The worst part of life is waiting. Every second that ticks by, I change, albeit on a microscopic level. I worry that I’m losing potential sitting around. That’s what my mother tells me all the time when she sees me relaxing at home in any capacity. I fear that she’s right, and I tell myself that she’s only looking out for me because she doesn’t want me to end up living her life.
She repeats the same refrain when I tell her I want to give up. Do I want to be poor like she was? Is it my dream to live on the streets and starve to death? Did I want her to hit me with a belt?
It was the sort of encouragement I needed to keep going. My mother would not say those things if she did not love me. What else do you tell a girl who is young and impatient for her SAT scores to come out?
But this is more than waiting for a number to come in the mail. I want my life to be better already. I feel helpless as a child and a student. I would be able to help my family more if I had a high-paying job already.
My mother is getting old. She goes to the salon to cover up her gray hairs, but she can’t hide the Salonpas patches on her back. My father has shaved his hair to obliterate any trace of his receding hairline. And yet his health problems have multiplied and my mother cooks his food with no salt.
Both of them have bad knees. They can’t be on their feet as much as they used to, hiring more part-time workers to do what they physically can’t. On the weekends, my sister and I give them massages and brew copious amounts of herbal tea.
If I made more money, they could retire. They wouldn’t get more sick or spend hours on the couch and the living room.
Sometimes, I find it hard to reconcile the mother I once knew and the mother I live with now. The long-haired lady who would happily bring me and my sister to the park and drag us to the grocery store on early weekend mornings did not exist anymore. The stern old woman who replaced her preferred to wear her hair in a bob and sleep in on weekends. She still went to the grocery store and cooked for us but more boxes of takeout cluttered the table next to porcelain plates filled with traditional dishes.
My mother is a capable woman. She immigrated to a country she knew nothing about except the language, managed to find a man from her village to marry in one of the biggest cities in the world, and popped out three children (two of which she admitted to me were accidents). She works at least twelve hours a day to pay off the loan she took out for the bakery, make rent on time, and feed the whole family. Somehow, she makes time to go to family weddings and nag the children to do their chores.
But she’s only human and she won’t be around forever. She tells me this all the time.
I sort through the envelopes on the kitchen table, my fingers sifting through electricity bills and junk mail. My thumb brushes against thick paper and I experience a wave of déjà vu. It was the same texture as the envelope I received for my acceptance into Two Bridges Academy.
I tear it open, not caring that I was ruining the nice paper. I skim the page, eyes darting to my SAT score.
1490. It was one hundred and ten points away from a perfect score.
My mother takes the paper away from me. She looks at the number and nods in understanding.
“My friend’s son got a 1570. You can take the test again. Just score above 1500 and you will go to Harvard.”
Hours spent agonizing over practice test problems flew out the window. I did not want to go through the whole process of applying for fee waivers, picking a test date, and spending every second of free time studying again.
“Would you have scored better than me?”
My mother gazes at me with mild amusement. “I went to the best university in my province. I couldn’t have done that without studying hard for the gaokao. You take after me. You are smart enough to do better a second time.”
“You went to a good university?” I couldn’t conceal my shock.
She gives me a look. “I’ve always been a smart person.” An unspoken question lingers on my lips. Then why are we poor?
“I studied physics and played on the women’s basketball team. It wasn’t easy in those days, but my scholarship paid for my tuition and meals. I was going to be a scientist.”
Her eyes were misty with longing. I try to picture her studying the mechanics of the universe in a white lab coat.
“What happened?”
My mother’s lips press into a thin line. “I needed to make money so I moved to America. I met your father and this family became my responsibility.”
Guilt wraps around my neck like a heavy, coarse scarf. Whatever happened to her, it was clear that she would have been better off if she was still able to follow her dreams.
“Study hard,” she says. “Don’t become like me.”
But my mother had done nothing wrong. What harm was there in being anything like her?
At school, Maia and Ainsley eagerly share their scores. Maia rejoices over her 1400 and Ainsley makes fun of her by showing her the 1500 she got on the test. I stay mum over my numbers, choosing not to take sides in their playful bickering. I don’t tell them about my plans to retake the test or that my family’s sacrifices were at stake.
Yuey prods me more about my score, having spent all of those afternoons studying with me. I hesitate over telling her about what I got. I’m afraid of disappointing her, countless hours sitting side by side in the public library gone to waste.
But I take one look into those eyes behind the wired-frame glasses and decide that she deserves to know.
“That’s a good score,” she says immediately, which somehow deepens my shame and guilt.
“I could’ve done better. My mother says–”
“It’s not my opinion,” she cut me off. “Statistically, that’s a very good score. You did better than most students taking the test.”
I can’t help but pout. “Well, what did you get?”
“1550. But that doesn’t make your score any less good. You can still get into a top university with a 1490.”
That did not make me feel any better. To top it off, there was a rumor going around that Mikael scored perfectly on the exam, getting a clean 1600 on the test.
I wonder if I’m losing my touch. From my rank dropping last year to my report card showing more A- and Bs, I can’t help but think that I’m not as smart as I used to be. Even with the odds stacked against me, I feel that I must still be better than the rich kids I compete with.
It’s stupid, but I truly believe that I am superior to my peers on a molecular level. If I had access to the same wealth and privilege that everyone else had, I would have the potential to become superhuman. I’ve fooled my snobby friends into thinking that I come from the same posh background. Granted, none of us could ever impress the students who came from old money elite families, descended from the New York royalty of the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, but no one could ever say that I was dirt poor. If I couldn’t also prove to them that I was smarter, my head would explode.
“Are you okay?” Mikael’s question rouses me from my rumination. We were in the middle of checking in on the progress of our science project.
“Stressed,” I mumble, knowing that it was hard to conceal how I felt from him. I toe the line between omission and total dishonesty when I spoke with him, not wanting to reveal weakness but also not wishing put on a shiny artificial veneer.
“About SAT scores?”
“I could do better,” I say, neither confirming nor denying the source of my worries.
“Colleges look at more than that. They take into account grades, extracurriculars, recommendations, and personal essays. I wouldn’t care too much about that number since some of our classmates hire people to take the test for them,” he explains blithely.
“I don’t want to disappoint my mother.”
Something about the way I admitted that to him gives him pause. I only meant to misdirect him, using my vulnerability as a shield for my inadequacy. I hear that boys don’t like feelings, so it seemed like a good strategy.
Rather than ending the conversation, he says “Me too.”
“Huh?”
“I want her to be proud of what I do. She’s done so much for me. I don’t want her efforts to go to waste,” he confesses.
A warm feeling creeps into my stomach. I never expected to have anything in common with him aside from the way we both care about our academics.
You get it, I thought, not knowing just how much he slipped past my defenses.
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and then Add to home screen.