Before we had our third child, Pheby,
before we said goodbye to Hong Kong and moved to Portugal,
we’d fly to Sydney with our girls. To visit
my father, their Gung Gung, 公公,
my stepmother, their Abu, 阿婆.
They would drive up from Canberra,
we’d meet in Chinatown
for dim sum, steaming hot,
for phở with fragrant 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,
planning 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.
Different years.
Different flats, different houses.
Different family constellations from Hong Kong and Australia,
my cackle of girls getting taller, louder, smarter.
The aquarium,
the zoo,
the Sunday market near the Rocks,
the ferry to Kirribilli and Luna Park.
Childhood fevers.
Wadenwickel, Angst, house calls, hospitals.
My first baby saying, “don’t let the doctor see I’m still wearing nappies.”
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,
I hid him him in a hotel room in Canberra,
less than a year after my first wedding.
Canberra is where I grew up.
People always stopping me to say hello.
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 turn away.
Each day I leave him.
Each day I call him 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.
The last time we were back at Felix,
Petra and Padme back at the Airbnb with their nanny.
Gung Gung and Abu out for dinner with friends,
he and I popped up to Ivy for drinks and maybe a dance.
By the time he returns with drinks,
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.”
Pulling his ear close,
“I want to go,
I want to curl up with you,
I want to be fit for
zoos,
aquariums,
Luna Park,
Golden Gaytime.”
I’m no longer wearing a thong to throw at him from across the dinner table.
My old pair of jeans Abu brought for me from Canberra won’t pass my hips.
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 and Sydney.
Twenty years of asking,
"Do I belong to you?
Do you belong to me?"
