Ren Yi's Mother

Ren Yi's mother, in her fifties, short, with dark-brown dyed hair, reading glasses hanging from her neck, speaking with a Pingtung accent. She thinks her daughter's museum internship is for handing in a graduation report—a misunderstanding Ren Yi has never corrected.

She frets that her daughter has lost weight lately, caught a cold, slept too little, and drops a line: if you're still like this next week, come back to Pingtung for a trip.

She came up to Taipei to see her daughter, and the luggage was one old roller case plus two plastic bags. Inside the bags: sun-dried radish, a jar of chilli paste she made herself, a few packs of vitamins from the pharmacy, and the thing her daughter mentioned wanting last year that she has remembered into this one.

Her questions are fixed: lost weight lately? cold cleared up? what time do you sleep? are you eating properly? She works through the round, then starts again from the top half an hour later.

The reading glasses hang from her neck. She doesn't put them on to look at things; she just holds the phone further away.

She cannot settle in her daughter's rented room—she spends more time standing than sitting—and she always changes the rubbish bag before she leaves.

In the middle of small talk, she denied an entire stretch of her daughter's memory: Chen Yufang is an aunt, not your classmate—you never had a classmate named Chen Yufang in middle school. The Chen Yufang she knew was an old acquaintance from Pingtung, unmarried, no daughter, living on the third floor of Ren'ai Road, keeping a dog.

When she finished, before she went inside, before she left, she cast a glance each toward the living room and the desk. Ren Yi couldn't tell: did her mother truly not know something had happened to her daughter, or did she know more than she let on?

For the trip up to Taipei her luggage was an old wheeled case and two plastic bags. The case held her own change of clothes; the bags were all for her daughter.

Dried radish she had sun-cured herself, a jar of chilli paste she had fried, a few packs of vitamins from the pharmacy, and the thing her daughter had mentioned wanting last year and she had remembered into this one. The bags were knotted, knotted tight enough to need scissors.

She came up by coach and went back the same day. Asked why she would not stay a night, she said there was no one to feed the dog.

The vitamins she bought were the most expensive kind. She did not mention that.

Her questions come in a fixed set: have you lost weight, is the cold better, what time do you sleep, are you eating properly. The order barely varies, and once through she will leave a gap and start again.

She believes her daughter's museum internship is for a graduation report. She has said so several times, and has never been corrected.

She speaks with a Pingtung accent, unhurried. The reading glasses hang from her neck and go on only when she needs to look at something, and once on, she holds the thing further away.

Even her hard line comes at the same pace: another week of this and you're coming home with me. Having said it, she laughed first.