nowhere in sight. When Ai Ling said hello, the man jerked upright on the sofa, visibly annoyed. He stared at Ai Ling for a moment before noticing the boy standing beside her. Ai Ling explained the situation as the man opened the metal gate and invited her in. He was in his late thirties, a paunch evident behind his loose white singlet, with features that crowded in the middle of his long, pinched face. The man seemed friendly and cordial, though Ai Ling could sense a wall of guardedness behind his words and in the even tone of his voice. She asked about the boy’s mother, and the short reply she received was that she had to work overtime and had not been able to pick the boy up from the childcare centre. The other children sitting on the floor turned their attention to Ai Ling, curious about the interaction between her and their father. The boy, meanwhile, had disappeared into the kitchen. When Ai Ling left, she could detect a hint of censure from the sharp closing of the door.
When the mother turned up the next day, she thanked Ai Ling for her help and gave her a box of cream puffs. She wore a dark long-sleeved shirt and black slacks, a departure from her usual attire of T-shirt and shorts. When she declined the gift, the woman insisted, pushing the box into her hands. Ai Ling offered the boy a cream puff, which he took after receiving a look of approval from his mother. He ate in small bites, holding the puff in both hands, the cream leaking from the edges.
That was the last time Ai Ling saw the boy’s mother. After that, the father came to fetch him.
On some nights after work, and on weekends when Wei Xiang was in the office, Ai Ling would head down to the boy’s housing block and linger outside the flat, out of sight. She would stand against the wall, an eye out for any passing neighbours, and listen to whatever was happening inside. Mostly she heard the television and the voices of the children as they played, and several times the severe, scolding voice of the father; never once did she hear the mother’s voice. Ever since the mother’s disappearance, Ai Ling had tried to investigate the woman’s whereabouts, but received only empty stares and imposing silence from the boy or the father whenever she attempted to broach the topic. She had even appealed to the other teachers for more information, but they were as clueless as she was.
The children were often left alone at home on weekends; the father would be away, perhaps for work—Ai Ling did not know what he actually did, though he worked long odd hours and would sometimes fall asleep when he came home without changing out of his clothes. A few times, during periods of long silence in the flat, Ai Ling would walk past, peeking into the gap offered by the ajar front door, trying to see what the children were up to. She took great care not to be seen; only once, when she stepped out of hiding, she came face to face with the boy’s younger sister, who was picking up a ball near the metal gate. Ai Ling had to walk away quickly. If she had been discovered, Ai Ling never heard anything of it, at least not from the boy.
It was only when Wei Xiang started to get suspicious about her late-night wanderings and perpetual state of distraction that Ai Ling told him everything.