A Woman Named Love
an excerpt

My mother’s name was Oi, which in Chinese means “love.” Every time someone called her name, I kept waiting for the “vey” to follow. I would not describe my mother as very “loving,” at least not in the traditional sense. Truth be known, she was stubborn, loud-mouthed, opinionated, strong-willed and often obnoxious. She made me miserable my entire life. She used her stronghold tactics to manipulate me and aggravate me at every turn. Even with her dying breath, she berated me, saying how much of a disappointment I was that I didn’t marry Richard Lin from 4th grade. He became a doctor, you know. I could have been taken care of very well right now, instead of being such a big hunkin’ failure of a woman.
The doctors at the nursing home where she lived in Staten Island told me that she didn’t know what she was saying. It was dementia. Adult onset. Don’t take it personally.
But I knew better. She knew what she was saying. She knew exactly.

“Ping Ping! Ping Ping!” she screams in the middle of the night. Where is my baby?! Ping Ping!. I have to find my baby. I only turned my head once. Now she’s gone.”

The night nurse tries to calm her down. She can’t give her another sedative because she’s already had two and they didn’t work. My mother could even fight in her sleep.

“Mrs. Levy. It’s ok. Your daughter is right here. I’ll go get her.”

The night nurse finds me in the cafeteria, doing SuDoku and drinking stale coffee.

“Ms. Levy, your mother is asking for you again. Would you mind…?” She gives me that hopeless look she gives me every time this happens.

“Of course,” I say. I walk down the white hallway with the brown edged trim into room 862. “I’m here, Ma. Ping Ping is here.”

“Did you find my baby? I need my baby back? Did you find her?

”I’m right here, Ma. It’s Ping.”

You’re not Ping Ping. Ping Ping is only a baby. You took my baby. Give her back. Do you hear me? I want her back!” My mother grabs and claws at me, the look in her eyes with pure hatred and determination. She really believes I’ve stolen her child. She tries to wrestle an invisible baby from my hands. She only manages to grab my SuDoku book.

“My baby. My Ping Ping.” She holds it in her arms, wraps her blanket around it and cradles it like a child. I think about how my mother loves logic above everything.

When I was four, my mother and I went to the mall to shop for school clothes. I was starting kindergarten. My father had tutored me at home with flash cards from when I was one, so that I’d be ready early. My mother got distracted by a window full of evening dresses. They were all glittery and the lights in the display were so bright, all the sequins looked like (stars? lightning bugs? miniature novas right before they were swallowed up by the black hole? city building windows at night from a faraway view? camera flashes?)

She stared at the dresses for a long time, then said, “What good would it do to own something like that? Your stupid father never takes me anywhere anyway. What use is it?” But she doesn’t leave. Instead she moves in closer to the window and stands right in front of the red dress. The shiniest of them all. It cost $550. I remember because I knew my numbers by then. All the way up to 1,000.

“I bet he takes his stupid hooker girlfriend out! I bet she wears dresses like that. That stupid bit…”

The lights were too bright for me and I turned my head away to see a fluffy white dog with big brown eyes staring right at me, beckoning me to come and play with him. An hour later, my mother has a panic attack because she cannot find me anywhere in the mall. She does not call mall security because she believes she can find me herself. She always wanted to do things all by herself. She never let anybody help her.

“Ping Ping!” she calls. “Where are you, Little Apple?” That’s what my name means in Chinese. Supposedly I looked like a fruit when I was born.

My mother doesn’t think to look in the pet shop because she is allergic to dogs and cats and assumed that I was too. Why not? I had every other one of her allergies.
Finally I walk out of the pet shop after making friends with Buddy, the fluffy Pomeranian.

The first thing I felt was a slap across the face. “I’ve been looking all over for you! How dare you do that to your mother? Didn’t I tell you to stick by me?! Never do that again, do you hear me? We’re going home, no school clothes for you!”
Then she grabs me and squeezes me so tight that I cannot breathe. I feel my ribs might crush.
Then she starts crying. “I’m sorry, baby. Mommy’s just glad she found you again. Let’s go home.” She kisses me all over my face and I don’t understand what is going on or what I did wrong and so I start balling. I try to wrestle my way out of her arms because I can’t breathe and she had a huge cold sore that doesn’t feel good on my face when she is kissing me. My mother doesn’t want to let me go now and she carries me out of there in her arms. I’ve been trying to get free of her every since.