Before we had our third child, Pheby,
before we said goodbye to Hong Kong and moved to Portugal,
we’d take our girls to visit my father, their Gung Gung, and my stepmother, their Abu, in Sydney.
They would drive up from Canberra,
and we’d meet them in Chinatown for dim sum, steaming hot,
and phở with broth simmering since dawn,
steaming up the window between the kitchen and the street.
Me.
Him.
Our nanny.
Two babies, fourteen months apart.
One in a stroller.
One in a Baby Björn.
One arrived sooner we dared to hope.
The other unexpected and unannounced
until she was four and a half months nested in my womb.
I dropped contraception near our wedding, thinking it would take one or two years to get pregnant.
We conceived the first time.
We lost her.
Petra followed soon after.
Padme came the first night he was home from Canada after weeks away.
Over the years we went to the aquarium, the zoo,
the Sunday market near the Rocks,
and the ferry to Kirribilli and Luna Park.
At Bondi he sealed me onto his backbone.
A full spine tattoo.
Me standing naked, tall and full, from his neck to his tailbone.
A Chinese serpent wrapped around my body.
Our first two daughters sitting at my feet.
Me inked into his skin in one full-day session.
His back glowed hot and red for days.
At night, we’d leave the girls with their nanny.
He and I would go out for dinner alone,
holding hands
fingers entwined.
Often we went to Felix.
Champagne for him.
Pouilly-Fumé for me.
Oysters.
Escargot.
Duck confit.
Entrecôte.
Fries.
Spinach.
Our table, familiar, tucked between
the iced seafood display breathing cold,
the floor-to-ceiling wine wall,
the open kitchen behind him.
Our own little Paris tucked away in a side street,
the waiters friendly and discreet.
He and I have been eating at Felix since the first time we were in Sydney together.
He flew in from Hong Kong and rode the bus to Canberra, where I hid him in a hotel, not wanting to be seen with a different man only one year after my first wedding.
Canberra is where I grew up.
Canberra is where everyone in the Chinese community knows everyone.
We met my stepmom for tea at the Hyatt.
I took him to the China Tea Club where I worked as a teen and introduced him to Steven, the owner.
Neither Abu nor Steven objected to me being with him.
I was furious with him at dinner by the lake for chatting up the young waitress serving us.
I let him know for years.
Until I got:
he chooses me newly.
Each day I serve him.
Each day I rage.
Each day I resent him.
Each day I leave him.
Each day I reclaim him as mine.
We left Canberra the next day and drove up to Sydney.
We drove north as traffic thickened.
He kept one hand on the wheel,
the other on my thigh.
By the time we checked into our hotel,
I had mouthed and stroked him as he drove.
After dinner at a loud, busy bar, he says, “Give me your underwear.”
I stood, walked into the ladies’ room,
and walked back to him.
Standing tall, I stuff my thong into his pocket and graze his swollen groin.
The following evening, he takes me to Felix.
While we are looking over the menu, he leans forward and says, “Take off your underwear.”
I don’t flinch,
I don’t rush,
I don’t stand.
I don’t leave my seat.
I look him in the eye as I hike up my skirt
and toss my thong onto his place setting
before he’s able to place our order
with the waiter standing at our table.
I return to the menu that shows no pricing.
By that time at Felix,
it was only weeks
since our first date at Spring Moon in Hong Kong,
since I took off my clothes for him,
since I moved in with him,
since I chose him,
not yet knowing I would wed him
and share three daughters with him.
Oysters.
Escargot.
Duck confit.
Entrecôte.
Fries.
Spinach.
They remain our favourites
each time we return.
This time at Felix, I got that Felix is time just for him and me.
We’ve never taken the girls or my parents here.
While Petra and Padme are back at the Airbnb with their nanny,
Gung Gung and Abu are having dinner with their friends,
he and I pop up to Ivy for a drink and maybe a dance.
While he’s getting us drinks, it lands that
my old pair of jeans Abu brought for me from Canberra won’t pass my hips,
I’m a mother and wife and no longer wear a thong to throw at him from across the dinner table.
I got that I want to be back in the apartment curled up against him,
fit for zoos, aquariums, Luna Park, and Golden Gaytime the next day.
When he returns,
Cosmopolitan for me,
whisky sour for him,
I tell him we’re leaving.
“It’s too loud.
The girls are too skanky.
I feel too old here.”
Today my two teens wear the clothes I kept from when I moved in with him.
It’s been twenty years since he followed me to Canberra, then Sydney.
Twenty years of asking:
Do I belong to him?
Does he belong to me?
