It just goes to show, one official thought, as he branded Margaret’s file with a crisp red stamp. Born here, but clearly American in name only. Probably learned it from her parents. That foreign mindset rooted deep, he mused; maybe it twined all the way down in the DNA. Maybe it wasn’t ever possible to straighten their loyalties out.
Margaret got a call a week later from her publisher: they’d been ordered to cease publication of her book, to destroy any warehoused copies. Can they really do that, Margaret asked, and her editor sighed. He was a reedy, bespectacled white man who could recite Rilke from memory; the press operated out of a rented two-room office in Milwaukee. For weeks he’d been getting threatening emails and phone calls, the most recent one with detailed suggestions about what should be done to his seven-year-old daughter. That’s not all, he said. They’ve also sent a subpoena to look into our finances and our other authors. Not even just the Asian ones—everyone. To see if we’ve funded anyone else un-American. It was strongly implied that if we didn’t comply, they’d find ways to shut us down. I’m sorry, Margaret. I really am.
Within a month the publisher would shutter anyway, all its stock pulped, all its files deleted. Libraries, flooded with angry calls about the book, began to pull it from their shelves. PACT supporters held a rally in downtown Boston, collecting copies and burning them in an oilcan on City Hall Plaza. The post office began to monitor Margaret and Ethan’s mail.
It got worse. Someone dug online, posted their address and Margaret’s phone number on social media. Dont like this PAO CUNT & the poison she’s feedign our kids? he wrote. Call her up & tell her.
What are we going to do, she said to Ethan, as she silenced her phone. It had been ringing for the past twenty minutes and for a while she’d answered and hung up immediately, but every time it just began to ring again.
Ethan put his arms around her. He had already spoken to the police; there was nothing illegal, they informed him, about posting publicly available information. He’d sworn at them and hung up. It was Saturday morning, and on a normal day, they’d have been at the kitchen table eating waffles, sunlight streaming onto their plates. Instead, all morning Ethan had been pacing around the house, pulling the curtains shut, nudging Margaret and Bird away from windows.
It will stop, she assured him. It has to stop. They’ll get tired of it. I didn’t even do anything. I’ve never been to a protest. All I did was write a poem.
It didn’t stop. No one seemed to be getting tired except for Margaret and Ethan—and Bird. What’s wrong with your phone, Bird kept asking, who keeps calling? Rotten fish and bags of dog shit and broken glass began to appear on their front step, and one day, a single bullet, still in its casing. After that, Bird was no longer allowed to go outside alone, even into the backyard.
People are crazy, Ethan told him. Don’t worry. You’re safe.
Did you know, the talk-show host said a few days later, that this Margaret Miu—she has a kid? Nine years old. Yeah. Can you believe it? And his name—get this—his name is Bird.
The comments online:
That’s child abuse, right there. Enough said.
People like that shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce.
Can you imagine what kind of shit she’s teaching him at home? Imagine having her as your mother.
Poor kid. Let’s pray Family Services checks them out soon.
That night, after they’d put Bird to bed, Ethan’s mother emailed him. My friend Betsy forwarded me this article about Margaret. It was the first of many articles, some of which she would forward and many of which she would simply read as they dinged, one by one and sometimes two or three at a time, into her inbox, forwarded by ostensibly well-wishing acquaintances: I remember you mentioned your son’s new wife (?). Is this the same Margaret Miu?!
As articles and news reports and headlines accumulated, Ethan’s parents read and discussed, measuring the woman they’d met and loved, the woman their son adored, the woman who’d borne their grandson, against the woman the news portrayed. The person they knew—or had they?—against the person everyone else seemed to see. How many times had they met her? How well could you know someone in that time? On their weekly phone calls, Ethan ranted to his parents about the latest developments—the anonymous emails filling Margaret’s inbox, the notes duct-taped to their front door. It was not until Ethan stopped speaking, exhausted by rage and fear, that he noticed his mother’s uncharacteristic silence.
She always seemed so kind, his mother said, in tones of profound sadness and betrayal, and Ethan understood then: a story had settled in his mother’s mind, and there was nothing he could do to rewrite it. In the weeks to come, Ethan’s parents did not call him, and when he and Bird moved to the dorm, he would not send them his forwarding address.
Then came the note. A scrap of paper from Bird’s teacher, Ms. Hernández, slipped surreptitiously into his bag. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, it read in her neat, looped cursive. Tall proud Ss. Upright and rigid-backed Ps. The school has received a call from Family Services. I have been summoned to speak with them Monday morning and they will likely wish to speak with you soon thereafter. And then: It seemed only fair to let you know.
A warning. A kindness, really.
She packed that night, a single bag. One she could carry on her back, small enough that she could walk as long as needed; a bedroll and all the cash they could gather. The bedroll had been Ethan’s originally. It’s warm, he said softly, pulling it from the back of the closet, and she could hear his voice snagging as they imagined all the nights to come when they would no longer be lying beside each other. She’d taken it and turned away quickly, bending over to buckle it to her bag, but in truth she couldn’t face the pain in his eyes, and wasn’t sure he could face the pain in hers. They’d agreed: she wouldn’t write, she wouldn’t call. Nothing that could be traced. She’d leave her phone behind. Any ties unsevered could unravel, so they would cut her, the traitorous PAO mother, out of their lives. They would give not even the slightest pretext to take Bird away. Whatever it takes, they agreed. Whatever needed to be done or said to keep him safe.
The next morning, she had tried to say goodbye. A Saturday, late October. The leaves just loosening from the trees. We’ll be fine, Ethan told her. Both of them understood he was reassuring himself as much as her. He buried his face in her hair, and Margaret burrowed against his chest, breathing him in, all the words she was not brave enough to speak trying desperately to escape her mouth. When they finally let each other go, neither could look at the other. Ethan hurriedly shut himself in the bedroom, because really, what else was there to say, and he couldn’t bear to watch her leave. Bird, oblivious, was kneeling on the living-room carpet, piecing together plastic brick after plastic brick. It was a house, and the roof kept falling in, the arch of it too high for his child’s hands.
Birdie, she said. Her voice splintering. Bird, I have to go.
She expected questions, as soon as he saw her backpack: a thing she never carried, which he certainly would notice. Why’re you carrying that? Where are you going? Can I come, too? But he didn’t turn. He hadn’t heard her at first, he was so absorbed in what he was doing, and she loved that about him, loved the way his attention focused, intense as summer heat, on the thing he wanted to understand.
Bird, she said again, louder this time. Birdie, my darling. I’m going now.
He did not turn around, and she was grateful for this: grateful not to see his eyes in this last moment, grateful that he did not run to her and press his face into her belly as he usually did, because how then could she ever hope to peel herself away.