Filial Piety

Filial Piety

by Melanie Lau

illustration by Sadie Hutchings

Grandma ends up on the floor again. She’s curled up beside her bedroom door like a cat, chin resting on her arms. Dad flips a switch, and Grandma flinches at the sting of fluorescent light. Midnight is not a good time for this.

Dad stalks up to her. “要什么?” he asks quietly.

Yào shénme. What do you want?

I stand in the doorway of my bedroom, peering down the hall. I don’t want to approach Dad. He’s doing his job as the man of the house. Mom is gone, and there is no one but him to care for her mother. He pokes Grandma with his toe, and she mewls. She is the house pet. She must have slid out of the low bed, hooking her fingers into the carpet to drag herself across the room. After a decade of slow deterioration, her legs have finally given up on her. She forgets that she cannot walk.

“西洪,” Grandma says. Xīhóng. Dad’s name. Dad and I woke up to this call, a strangled sound scaring us awake. She says his name again and again, voice wavering as she goes on. Grandma presses her face down into the carpet.

Dad stands over Grandma, and the scene looks scary,

a dangerous man looming over his victim. Grandma has done this before, slipping to the floor in search of water, food, or attention. Dad will toss her back onto the mattress. He will threaten to tape her mouth shut and bind her to the bed frame. These are empty promises. I hope that these are empty promises.

“要什么?” Dad asks again.

I move forward, crouching to speak. “婆婆.”

Pópo. Grandma.

“小便,” she says to the floor. Xiaobiàn. Pee.

Dad groans.

“I can get her,” I tell him. It’s difficult to lift Grandma on my own, but I tense whenever he gets too close to her. I have never figured out what words will placate my father. From her place on the floor, Grandma does not look like my grandma. This grandma looks like a bloated body. Her hips push at her elastic waistband. Her shirtsleeves cup the flabby skin of her arms. She used to have thick black hair, sturdy as rope when tied into a braid. I spent my early years sitting on her knee, bouncing with excitement as she sang nursery rhymes into the back of my head. So soon would old age come to turn her skin sallow, draw the strength from her bones, wipe her memory like a tornado sweeping a town.

“小便,” Grandma murmurs, lifting her chest by pressing her palms to the floor. She ends up in a sphinx pose. She looks directly at me, but her eyes are gray and blank. “西洪,” she calls me by Dad’s name.

“No,” I say, “我叫嘉怡.” Wǒ jiào Jiāyí.

I’m Jiayi.

She does not respond. She cannot hold herself up. Her upper body sinks, losing the fight against gravity.

“要什么?” Dad asks again with more malice. He wants

a different answer. He doesn’t want to take her to the bathroom. He doesn’t want to balance her weight on his chest, use his hands to quickly slide down her diaper. He doesn’t want to see her sagging crotch, her white, wiry pubic hair. “要什么? 要什么? 要什?”

Dad speaks to her in sharp angles. Two years ago, Dad became a widower. Now, he spends his retirement savings on his dead wife’s mother, on orange bottles of pain-relief medication and a motorized wheelchair.

Grandma isn’t built for abuse. She is an old woman. She is made of delicate material, hair like spider webs, skin like lace. Because of her dementia, Grandma couldn’t even recognize Mom’s death. She sat in the front row of Mom’s funeral, a confused smile on her face. Coronary artery disease meant nothing to her, though it was the same heart condition which took my grandfather. The morning of her death, Mom rubbed Tiger Balm on Grandma’s legs, wrinkling her nose at the pungent smell of menthol, forever the dedicated daughter, the loyal caretaker. Grandma doesn’t even remember.

Dad slides one arm under her thighs, the other arm under her chest. He flips her onto her back. Grandma’s lips pucker. She lets out a harsh grunt. He is not afraid to get aggressive. He is Grandma’s 女婿. Nǚxù. Son-in-law. He is not of her blood. He grabs Grandma’s shoulders, shakes her, roughens her up so she learns her lesson. Stop causing problems, he does not say.

“Ai!” Grandma yells out.

“Dad,” I smack his shoulder, and the slap stings my hand. I have never hit my father before. Dad does not turn to me. He tells me to get her wheelchair. I hop over Grandma’s legs, grab onto rubber handles. I tip the wheelchair forward, angle the seat right under her butt.

Dad drops her, I catch her. Dad takes the wheelchair from me.

“要什么?” Dad asks again, right into Grandma’s ear.

“小便!” She yells, hurt, defensive.

Dad moves methodically, back into Grandma’s bedroom. He waves me off. Sleep, he scolds. I don’t move. He reminds me about school tomorrow, how I need sleep to succeed. He wheels Grandma into her room, and tips her into bed like spilling dirt from a wheelbarrow. I flinch. I walk into the room, right up to Dad’s back, but he doesn’t react. We both watch her slowly roll over. The bed frame creaks. She lands hard on her back, then stares at the ceiling, breathing through her mouth.

Dad heads to bed, shutting off the lights without another word. I stay in Grandma’s room. My eyes adjust to the dark. I place my hand on her shoulder, but I get no reaction. I ask myself to cry. If I rain pity on her weathered body, would she bloom like a young flower? Would she open herself up to me? Grandma closes her eyes.

I navigate to my bedroom and lay atop my sheets. No tears escape. Sometime in the night, Grandma will pee in her diaper. The excess will soak into the padding on her bed. I want to get up again, drag her to the bathroom, half-asleep. I cannot hold her up. Urine would spill all over me.

Respect for family is a virtue ingrained in Chinese culture. To harm my elder, is this an act of treason? But what duty do I have to a grandmother who does not recognize my face? Grandma does not deserve a terrible granddaughter, but now is not a good time. I will be more generous in the morning. I am in bed. I will not stand. Exhaustion anchors me down. The night’s silence fills my body with dread.