A short story I wrote when I was seventeen
The bus would arrive at my apartment at around 8:30 AM, and I’d be there at the bottom staircase of the apartment building 10 minutes early since my grandmother always persisted that being early was a good habit for success. Success, as in, making 6 figures when I’m 30 years old as a proud surgeon fixing up her lumbar spinal cord injury. Being only five or six at the time, my family always had to have a close, elderly relative watching over me. This was my family’s culture. Every morning in kindergarten, I calculated the moment my grandmother wiggled open the copper brown doorknob that stood 10 feet from my right to say “La garn, Ohk di, “good bye and have good luck” in Laotian. It was easy because her stroller danced through the hall before she even lifted the handle. Her entrance was always the same: She came through the door with a grin that made her wrinkles disappear, hair tied back in a bun, usually wearing a black gown that she’d worn the night before, and the sounds of a grocery cart clicking on the floor tiles as her stroller rolled over them. She shined so bright that it felt like an over-arching gold aura floated above her. However, I felt a squeeze of uneasiness in my face, torso, and legs when she did come through that door; there was a shock full of embarrassment that shot up my spine every time she did. Embarrassed of what my friends would think of my grandmother and me, that is.
My home was the bottom of a raggedy three-story apartment located in the suburbs of Bloomington, Minnesota. You know it’s old when you see a wooden sign with the words “Country Inn” smearing apart in front of the building with one of its legs snapped in half and duct taped. The building was roughly a football field in length, and split straight down the middle, there thirty feet opening with a wall of glass in the shape of an upside down ‘u’ located on the second floor. Mainly because of its coral brick walls and it being lengthy as a one-way track, the apartment building gave the impression of a scaled version of the brick house from the Three Little Pigs. Outside the glass lay a clunky bridge of wooden planks and metal railings on each side, fuming the char of fresh wood. Lucky for me, the far end of this beautiful bridge was my bus stop!
Outside, the first thing you could see when you looked through the upside down ‘u’ shaped window was the second row of florescent stairs. I was a regular on the first row since I wasn’t much of the talkative type, and the six other rows of stairs lead to the top floor of the apartment. The stairs were quite ordinary, but they had patterns of green and blue diamonds that remind you of Christmas time. The red theme contrasted the white walls perfectly and elegantly like a matching carpet and sofa. The stairs felt homey, and they weren’t just placed in a zig zag pattern that most places have them: following each floor there is room for plenty of kids to play, and when you look down, you can peak your head over the railing to see the other floors below. My friends, ranging from kindergarten up to fifth grade, would sit on the floor above me where they were transparent to the outside, and as for me, I kept my bottom space. I got jealous that they could chat up a storm sometimes, but I wasn’t much of the social type in the morning.
I lived with three older siblings, two sisters and one brother, my father, and my grandmother. My siblings were in middle school and high school so they left home earlier, and my father was always busy working for us, so the only person who could take care of me in the mornings was my grandmother. In English, her first name is Phetsouth, but she was only called “Mae-oui,” which is a slang Laotian term for “grandmother.” The pronunciation for her name is (Meh-hwee). Mae oui and I were extremely close; in fact, our favorite thing to do together was cook, although she did most of it and I came and tagged along for the delicious meal. She could make the best traditional Lao and Thai style dishes with a loving twist. Our personal favorite dish to make was larb seen: a beef salad bowl with the best tasting herbs and tangy spices that could light your tongue on fire.
Thing is, Mae-oui didn’t know very much English. Her scent screamed foreign cooking, and the thought of any of my friends seeing me in the halls with her screamed uncool. I could only imagine what they thought! I probably spent more time thinking about what they thought about me than the actual wait for the bus. Ten minutes of waiting equated to 20 minutes of overthinking my identity as an Asian American. For instance, I would sometimes even go the long way around to wait for the bus. Picture this: Me wearing an oversized backpack zooming to the next flight of the apartment building, down the rosy hallway, and to the hangout area in the middle of the apartment. All to get away from my grandmother.
One morning, I took the short path to the spacious room that I sat in to wait for the bus. Opening my apartment door and quickly examined the hallway, I caught the lights on the top right and left of the ceiling brooding like dawn had just set, and when I walked, the square tiles had an extra “thud” in them. The only thing normal about it had to be the noise level of my friends in the hallway who were loud as ever. It only took about half a minute to hastily walk to the staircase on my tippy toes. Little did I know, my grandmother followed me behind while I was too busy playing sneaky.
A few minutes pass and Jonathan, a close friend of mine in third grade says, “Who is that?” as if my grandmother was a walking zombie. Head down, I mumble, “I don’t know, probably someone’s grandmother. Definitely not mine though.” It’s not that I didn’t expect this type of reaction to occur. Mae-oui would’ve never let me go for a minute, so my best guess was that she was only around 30 seconds behind me. Of course, she wore the typical hair bun, floral black night gown, and scent. In addition, her stroller picked up traction on the tiles making the coarse “thud” sound, so it was not something that he could’ve missed.
When I glanced back to see my friend, I could feel his stare literally run me down. He most likely saw right through my sad attempt at a lie because his face was uneasy and his death stare lasted for 5 minutes even though it was really only a few seconds. It’s my grandmother, I thought. Now that he’s seen her, he’s going to avoid looking. Now that he’s smelled her, he’s going to run away. I figure he put two and two together because his gauze eventually shifted toward the large glass window that overlooked the street. That is my grandmother. We have the same distinct flat and round nose that every Laotian has, the same facial structure, and most likely the scent of herbs and spices from the larb seen we had ate the night before.
The next day I decided that I’d move the spotlight away from us. I stepped out the door of my apartment and walked down the rosy hallway with a goal in mind. The lights were as gloomy as ever. Though this time as I walked through the halls, I was forced to secondhand smoke the remaining tobacco scent of the neighbor whose door was right in front of ours. The halls were so narrow that walking down the hallway was like entering a three-point-perspective painting. As I reached the vantage point, the door, the lock on the door handle began glowing. If there was anything that could prevent my best friends from seeing my grandmother, this was it. I softly grabbed the door as if I had the best plan of the school year and sat myself down in silence at my usual spot.
“THEW!!!” She screamed. I was shook. I waited by the second: one, two, three, four, five… and finally, I tasted my sweat. At the top of my feet, I scrambled to the golden lock and switched it to the locked configuration. Mae-oui was already at the door screaming for hail Mary at this point, so I looked back and look there! My bus came! I ran up the staircase as fast as my twig legs could. The only thought running through my mind was “Mae-oui is definitely going to beat my ass when I come back” throughout the entire scene I had just made. As soon as I got onto the wooden bridge of freedom, I knew was in the clear. I’m the last one there, but I pulled it off. If there was sweat pouring down my face from the amount of anxiety I just built up, everyone on the bus was definitely breathing it. I then began rehearsing our next confrontation the whole way to school.
I was not expecting the type of conversation I had with Mae-oui when I came home. To my surprise, she acted like none of it ever happened. Like I never locked the golden doorknob blocking her from coming to wish me luck and goodbye. Instead, she welcomed me with a wrinkly smile that could probably stay up during the rain. There was also a fragrant smell —a very familiar one in fact. I investigated the kitchen as soon I sniffed it, and when I saw the green leaves, my mood went from confusion to pure happiness. She cooked up my favorite dessert: Kathom — Lao sweet rice in a banana leaf.
After that, I never shut the door on Mae-oui. I could never dare to shift the angle her smile made when she saw me leave off to school and come home again. If I ever did, I’d be throwing away a priceless sign in my life—unrequited love. As a matter of fact, during the year of her passing, 2011, I was actively engaged in her favorite hobbies: watching Lao and Thai movies, going to the Asian farmers market to get the best vegetables, and cooking up the daily Asian buffet. Though she has since passed, she taught me how to cook the best authentic Lao and Thai dishes, how to make friends, and allowing myself to embrace my own identity. I’m seventeen now, and it is because of her that I will never lock a chapter of myself away for the sake of a fake sense of belonging.
Short Reflection
Looking back at this short story, I am proud of how much I have grown to accept my cultural identity as a teenager. I went from not being able to accept my own grandmother to now working at the Asian American Activities Center where I feel like I’ve established a great home to come back to.