Or his parents were getting old, worn down by life in large part because of all the sacrifices they had made on his behalf. He’d never been much of a student, having gotten through St. Ignatius’s top-flight, demanding curriculum the past year thanks to the tutoring administered relentlessly by Sam Dixon to keep him from failing out. Alex had always figured his parents forked over the money to her out of guilt, blaming the mismatched household for his problem with keeping hold of lessons in his mind. Indeed, while American families were wiping Chinese hospital infant wards clean, it was almost unheard of for a Chinese family to adopt a Caucasian boy. His parents had always been vague on the specific circumstances of the adoption and Alex never pressed them, accepting their droll tale to spare them the toil of sharing any further truths. It was what it was and that was good enough for him.
Because the truth of the matter was, Alex Chin was positive he loved his parents more than other kids loved theirs. Other kids, after all, didn’t have to contend with what he did, like the time an old-fashioned traveling carnival set up shop in Golden Gate Park.
10
THE BIG TOP
AS A LITTLE BOY, Alex recalled the carnival as an annual attraction, but it hadn’t returned to the sprawling grounds, larger than New York City’s Central Park, in years. Those lavish grounds included a flower conservatory, a botanical garden, and a Japanese tea garden along with several museums, stadium facilities, and various venues for cultural events of all sorts. Alex wondered why the carnival had stopped coming and couldn’t recall where on the site it had actually been situated, as if what had transpired the last day his parents had taken him there had stricken the setting from memory.
He was eight at the time, already taller than An and fast catching up with Li, the family renting the bottom floor of a two-family tenement at the time. They were hustling through a fairgrounds called the Big Top that proclaimed itself to be the world’s largest traveling amusement park. Rushing to get in line just after sunset for the carousel, which Alex desperately wanted to ride. His parents pulling him along and Alex fighting to keep up.
It must have appeared differently to some other carnival patrons, who thought they were witnessing a kidnapping. The police were called. Black-and-white police cars descended on the carnival, an army of San Francisco cops rushing toward the perceived criminals. Back then, and now, to an extent, his parents reverted to Chinese when anxious and nervous, and the sight of the police converging did something to them Alex had never witnessed before.
“Hurry!” he heard his mother blurt to his father. “They must know! We must run!”
So the Chins panicked. Grabbed hold of Alex and tried to run toward a darkened gap between the tilt-a-whirl and a stretch of rigged games. Ran right into a cop with a hand on his pistol. The cop grabbed Li Chin and jerked him aside. Next thing Alex knew his mother was pleading, practically begging the cop with hands clasped in a position of prayer before her, all in Chinese; and blaring only a single phrase to his father Alex could make sense of:
Wǒmen de mìmì …
“Our secret.”
Another cop dragged her away, forcing her to stumble and lose her balance; she fell to the concrete, now layered with stray candy wrappers, peanut shells, and popcorn shed by the wind.
It was at that moment that Alex became a football player, launching himself headlong into the cop with a throaty scream. He hit the man square in the knees, all eight years and seventy pounds of him, toppling him upon an oil-stained patch on the makeshift midway and pummeling him in the chest with his small fists.
Alex didn’t remember much after that. Other cops pulled him off and held him while he cried and screamed. Things got settled, apologies were made, and the Chins left with free passes to all the rides for the remainder of the carnival’s stay in town. They never used them, not that year or the next or ever. The Big Top carnival returned to Golden Gate Park for years afterward, but Alex had never returned, even at the urging of his friends. The mere thought of it always brought a lump to his throat, reminding him how much he loved his parents then and how much he loved them now.
Wǒmen de mìmì, Alex remembered his mother saying for the first time in a very long time. Our secret …
Which was what, exactly?
11
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
“EVERYTHING WILL BE ALL right,” his mother said, comfortingly, squeezing his hand. “You must have faith.”
Alex pulled his hand away, his mind veering to a different secret his parents had been keeping. His head had begun to throb, but he pushed his thoughts through it.
“Like you have in me?” he said, words seeming to echo in his head.
His mother and father exchanged a befuddled glance, Alex suddenly able to think of nothing else but opening his mother’s drop desk drawer in search of a pencil a few days before. Feeling it balk at his initial tries before he jerked it toward him to reveal a clutter of brochures jamming up the slide. He grabbed the pencil he’d come for, just then noticing the brochures were all for prep schools featuring fifth-year post-high-school programs.
“I saw what you were hiding in your desk,” Alex heard himself say to his mother from the emergency room bed, as if it were someone else’s voice.
“Alex, this isn’t the place or time to talk about this—” his mother said, about to go on when his father squeezed her arm and she went quiet again, embarrassed by the presence of the doctor inside the cubicle.
He wanted to stop himself but couldn’t. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m going to college. I’m going to play football. Next year.”