Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 19)
By Emily Ho
Editor’s Note: The author runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. The following are semi-autobiographical anecdotes blending fact and fiction.
Little Eye-Witness
“Who is that woman?” Emily’s mother cried hysterically. She held a photo of a beautiful, young lady with long, black hair, sexy, red lips and a narrow waist (barely 20 inches) shown huddled beside Emily’s good-looking, but always in-between-jobs, father.
“It’s nobody!” Emily’s father yelled back.
Emily’s mother looked down at her own wider waist (nearly 40 inches after giving birth to four children). Then she touched the greasy hair on her head, left that way by cooking three daily meals. Knowing she was losing the battle, and maybe her spouse, she stepped forward and grabbed her husband’s always-clean-and-tidy white collar. On it, she sniffed a strong scent of another woman’s perfume.
Tears rolled down the mother’s once-beautiful, now plainer, face. Her voice went from strong to weak. Her tone switched from one of demanding to pleading.
“Let’s divorce!”
“No way! I won’t get a divorce!”
That’s what tiny Emily often heard with different women “in the picture”.
One night, six-year-old Emily awoke to the same quarrel. Leaving the little wood-partitioned bedroom, she saw that her older sisters were up too. They held their mother’s trembling hands, sobbing along with her.
The smallest child of all, Emily stood firmly in front of her parents and shouted words that no one could believe: “Mom and Dad, if you want to divorce, please go ahead!” No tears came from her little eyes.
Remarkably, her parents instantly stopped fighting. Instead, they stared at each other with astonishment and bewilderment.
But Emily’s parents never divorced. Their disputes continued until her father finally lost his charm due to illness.
My Melody
“Hello, Melody.” Emily whispered her baby cousin’s name while clumsily holding the newborn in a soft, white, cotton blanket.
Weighing more than 3.5 kilograms, the baby looked very healthy. Peering into the tiny, black eyes, Emily saw her own reflection. Cute and beautiful, Melody had pink cheeks that made you want to kiss or lightly pinch her face. Her little mouth muttered unfamiliar noises, like secret codes no one could break.
With the arrival of this cousin, the first one, Emily felt immensely happy that a “newcomer” had joined the family tree. As the youngest child, Emily had longed for a new playmate. It took time until her aunt became a mother at quite an old age. By then, teenage Emily had grown too old to be the baby cousin’s regular playmate.
“But I’ll be a good care-giver to Melody. Someday I’ll be a perfect mother myself,” Emily thought.
Put off by her own parents’ miserable marriage, Emily had difficulty to imagine wedded bliss in her future. Even so, she always dreamed of motherhood and of providing the happy childhood she’d missed to her own offspring, almost like redemption.
Fifteen Innocent Years
When Melody became a toddler, she liked to follow Emily everywhere (her family lived nearby). Emily acted like a little nanny or aunt. She learned to change diapers and hold a bottle for her baby cousin. When Emily traveled, she always used some of her modest summer earnings to buy goodies for Melody, one of the dearest people she could imagine.
Fifteen years passed. The little girl grew into a typical youngster, one with some baby fat due to junk food and limited exercise. Melody remained cute, but looked less beautiful than some teenage girls.
By the time Melody studied in her first year at a prestigious convent high school on Hong Kong Island, Emily had opened her business. Wanting Melody to gain summer work experience, Emily’s aunt asked if her daughter could work in the ice-cream shop. Desperate to hire someone after an abrupt departure by Alice, who didn’t return after the “heavy-bag incident” (see The Price of Friendship, Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady, Installment 18), Emily promptly agreed.
Reasoning that the shop didn’t earn much money, Emily’s aunt told her not to pay Melody since the girl was a cousin whose family didn’t need the money thanks to success in the stock market. The aunt just wanted her daughter to learn about working hard instead of being a lazy teenager relaxing at home all summer.
Of course, Emily couldn’t accept any unpaid worker. But bending slightly to her aunt’s insistence, she finally agreed to pay Melody a modest sum. As a precaution, Emily confirmed the salary with Melody by telephone to ensure she felt fine with the number.
By then, an event that Emily never would have imagined was about to happen.
Coming Soon:
What Flavors Quit Decision?
(more Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady)
ARCHIVES
|
