Kaitlyn Kou: I Will Never Forgive You

You told me to trust you. 

You promised me. 

Māmā and Dad were arguing outside, their sounds muffled as you closed the bedroom door. We were sitting on the ground next to our twin-sized bed and you clasped my hands in yours—steady yet shaking. 

My words tumbled out in broken fragments. “Why is this happening? Don’t leave me, jiě. I need you.” 

You hugged me close, draping your arms around me. “DìDì, trust me. This is what’s best. You understand. Don’t you?” You pulled back to look at me, studying my features as if it was the last time. 

You tried to smile, but it faltered at its edges. “I’ll be back, okay? After Māmā and Dad are done fighting, we’ll be back together. I promise.” 

If I had known better, I would’ve caught the fear laced in your voice, the way your features stayed too composed. I was only nine and you were only ten. And yet I trusted you with the big decisions. 

___ 

Growing up, we adored our Chinese heritage and the connection it gave us with Māmā. We called each other “younger brother” and “older sister,” dìdì and jǐejǐe. It was our secret code with Māmā: names tossed around at the dinner table and shared at night across our beds. 

Dad stayed silent when the three of us spoke our code across the dinner table. His face was unreadable, but his clenched fork as he stabbed the green beans at his plate told another story.

The clang of metal and porcelain broke our chatter, and we looked up at him. He smiled and apologized, urging us to continue with our conversation, but his sharp glare flickered over to Māmā. 

After dinner, there would be clashes of pots and pans, hands hitting skin. We trembled under our covers together, clenching each other's hands and praying it would end sooner this time. We didn’t know the legal term for it when we were younger, but we knew that Dad was hitting Māmā. 

You always showered faster when it was Māmā tucking us in. You brushed your jet-black hair with quick, efficient movements, smoothing the pin-straight layers. Māmā always made sure to tuck her bruises deep within her knit sweaters where we would never think to look. She ushered us to sleep with soft rhymes, whispering lullabies of Hua Mulan and her courageous battles disguised as a male soldier. You would always ask her, in your fluid Cantonese: “What happens to Mulan at the end?” 

Māmā twisted the message into soft syllables with her native tongue: “Hua Mulan returned a hero, bringing war victory to her country and pride to her father.” 

At this, you frowned, gently correcting her. “No Māmā, Mulan brought pride to her whole family.” 

__ 

When Māmā and I drove away from the legal firm after the trial, the rain held its breath. The clouds dared not exhale and loomed over in a gloomy gray. She tucked me into the middle of the backseat. Usually you would be there too, to the right of me, where you had a clear view of Māmā’s face in the internal mirror. But you weren’t there this time, and there was a creeping cold where you used to sit. I remember thinking that it didn't make sense. Why did you have to leave with Dad while I stayed with Māmā?

I watched the clouds flurry past the towering cityscape; they seemed to be scurrying away from me. I heard a drip, drip, drip. I searched the sky for rain but found none. Then I looked at Māmā through the inner mirror and found that slow, unbidden tears were trailing down her face. She was biting her lips, making sure to not let any sound escape her mouth. Her eyes, usually soft and brown, looked hard and unwelcoming. 

Jiě is coming back, Māmā. Don’t cry, she promised me. That’s what I wanted to say. But I began to suspect. 

I began to suspect when, one night, I found Māmā crumpled under her covers, huddled in a fetal position, shoulders shaking. You and Dad had been gone for just three days. You were living in Dad’s apartment by his legal firm while I stayed in our condo by Māmā’s hospital. Without you, 

our bedroom felt so empty that I hadn’t slept for three days. I tiptoed over to Māmā’s bed and peeled away the covers, climbing in without warning. Māmā froze, and for a second I feared she would push me out. But she uncoiled herself and gathered me close to the warmth, stroking my soft, black layers. Māmā loved to brush and braid your long, luscious hair, but with me, she could only stroke it halfway down before it ended at my ears. 

Life stood still until you finally came to visit, a week later. My feet tapped against the mahogany floors as I darted over to open the door. Your face lit up after seeing mine, and you jumped up to hug me, wrapping your small arms around my waist and laughing as if we’d never been apart. Māmā came running down the stairs, her eyes brightening for the first time in a week when she saw you. They lost their spark as she looked behind you and spotted Dad. 

Behind him were the two social workers from the divorce trial, looming over us in their dark navy uniforms. The judge, a work friend of Dad’s, ensured that the workers would be there whenever you came to visit—to make sure our condo was still safe for me to live in. No one questioned this. Because who was to trust an immigrant mother over a white man? The question was swallowed up before it could ever form.

Māmā softened the rigid lines in her face. She gathered you close to her arms, breathing in your jasmine-scented hair. My child. She closed her eyes and laughed in her soft and melodious way. 

Māmā prepared dinner for us, laid out like a New Year’s feast. Freshwater fish, honey garlic shrimp, tomato and egg—all your favorites. She rushed over with two bowls of steaming hot rice and spoons, scooping half the food onto our plates. We glanced at each other, grinning before wolfing it down. Māmā watched us eat as if she had never gotten the chance to before. Dad and the social workers shifted awkwardly in their seats before standing up silently to help themselves. 

As I stuffed my face, everything seemed like it had returned to our usual routine: the clink of utensils, your warmth beside me, Māmā’s mouthwatering food. If I ignored the social workers and Dad sitting there like rigid stone statues, it was just the three of us again. I noticed that you kept pulling your long sleeves down past your wrists in quick, nervous motions, but it slipped from my mind. I wanted to stay in that meal forever, entranced in a dream, silent and at ease. 

But of course, you and Dad stood up to leave with the social workers all too soon. Before you left, you hugged me close, whispering promises of coming back the next week and the week after that. 

Yet you never did. You never came. 

Soon, it had been three weeks since we last saw you. When Māmā picked me up from elementary school that day, I could sense something was off. Her worry lines etched deeper into her brows and her hands clenched tightly around my seatbelt as she silently tucked me into the backseat. Her gaze remained calm but her voice was deadly quiet. “Caleb, we are going to Dad’s apartment to get your sister.” 

I didn’t get a chance to question it. Māmā started the car and we began sputtering our way downtown.

That’s when I started to feel scared, Serena. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know what. I began to probe my memory from the last time you visited, and that’s when I started to realize. The way your forearms were slightly bruised. You pushing down your long sleeves even though you hated long sleeves. Dad glancing nervously around the room. I should’ve understood what it meant. How did I not see it? 

When we reached Dad’s apartment, I was ready to fight. I was done being the little brother who needed saving. For all the times that you protected me, who was there to protect you? I don’t know what I would’ve done, really. Punched Dad in the face? Grabbed your hand and ran away? It feels foolish, thinking about it now. Even so, I could feel my rage ready to explode as we took the elevator up. 

Māmā took a deep breath before jabbing her key into the door, ripping it open. I didn’t wait. I rushed inside, ready to confront Dad. I got five steps in before I stopped in my tracks, rooted to the ground in confusion. I swiveled my head around. The furniture was gone, the floors cleaned. It looked like a ghost town. Was this the wrong apartment? I turned around to ask Māmā, but the question died in my mouth. Her face was ashen, features slackened like she’d seen a ghost. 

She called out for you, her voice cracked with disbelief. “Serena! Where are you?” The silence of the apartment absorbed her voice. 

She looked into my eyes with horror that mirrored my own. No words spoken, Māmā grabbed my hand and we ran out of the apartment, toward the NYC police cars parked on the street. The city seemed to sense our panic, the cacophony of honking cars and blaring sirens overwhelming our senses.  

It was there that Māmā released her full rage for the first time. She screamed at them in her broken English. “My daughter is missing! The Dad stolen her away from New York!” 

The policemen exchanged furtive glances, and searched up Dad’s name.

“We see Marcus Clark registered in our database. He recently moved away with Serena Clark, his legal daughter. We can’t give any more information, ma'am.” 

My world seemed to crumble. Māmā bent down and held my trembling hands steady. “Caleb, we are going to find your sister, okay?” Her voice felt hollowed and pleading. I don’t remember how I answered her, but I remember leaving the station and heading home. Packing our items from the condo, and leaving that same night. 

That was how we started our own hunt. 

In our hotel that first night, Māmā and I slept together. She made sure that I was tucked in first. I could feel her watching my chest rising and falling, as if making sure I was still there. Only after I began slipping into sleep did she crawl into bed next to me. 

We bumped from hotel to hotel: we started in our hometown of New York City, and stretched out to Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Texas. Everywhere we went, Māmā put up missing child posters, called nearby police stations, searched elementary schools. We looked for years, Serena. I spent my 11th birthday in Texas, eating at a local barbeque restaurant and attending homeschool when we got back. 

By my 12th birthday, our days were filled with long road trips and hotels filled with a stretching silence. A muted thread began weaving its way into my heart, dampening all colors. Grief took its time, burrowing its way into our hearts little by little so that, when it finally took everything from us, we hardly noticed. I could see the touches of grief seeping into Māmā’s face, leaving behind wrinkles and a tightened expression. She finally saw the toll moving around was doing to my childhood and education. 

My l3th birthday we spent in Ohio at a run-down Chinese restaurant. The honey garlic shrimp was horrible. Māmā smiled at me, snapping pictures of me holding my chopsticks. I tried to smile as bravely as I could. Inside though, I felt like I had been hollowed out like the cantaloupes we used to eat. My seeds scraped out, leaving behind only bright, raw flesh.

And yet, I hadn’t reached acceptance yet. How could I without my other half? I yearned for your warmth, your resilience. I needed you, Serena. I couldn’t give up. We had spent four years searching, but it would never be enough until we found you. 

On my 15th birthday, we moved back to New York. I joined high school for the first time. Everyone was already grouped together in their little cliques. They stared at me as I passed down the hallway—the loser, Asian kid with a single mother who just joined. Pushed out of the warmth of the hotel rooms of just Māmā and I, I felt cold and exposed. Whenever the lonely lunches and late nights of studying became too much, I would close my eyes and clasp my hands together, pretending one was yours. 

Just like that, four years passed, and the leaves were changing colors now. One afternoon, I drove home from 12th grade, and went to wake Māmā from her nap. We had planned to open my college decision results together. I sat next to her, smoothing her white strands of hair. I nudged her shoulder. Māmā, I’m home from school. She didn’t move. Māmā. I shook her again, urgently this time. My breath froze, stuck at the back of my throat. I checked her pulse, listened for her heartbeat, and in the silence, I realized. 

When the police brought her to the hospital, I didn’t cry. Not when they examined her body and told me the cause was heart failure. Not when I set Māmā down at the hospital, holding her hand and kissing her cheek. Not when I was driving back to the condo, alone in the New York City lights. 

Only when I closed the front door, did I think of you. I cradled my head and wrapped my arms around myself and sobbed. I remember wishing everything had gone differently. Maybe if I put up more posters, searched more apartments, more schools, we could’ve found you. I wished that, on the Saturday you promised me everything would be okay, I had held onto your hands and never let go. I wished that I had fought harder when you were ripped from us. I wished that I had the courage to stand up to Dad. I wished you were beside me.

My phone interrupted the heavy silence with a ding. The blinding screen lit up with a notification. I wiped my tears and stood up. An email from Harvard University slotted itself into my inbox. Through the silent tears welling in my eyes, I barely made out the word “congratulations.”

__ 

In college, I took a class on child protection laws and could only think of you. In my second year, I set my eyes on Harvard Law School, hoping it might get me closer to you somehow. In this way, textbooks became my sanctuary as I bottled up my grief, cramming them away in an overflowing box that I dared not open. 

__ 

Fifteen years passed since I last saw you. I was working the final hours of my shift at the Hartwell Law Office, just blocks away from where Dad used to work. I was filing away my last case—a child abuse case—when I got the call. 

“Hello. Is this Caleb Zhang?” 

I held the phone against my shoulder as I continued to leaf through the papers. “Yes, speaking. How may I help you?” 

“This is the NYPD. I’m calling about Serena Zhang. She is your older sister, correct?”

I dropped the files on the ground and stood up, holding the phone closer to my ear. 

“Yes. Have you found any information on her?” My voice didn’t even sound like my own, deep and hoarse with apprehension. They’d finally found you. After a decade of searching, they had finally found you. I could feel my hope, long crushed, peeking out once again.

“She took her own life earlier today. She was found in her New York Apartment. Your name was included in the note she left. She had no other next of kin.” 

I collapsed to the ground, the papers long forgotten and sprawled underneath me. The person’s voice remained calm and professional. “I am so sorry for your loss.” 

I stopped breathing. I remember thinking about your laugh. The way your smile creased up at the edges and you tossed your head back with joy. I remembered the summers we spent together before everything fell apart. The sweet papayas we pried open with sticky fingers. It didn’t make sense. They told me you had committed suicide and yet this was what ran through my head as I sprinted to the police station. 

I don’t know when I got there. I don’t know what I said. I only remember an officer handing me a letter. The weathered notebook paper was scrawled with your handwriting, immediately recognizable to me, even after all these years. 

____ 

To whoever is reading this, please reach my younger brother, Caleb Zhang.

Dìdì: 

If this reaches you, I’m so sorry I couldn’t hold on. 

I thought I could handle Dad when we moved to California, but he replaced Māmā’s body with mine, and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I ran away to NYU. I had planned to reach out to you and Māmā, I really did. But for some reason, I could never bring myself to contact you. When I found out that Māmā had left us, it broke me.

I told you to trust me. I promised you I would be back. But instead I tore our family apart. I don’t expect you to understand or even forgive me. But know that I love you, and please don’t blame yourself. 

Jiě

About the Author:

Kaitlyn Kou is a high school junior from California. Her work has been previously recognized with a Silver Key by Scholastic Art and Writing, and her favorite genres are science fiction, fantasy, and humor. In her free time, Kaitlyn can be found golfing, calligraphing, or journaling.