Read Online All That Matters by Wayson Choy - Free Book Online Page A

Poh-Poh’s abrasiveinclinations—using the kind of brains I lacked. But if the right grey cells hadn’t yet bloomed inside me, at least I was now taller than the last pencil mark scratched on the door post: taller and bigger and able to keep a secret. And too tall to travel free to Vancouver Island.
    “We’re going to the Chinatown in Victoria to get you and Liang a new brother,” Father had said that morning.
    “There will be two sons in family, Kiam-Kim!” said Poh-Poh. “Two grandsons!”
    “It’s a secret,” Stepmother said.
    “No one else must know,” Father explained, “or the government officials might give us trouble. Understand?”
    I tried to argue that I should go to Victoria instead of Liang-Liang.
    “Liang small enough to ride no charge,” Poh-Poh said, but I
—oh, a big boy like our First Son
—would have cost the family an exorbitant full fare. “Father not rich,” she concluded, “so you, Kiam-Kim, sacrifice yourself and stay home.”
    “Final decision,” said Father, lowering his glasses.
    I sensed they must have known the secret for a long time, waiting until they were ready to leave to tell me. Still, I was keen to probe for more information.
    “
How
am I going to get a brand-new brother?”
    Stepmother nudged Father.
    “Well,” Father said, snapping shut his leather briefcase.
“How?
First, lots of boring paperwork. Documents still to read, blank spaces to fill out, to sign.”
    “Yes,” Stepmother said, her delicate lips barelymoving, half whispering her words. “Too much … documents.”
    “Then?”
    “If everyone … agrees …”
    “Then, Kiam-Kim, if things work out—” Father stared steadily at Stepmother’s back “—if everything
agreeable
, your new brother soon join the family.”
    “Who is he?”
    “He’s four years old, Kiam,” Father said. “Half your age.”
    “He’ll be your Second Brother,” Stepmother said. “Won’t you like that? I think that I—I might like that.”
    Father caught her eye and seemed pleased.
    “Second?” I asked.
    “Number Two,” Father said. “You be First Son,
Dai-goh
, you be Big Brother to him.”
    “You be
boss,”
Stepmother said, repeating how Third Uncle told me that in Canada being “boss” or “Number One Boss” was best, like my being First Son.
    “What if Second Brother doesn’t want to join us?” I asked.
    “Don’t worry so much,” Stepmother said.
    “And it’s a—a
secret,”
warned Father. “Can you keep a secret?”
    I stood up straight and nodded. A shuffling sound was coming from below the staircase.
    “Kiam-Kim!” Poh-Poh shouted up at me. “Too many questions!”
    I carried Stepmother’s small suitcase down the stairs so she could carry Liang, twisting with excitement. In the hallway, she put Liang down and put onthe second-hand wool coat that Mrs. Ben Chong had picked out for her at the China Relief Bazaar, the one held every three months at the Mission Church. Father opened the front door. In the sunshine, a taxi stood waiting at the curb; the driver stepped out and opened the trunk.
    My head began to buzz:
what if I shoved my way into the trunk and refused to leave it?
    “In China,” Father began in formal Cantonese, “a First Son cheerfully fulfills his filial duty.”
    The bleak, lecturing tone made it clear that staying home and assisting Poh-Poh were among those cheerful duties.
    When the three of them left in the taxi, and the front door closed behind them, I thought,
Vancouver is not China!
and began to sulk.
    “Come,” Poh-Poh commanded from the kitchen. “I give First Son a taste of plantation cane.”
    From the blue bowl on the kitchen table, I took one of the soaking brown pieces she was using in her cooking and began to gnaw on the chewy stump. Instantly, a thin line of cloying liquid ran down my chin.
    My own Number One Brain, Chinese or not, suddenly felt mired: I had been ensnared by a finger-joint of sugar cane, lured back into the kitchen where