Back to Issue Fifty-Nine

HEDDA, 等 (WAIT)

by WILLIAM PEI SHIH

After postponing three times, I meet Dad and his on-and-off-again girlfriend, Hedda, for a belated Christmas dinner. It’s already the end of January, and now that my father’s moved across the courtyard to an apartment of his own, the one-bedroom complex with the non-functioning fireplace is officially Hedda’s again. “We had a horrible fight,” she’d previously confided over the phone. “You know your father. It could’ve ruined everything, but it didn’t.” Over the years, I’ve learned that Hedda’s prone to exaggeration. According to her, she was once a runway model, a sought after European beauty queen—though it’s difficult to picture any of this now, with all the cosmetic work she’s had done. Her forehead and cheeks are ripe with the consistency and toughness of thick rubber. Her face reminds me more of parched truck tires under the blaze of a desert sun rather than that of last year’s cover girl. The makeup that Hedda cakes on only adds to this: black and blue eyeliner that drips at the corners of her eyelids, the blanket of concealer and red blotches of rouge over her high cheekbones, a much too generous slathering of magenta lipstick across her plump lips, and a pouf of blonde that has become her go-to hairstyle. None of it really hides the injected immobility, all the suspending imperfections from taking their natural course. And yet the intensity of her pale blue eyes reveals something remotely authentic, although even this is only evident under certain lighting.

I imagine that I am harsh on Hedda because I am reluctant to get too attached to the woman who is now sitting beside my father, on the garishly red Venetian couch across from me, occasionally locking hands. Their fight on Christmas that had led to the cancellation of our initial dinner was only one of many. I was already ignoring Hedda’s calls. But it was not out of some daughterly loyalty to my father. I’d never intended to let the rest of my family know that I was still in touch with the man who had all but abandoned my sisters and my mother. The one instance I’d accidentally picked up my phone, I was on the 4 train, heading downtown from Fordham Road to the city. Hedda had called from an unknown number. Before I could get a word in edgewise, she unloaded what I’d dreaded so much to hear:

“I simply can’t deal with your father’s drinking anymore. I’m tired of everyone staring at us when we go out to restaurants. He’s an embarrassment in public, do you know how he treats the waiters?”

I had been to their favorite Italian restaurant with them before and had seen how both Hedda and my father took a gratuitous amount of time ordering appetizers, and how they sent back entrées to be reheated and insisted on drinking red wine with ice (a habit my father had picked up from Hedda). Hedda had loudly complained about the subpar food and slow service. I remember thinking—never again. But I didn’t know what else to say other than, “I’m sorry Hedda, but you see, it’s my train. It’s about to go under.”

“Oh, well then call me back when you resurface. I’m free all afternoon.”

I only managed to get in a, “Sorry, I don’t think I . . .” before the line went dead.

For the rest of my ride, I thought of how I’ve been apologizing for Dad all my life. When he drank one too many Tsingtaos at my fifteenth birthday, and took out his frustrations on my mother’s sisters (it turned out he was disgusted by them, even 阿姨 Violetta, a nurse who didn’t possess a mean bone in her body). How he’d trashed the buffet table, and popped the helium balloons one at a time, hoping for the attention my mother purposefully would not show him. Eventually he fell asleep by the punchbowl, as knocked out as a boxer who’d lost a fight. There were the times when our neighbors would complain that the Led Zeppelin blasting from Dad’s stereo at 1 AM was keeping them up. The stench of weed that engulfed the hallways was another problem, and I apologized for that as well, always too embarrassed to look my neighbor in the eye. Karen, a retired English teacher, lived next door. She explained that she suffered from asthma. What else could I say but, “sorry?”

By then, Dad had holed himself up in his room, only utilizing a side entrance to the apartment so that he could interact with the rest of us as little as possible. It was him against all of us, he said, and he was all alone. My parents were in the process of finalizing a messy divorce, separating their belongings down to a hair. My mother was already sleeping in my bed with me, counting down the days until Dad would finally do as he promised and move out.

Now, seated before me, Dad is dressed quite smartly in an Oxford blue button-down and neatly ironed slacks. Age has taken a toll on the shape of his body—he is fifty-five, almost fifty-six. No longer is he the broad shouldered and intractable man he once was. Hunched forward, his rounded shoulders make it appear like he’s shrinking, someone who has been lost for too long in his convoluted thoughts. He’s no longer the man with the kind of sharpness of tongue that can suck the life out of a conversation. His haircut makes it more obvious that he’s balding, but it also gives off a sense of sobriety. Last I heard, Hedda had convinced Dad to join AA, though admittedly his attendance has been somewhat spotty. Here, amongst all of Hedda’s Italian furnishings, Dad can almost pass for someone of repute. The air is imbued with the cloying scent of potpourri, something like rose petals and jasmine, something else reminiscent of bergamot. I can hear Puccini seeping from the radio (Puccini, who Hedda says is her favorite composer). I feel inu-dated by the deep cushions of detailed embroidery. Rococo flowers and heavy gold, ornate furniture that has conquered every corner.

“Earth to Louis,” Hedda says. She fixes her gaze on Dad and directs a hand towards me. “Smile, dear.”

“I am smiling.”

“Oh, no you’re not. People should smile when they’re with company. Don’t you think Bianca looks exquisite tonight? I adore that black dress.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Dad then cuts in, “But it looks like she’s dressed for a funeral.” “Please, Louis. Don’t start.”

Dad turns to me, somewhat smiling. I notice his shallow dimples on both cheeks; they are the same as mine. “See what I have to put up with, girl?”

“That’s enough, Louis, for goodness sake.” There is a strain in Hedda’s voice as she exchanges what she must think is a knowing glance with me. “You see how he’s like? I don’t know where I find the strength to put up with it anymore.”

Reaching over, Dad playfully squeezes Hedda’s chin. “That’s because I tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“And I don’t know why I believe you.”

The silence grows between us. I sip my Malbec; there is ice in each of our glasses. I hadn’t bothered to refuse. Dad is already on his second drink. In my hands, the goblet feels like a chalice. I’ve only picked at the hors d’oeuvres, delicately arranged on the shallow porcelain dish over the coffee table. They’re of the microwavable variety, the kind one would buy in the freezer aisle of their neighborhood supermarket. Hedda’s presented me with a trifecta: pigs in a blanket, mushroom caps stuffed with gruyere cheese, crackers smeared with vegetarian pâté. Dad pops one mushroom into his mouth. Then he pops another.

“Save some room for the risotto,” Hedda intones. “It’s your favorite.” Then she adds, in case it isn’t clear to Dad, “I made it especially for you.”

They both turn to me. I say something to the effect of it all smells good, whatever’s cooking. Dad is speaking to me with his gleaming eyes to remind me that I’m on his side. After all, we share the same blood, and from that old world of Han and Toishan and Cantonese ancestry, of war and the deliverance from struggle and loss—loyalty still counts for something. I continue to nibble on a cracker, careful not to let any of the crumbs drop on the aubergine Persian rug. I can feel Hedda scrutinizing me; it’s uncomfortable how she eyes me up and down, but it’s only for the night, I remind myself. She tends to compare me to her daughter, Lila, an interior designer who works in a fancy office in SoHo. Hedda explains that Lila was actually on her way to meet us tonight, but had to cancel at the last minute because of an emergency with a client. “That’s too bad,” I say. I know that Hedda approves when she’s not commenting and when she simply nods, ever so slightly, as if she’s the headmistress of a finishing school that she holds in the highest esteem, but that she herself has never attended.

“Don’t eat all the cheese, dear,” Hedda says. “We have to keep you healthy. Louis, are you listening to me?”

Dad explains how he actually is healthy. How he dives into cardio several times a week at the gym. “If my personal trainer is happy with me, then you should be too.”

Hedda reluctantly agrees. “Your father’s become astonishingly skinny. Skinnier than me, and that’s actually no good for a woman who’s spent much of her life watching her figure.”

“My doctor says that I still have the heart of a thirty-year-old, can you believe it? It’s no wonder I beat to my own drum.” He pours himself another glass of the Malbec, over the melting ice.

“Of course that’s thanks to me.” Hedda adds, “I make sure to keep his heart in check.” “It’s more like you try to control everything I eat, amongst other things.”

“Now Louis!”

“Dad . . .”

But he counters, “Now, now, Addeh!”

Hedda returns with a scathing look, but Dad just shrugs because it’s not the first time, and I know it won’t be the last.

“I do wish you’d stop calling me that.” She fumbles with her sweater. It’s black as well with long leather sleeves. Across her chest are two intertwining Chanel C’s back to back. They look as if they are hooked together like handcuffs. “If you really appreciate me like you say you do, then you would.”

“See girl? She doesn’t let me be who I am.”

“That’s not true, Louis. Why on earth would you make such an accusation?”

“Not all the time, but certainly most of the time. When she starts her nagging and nitpicking, she turns into this other woman, someone who I don’t even recognize anymore . . .”

“Oh please don’t . . .”

“ . . . like someone from a parallel universe.”

“Don’t tell Bianca that.”

“And that’s why I have to call this other version of Hedda: Addeh. It’s Hedda backwards, to remind her that she should hold. Take a step back: 等, wait. Isn’t that hilarious?”

Hedda takes a sip of her wine. “Do you hear any of us laughing, Louis?”

I think that now would be a good time to ask Hedda about Paris. I know that she would instantly light up. She would tell me about her favorite cafes on St. Germain. She would tell me about the glamorous parties she had once attended living near the Champs-Élysées, how they were the right parties. Her first husband had been a man of wealth, nearly twenty years her senior. They had summered in St. Tropez. She had walked in fashion shows in Milan. But before I can ask, Hedda turns up the stereo until the sound of lush strings makes it all the way to the Ital-ian mahogany table in the dining room.

“Shall we pass through?” she says.

“Gladly,” I hear Dad say.

Hedda has already decided that Dad and I will sit at the table, across from each other; she at the head, which is closer to the kitchen.

“Hedda at the head, get it?” Dad says.

I politely laugh.

For the first course, she serves us a watery split pea soup and the baguette she’s toasted in the oven. We eat quietly, commenting here and there on the soup. The second course is the risotto, riddled with black squid, accompanied by a beet salad. This is set on Hedda’s porcelain plates with the gold rims. Her utensils are gold as well, or rather, gold looking. I compliment Hedda on the food. We make a toast and drink to the occasion; Dad makes another toast.

“To the New Year; may we get everything that we want, even if we’ve been a little naughty.”

I then raise a toast: “To us, finally coming together.”

Then I watch as my Dad goes on to devour each morsel with neither finesse nor attentiveness. I can’t help but feel that such a moment is wasted on an already wasted man, whose brain synapses have deteriorated from years of drinking, just to escape us, to escape me. But another part of me is relieved that he has found his way around. He’s told me that he’d made up with his estranged brothers back in Hong Kong last summer. He has finally found a steady job. He is an art teacher at a high school in Pelham. I can’t even picture him teaching, but I believe he does it to the best of his abilities. Like both my sisters, I can’t picture myself forgiving the man, but somehow, I’m here, because I don’t want to miss out. Maybe there’ll be an opportunity somewhere down the line where both of us might see the light, return to a hint of what we once were. I had been his favorite. I was the eldest. He had taken me seriously. He had read to me from my favorite books. Pride and Prejudice. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Dad tears off a piece of the baguette and chews it emphatically. “How’s Elisa?”

“She’s fine.”

“What’s new with her?”

I don’t tell him that my sister’s engaged, and that she’s already planning the wedding, since he’s not going to be invited. She also has her eye on a house in the suburbs; no doubt Dad will never know the address. “I think she’s going back to school.”

“Oh really? And what about Angela, my little one?”

I don’t tell him that she’s planning to move in with her boyfriend, and that she’s studying for her master’s in education. “She’s teaching at a middle school in the Bronx.”

“Following in my footsteps, I see.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I hope your father doesn’t expect you girls to take care of him when he gets old,” my mother had said to me the previous week. We were at the Westchester Mall in White Plains. She’d spent the afternoon scouring the racks for her mother-of-the-bride dress. We found many, but Mom was particular, as she wanted it to be special. She imagined her olive skin would look good against an iridescent navy blue, floor length. She analyzed the quality of the material and the stitching. The fit must be flattering. It must have long sleeves; she felt too insecure to bare her arms. She compared it to how she would have done it herself—though she hadn’t made a dress in years—before I was even born. Elisa’s engagement announcement was the highlight of my mother’s year. She had taken it upon herself to make the arrangements for the bridal shower and the bachelorette tea. There was the church at Fordham University that my mother wanted to book immediately, as well as the catering, the reception hall. My mother was in better spirits than I had seen in some time, completely absorbed by the celebratory distractions. So when she said this about my father, I was unprepared.

“He won’t,” I said.

“You don’t know, Bianca. These men are like that. I’m serious. They get old, and then they expect their children to give up everything and take care of them, even though they didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

“It’s different now.”

“You think it matters what you think? Your father never contributed a cent of child support. His excuse was always that he was saving to move out. Ten years of saving for his nice new place; all along, neglecting his responsibilities. When the time comes, you can help him find a senior citizen center, and fill out some paper work, but that’s it.”

“Mom, he’s not a monster.”

She put out her hand to stop me. “You know your father’s girlfriend? Hedda?”

“What about her?”

“She called me the other day.”

“She did?” I tried to sound surprised.

Mom nodded, her luminous dark eyes brimmed with excitement. “She told me that she went through his phone and found my number. Can you believe that?”

I was afraid that Hedda had told her that we had already met. Indeed, she had.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’d meant to tell you.”

“Do you know what else she said? She asked me if your father was always like this: a big baby.”

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth: that he’s always had his own off-color sense of humor. Then she started to complain about him. I couldn’t listen to the woman anymore. She just kept rambling. I told her that I had to go; there was a call on the other line. The next time she tried to call me, I didn’t pick up.”

“I understand that.”

“Really, I’m not her therapist. And I have a wedding to help plan!”

“Yes, I know.”

I knew that my mother would go on complaining about my father, and I tried to change the subject, but my mother pushed through, “When your father left, he took everything. Can you believe it? He even took your computer. What a selfish man—to the very end.”

“Mom, please. Don’t work yourself up.”

I saw that there were tears in her eyes; she pulled out a crumpled tissue from her purse. “He took all the family photos too.”

“Not all of them. We still have our graduation photos.”

“Most of them, the important ones. Our wedding photos, even though I’m not sure if I even want those anymore. But he has all of your baby pictures, the photos of you and your sisters when you were little girls. Remember how he used to think he was such a great photographer? Well, he wasn’t exactly Dorothea Lange, was he? Remember his show at Lehman? He didn’t want you girls to come because he thought you would take the attention away. He didn’t even want me there, when all the people who were going were the people I had invited.”

My mother continued to cry. Here it was: she was going to lay it on thick. She was going to ask me how I could keep in contact with such a terrible man—how dare I keep him in our lives? And I would have to answer for it now. I took a breath. But what I expected didn’t come. Then she was prodding my arm when she said, “Bianca, we need those pictures.”

“What do you mean?”

“The wedding, Bianca,” she lowered her voice an octave. “Your sister would like to put together a slideshow of you girls for the reception.”

“She would?”

“And Elisa’s correct: your father has no right to them. They’re ours. What does he want with them anyway but to keep them in order to hurt me.” Then she was telling me, “You have to get the pictures. It’s all of our memories. It’s all we have left.”

“Why me? Why doesn’t Elisa just call him herself?”

She hesitated before saying, “Because you’re his favorite.” “Why do you have to say it like that?”

She threw her hands up, “哎呀, Bianca! It doesn’t mean that you’re the same as him. You’re a grown woman now. You don’t have a drinking problem, you’re educated, you have a steady job. People like you. I just mean that you’re the only one who can get through to the man. Am I right?”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t.”

“You must. Or else what are we going to do?”

“Can’t you ask him yourself?”

“Are you kidding me? He’d rather see them burn than let me have them.”

“Does Elisa really need a slideshow that badly? Can’t we just pull some photographs from Facebook?”

My mother shook her head. A month after the divorce, she’d dyed her hair from black to a faint red, and never looked back. I thought she would burst into more tears. “How can you say such a thing? This is for your own sister, your flesh, your blood. She’ll be crushed. How can you be so selfish?”

“Mom.”

“And remember to be careful not to tell your father about the wedding. Elisa doesn’t want him to know. Imagine? What if he shows up!”

I pick at what’s left of the risotto; some of the leaves of the beet salad are wilted. I push my plate away and say, “Thank you.” Hedda then sets small brass cups on the table. She pours our espressos from a silver pot. Dessert, she explains, she always buys. She’s not good with sweets. She sets down chocolates that she’d ordered from a chocolatier in Midtown, with flavors like coconut, cherry, and mint. Next to them are mini black-and-white cookies. I take a bite. As expect-ed, they taste as stale as cardboard.

“I don’t do dessert,” Hedda informs me again. “Dessert isn’t my thing.”

“She’s right,” Dad says. He’s dipping a half-eaten cookie into his espresso. When Hedda clears the dishes, I take her seat and scooch a little closer to him.

“So Dad,” I say. “Did you bring the photos I asked for? I’d really like to show them to Hedda.”

“Oh, but I’ve already seen them,” Hedda says, re-entering the room. She pulls out my chair and takes a seat.

“Really?” I say. “All of them? Every single one?”

Hedda purses her lips together before she says, “Well I suppose not all of them. But a lot of it is just more of the same, is it not?”

“No, it’s not, not at all.” I tell her how my father used to be a professional photographer. I tell her that he’d converted a closet into his own darkroom. The scent of photo-developing chemicals was a common occurrence throughout my childhood. He was an artist, someone with an eye, who knew how to put together a striking composition. This was not your typical family album.

Dad quietly downs the last of his wine and smacks his lips. Then he says, “And that is why you’ve always been my favorite.”

Hedda gives in. “If you insist.”

“I do,” I say.

“Well Louis, why don’t you go get them?”

Dad is convinced. He goes across the courtyard to his apartment. Suddenly grateful to Hedda, I take the opportunity to ask her about Paris. Once again, she tells me about the parties, the beautiful apartments she’d lived in. She’s seemingly transported. “Walks along the Seine. Ice cream at Berthillon on the Île St-Louis. Afternoon tea at Mariage Frères.” Shortly after, my father returns carrying a tattered and familiar blue Nike shoebox. He places it on the coffee table. I reach to take it, but then he suddenly pulls the box towards him.

“Not so fast,” he says. There’s a playfulness in his voice. “This is precious; handle with care.” Then, “It’s my work.”

I indulge him. I pour him another glass of wine, over the ice. Then I flip open the lid of the box. Carefully, I thumb through the first stack of photographs. It’s all there: My kindergarten graduation, ballet and fan dance recitals. My fifteenth birthday, where my sisters dressed in matching pink dresses. Our one-time trip to Hong Kong. Pictures of the time we spent that month in Toishan where Dad had taken the photographs of the city of Taicheng and of the family house, and of the farm for what would become my father’s Lehman exhibition. The dim sum we had in Hong Kong, a photo of us gathered around the wide round table. The visit to the Big Buddha, and Victoria Peak, the sun beating down on our necks and shoulders. A self-portrait of my Dad in the mirror at our relative’s apartment, a younger, slimmer man, and then me, a little smiling girl on his shoulders. My grandfather’s music playing in the background like Teresa Teng. A feeling of excitement, inexplicable joy. Me asking my dad to lift me higher and higher. How my dad had humored me then. It had been him at his best.

I then look more closely at the photos. I analyze the sense of proportion, the angle of the light in each frame, the placement of shadows, the technique in his use of exposure. I see now that he had saved some of his best tricks for us—my sisters and I. We were always going to be his best subjects. At the very least, it felt most true at one time, until one day, it simply wasn’t true anymore. And you never get used to a feeling like that.

“Are you okay?” Hedda asks. “Here, let me get you a tissue.”

“No, no,” I say. “I’m fine. See, I told you. These are just such beautiful pictures. They really are.”

“Why thank you, girl,” Dad says, taking another sip from his glass. “I worked hard on them. Remember how annoyed you girls used to get when I tried to make you pose? You could never sit still, and you would whine so much. I just wanted to capture something special, you know?” Then he adds, “Now aren’t you glad I made you sit still?”

I can’t help myself. The tears keep flowing from my eyes. I feel myself nodding without comprehension.

“How come you never take any pictures of me?” Hedda breaks in.

I watch Dad shrug, “I need to be inspired by the subject.”

“But I’m inspiring, am I not? People used to photograph me all the time in Milan.”

“Maybe it’s because they’ve never encountered Addeh!” Dad laughs. The laughter gets to Hedda.

“Really Louis, enough. I think you owe me an apology.”

“For what?”

“You’ve hurt my feelings; you’ve embarrassed me. I was only trying to encourage you, that’s all.”

“I don’t need no damn encouragement.”

I continue to look through the photographs. Elisa’s enormous smile underneath her dove costume during our Catholic school’s Christmas show. Angela crying at her fifth birthday party as she cowered from Mom, who was unrecognizable in full clown regalia. There is a small sepia shot of Dad in his early twenties, wearing a fitted white linen suit on his wedding day in Hong Kong. He is strikingly handsome. He gives off the impression that he is someone full of potential, full of promise. It’s then that I reach over for the bottle of Malbec. I pour my dad another glass. “A toast,” I say. “To your body of work.”

I eye Dad. He seems pleased. “Don’t forget the ice, girl. Ever since this woman, I can’t have it any other way.”

“Dad, Hedda’s right. I don’t mean about the ice. You should go back to photography.”

Hedda says, “See? Even Bianca thinks it’s a good idea.”

“但是这个⼥⼈⽤她所有的疯狂杀死了我.”

“You know that I don’t like it when you speak Cantonese, Louis,” Hedda says. “It’s rude, and I feel left out.”

“现在怎么了?” Dad says to her, a bemused look on his face.

But Hedda misunderstands. She dabs her lips with a cloth napkin; a faded magenta smear is left behind. “Well, if you’re going to continue on as if I don’t exist, I think I’ll clear the rest of the table. Excuse me.”

“Now now, Addeh. 等, please. Bring back my Hedda.”

Hedda sniffs and disappears into the kitchen. I see her close the door behind her. I watch Dad drink until all that’s left is the ice cubes that he swirls in his glass. “A little more,” he then says.

I oblige.

“Just a little,” I repeat. I don’t know if he hears me. His eyes have deserted the situation. I finish off the bottle, down to the very last drop. “Finito,” I say. Then, “Shall we break open another bottle?”

“If it weren’t such a special occasion . . .”

The unrelenting music from the stereo obscures the silence.

Inside the kitchen, I catch Hedda leaning over the sink in muted unhappiness. Her hands, prominent with blue veins, are pressed against the counter. Her lips, in their perpetual puckered state. She is staring quietly out the window, engrossed in thought. Outside, there is a view of a wintery parking lot; fresh snow has blanketed the car hoods.

“You don’t have to do that dear.” She takes the rest of the dishes from me and places them in the sink, then turns on the faucet and lets the hot water run. Steam begins to rise. She seems to steel herself. “Did you know that your father’s started drinking again? And I don’t mean a glass or two with dinner like tonight. Although, he’s had a bit too much already. But I mean really drinking, especially now that he’s living alone.”

I shake my head. Hedda continues her venting spree, telling me how, after making up with his brothers, Dad had gotten trashed and made a scene at his niece’s wedding in Los Angeles (neither my sisters nor I were invited), how he’s not getting on at his school. “Sometimes it’s so difficult to communicate with that man. It’s as if he’s speaking another language, and I don’t mean Cantonese.”

“Hedda, I’m sorry, but that’s too bad. That’s just too bad.”

“He’s not always like this though. Because I don’t want to say that he is. Because there are times when I see him coming around. And in those moments, I believe him when he tells me that he loves me.”

I rinse out the first batch of dishes, reach for a towel on the rack and dry them.

“Now Bianca, I consider myself to be an optimistic person. I consider myself someone who sees the glass half full, so to speak. So I tell him to fix his situation, and to enjoy his life. Do you think he ever listens to me?”

“I’m guessing the answer is no?”

“You’d guess right.”

“I see.”

“Apparently he thinks that this is simply who he is, and that I’m stifling him. But I’m not stifling anyone, you understand? With the few good years that I have left in me, I’m just trying to have a good time, that’s all. And I don’t want to do it alone. Your father made a promise to me that he would get better. That things would change.”

“He’s made those promises to us before.”

“Then you’re wondering why I’m still with him.”

“Hedda, it’s getting late.”

She turns to me, clearly annoyed. “I’m going to give you some advice. Right now, you are young. You are beautiful, you are lovely. It seems like you can have your pick of anything. If you want to wait for someone to come and sweep you off your feet, by all means, wait. But you can’t wait forever.”

“All right, I know.”

“I’ve seen a hell of a lot in this world.”

“Yes, Hedda. Okay.”

Still, she tells me again that she’s been courted by many fine men. She tells me again about her ex-husband, the businessman from Prague. She tells me that it didn’t work out. “The point is, I’ve learned that no one’s perfect. There will come a time in your life when you’ll have to settle too. And not for second best either—but for what’s left. There will always be something about someone that offends or annoys you. Ask yourself if it’s worth it to break up and look for someone else who also won’t change for you. The point is the moment I stopped waiting like some damn fool, I found your father.”

I don’t tell Hedda that I’ve been waiting for Dad to come around all my life.

We return to the living room. The TV is on. Nightline. Dad, asleep on the couch. I can hear him snoring. He is the man I’ve always known him to be. Even in this unconscious state he looks defeated. Now is my chance. I consider taking the photos right then and there. I think of running and never looking back.

“Look at him,” Hedda says from behind. “Like a big baby.”

I say the taxi’s on its way. I should make this train; it’s the last one. It’s then that I present Hedda with the belated gifts. I catch her by surprise. Christmas feels like ages ago.

“I didn’t know that we were exchanging presents,” Hedda whispers. She leads me back into the dining room.

“Oh really, it’s nothing.”

For Dad, a tie from Brooks Brothers. For Hedda, a makeup bag from Bloomingdales, wrapped in tissue paper. As Hedda politely pulls open the gold zipper, she keeps shaking her head. She goes on about all the ways she can use the bag; it can hold her makeup the next time she takes a trip, though not to LA, since it’s not her thing.

Finally, Hedda says, “I feel terrible. You know what? The next time we get together, we’ll take you to your favorite restaurant. You choose the place.”

“Oh, well. You don’t have to do that.”

“We must, I insist,” she says. What can I do but shrug? She smiles. I smile back. She smiles some more. We seem to be looking past each other.

Then she says, “But if there is anything else that you’ve had your eye on, please, do let me know.”

“Oh, I will.”

Later, the platform. The Metro North. It is snowing. My fingers are numb. The night takes on a silence of its own. I hold the box a little closer to me, feel its edges that have frayed with time. But still, I think of all that I don’t have. All the photographs that my father has not taken, moments that he will never get to capture. I think of my sister Elisa, who in a matter of months, will walk down the aisle in her perfectly tailored white dress. I think of my mother; the pride that will no doubt be in her eyes to watch her first daughter married off. Perhaps one day, a granddaughter. A not so distant summer. Later still, a house in the suburbs, a backyard. A little girl, on the shoulders of her own father; a man who is present, who will be there without conditions, who will never take back what he has given her, and still, because she will not know such disappointments, such deep longings, such lonelinesses, she will cry out at the top of her voice, “higher, higher.”

author pic here

William Pei Shih ’s stories have been featured in The Best Short Stories 2026: The O. Henry Prize Winners, The Best American Short Stories 2025, The Best American Short Stories 2020, The Georgia Review, The Boston Review, VQR, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Joyland Magazine, Guernica Magazine, The Southern Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. He is the fiction editor at Guernica Magazine and teaches at New York University. For more information, visit williampeishih.com

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