I write it back out of obligation, but I don’t know what it means. She’s continued to say it since, mostly on Facebook Messenger. On a cliff, in a leather coat with a thick, fur cuff, she told me that she loved me. That week, with my brother and sister, both a decade older, she flew out to the farthest coast of America. That night, I called my ma and told her that I’m gay. Still, after watching a son take his mother for granted and feeling how deeply he hurt her, I chose to tell the truth for once. Ma and I weren’t capable of such honesty together. In the movie’s emotional climax, the boy yells at his mother, I wish you had died instead of him. The hero, a whiteboy, copes with the double abandonment of his dead father (9/11) and seemingly absent mother (grief). One winter night, at the movies by myself, I watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. She’d moved back to Taiwan for good when I left the suburbs for Brown. The first time Ma told me was my last semester of college. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.
