Aunt Essa

“Nana! The timer went off!” I yell to my Nana from my spot on her couch.

“I’ve got it. Would like to come see how it turned out?” Nana called from the kitchen.

“Sure, just give me a sec.” I took about half a minute to finish the last page of my book before setting it down and heading towards the kitchen. “How does it look?” I asked as I turned through the door to see her cleaning up while the pie sat next to the stove to cool. I didn’t need to ask, as I could see the raspberries we’d picked out by the creek seeping through the crust. My mouth watered just looking at it, though that could have been the marvelous smell. Honestly, either one means that it’s amazing.

“It looks perfect. Do you think Essa will like it?” Nana asked.

“She’s eaten your pies before, of course she’ll like it,” I say, nonchalantly. Nana’s cooking was her pride and joy, and everyone, including her, knew that she excelled at it.

“I’m sure you’re right. Now, what would you like to do until the pie is ready to pack up?” Nana was already done cleaning, and looked at me expectantly.

“I just finished up my book, so I have nothing specific to do,” I respond, “Do you have a preference, or should I just choose something?”

“Why don’t you pick something. You are a guest, after all, even if you’re my beautiful granddaughter as well.” Nana led the way into her living room, taking her self appointed spot in the softest chair.

I pondered for a second before suggesting, “How about a story?”

“A story?” Nana was confused, as I’ve never asked her for one. Usually she just tells them without asking if we want to hear one.

“Yeah, a story.” I shrug awkwardly. “You used to be in theater productions, right? Back when my mom was a kid.”

“Of course I was an actress!” Nana said, appalled, “But I haven’t acted for years. Nevertheless,” She said with a flourish “what story would you like to hear?”

I sat down on the couch, next to the book I’d finished. “Well, Aunty Essa is having a baby, and I was wondering if you had any stories about her, or about any of your kids.” I look away, far away towards my family on the other side of the country. “Mom always told stories, so many that I can’t remember them all, but they were always from a siblings perspective, or about my life, and I just want to hear about something that isn’t my own story. And plus, everything is about Essa right now, so why not ask for something I’m actually interested in?” I flash a grin, knowing that Nana would understand my approach to social interaction.

“You learned that from your mother.”

“Which part?”

“That asking questions, thing. You didn’t learn it from me, I know that.”

I giggled, “Fair enough, you’ve taught me other things.”

“Speaking of which, we better get this story started, otherwise the pie will be cold long before we’re done.” Nana leaned back leisurely, pondering. “Where to start, where to start. What story to tell. You could learn from so many of them.” At this she winked at me, and I rolled my eyes. She sat silent for a few moments before stating, “I know, I’ll tell you about the first time you met your Aunty Essa.” I opened my mouth to protest, that I said I didn’t want a story about me! Before I could say anything, though, she took a breath and started.

“That was such a long time ago. You were so small then, and yet you filled the room. At four you were mature beyond your years, and your smile lit up your face from within. Essa is so similar to you in that way, but at that time she had lost a lot of her spark. At fourteen she was so angsty and confused, and looking for something to root herself in, but she lacked anything to hold onto. Her roots were all mixed up after we brought her to the states from vietnam, so even more than usual for her age she was floating.

“Your mother had come back to Michigan for the first time in years, bring you for the first time since you’d left, and Eva for the first time ever. We were all so excited to meet you, I remember fighting about who would meet you at the airport before all of us came to get you. Essa was the only who stayed behind, as she was mad at me for something, I can’t remember what- she was always mad at me, and mad at your mom for being gone for so long.

“You were so beautiful walking out next to your mom and Eva. Your mom pointed us out and you started running towards us, tugging Eva along in a frantic, tumbling run that it seems every child knows. You were so excited and then you stuttered to a stop about ten feet away in sudden terror. I could see it in your face, you had no idea who any of us were. You, just like Essa, had been separated from your roots.

“Eva looked at you, I could tell she was confused at your change in demeanor, and she paused just a moment before tugging out of your grip and crossing the remaining distance to cavort into my arms. I bent down to hug her tight, introducing myself and telling her how beautiful she was, before beckoning to you as well. By that time, your mother had caught up to you and encouraged you towards me. ‘Hi!’ I remember saying, ‘I’m your Nana. You must be Ashley?’ You nodded just slightly, not saying a word. I don’t remember what I said next, other than introducing you to everyone. I do remember saying something about not having to remember everybody, but you did, and later in the week, once people had forgotten about the craze of meeting you, you kept surprising people by addressing them by their name, and relation to you. You did one long winded speech about two days before you left where you described to your Uncle Danny the exact route of cousins, marriages and siblings that had led him to being allowed into the family. I still don’t know how you remembered all that, or even where you learned it, but I was proud of you then, just as I’m proud of you now.

“Essa was the only one who you didn’t address like that, and that was because she introduced herself to you, instead of letting me do it. It wasn’t immediately after we got to the cabin, as the first thing we did was settle you and Eva in for a nap. You were both dead tired after waking up so early to sit still for hours on end. Nobody likes flying, but kids have it the worst.

“Anyways, somewhere between the start of your nap, and the end, you managed to explore the entire house, including the attic, which should have been locked, meet and charm Essa, get back into your room, and get enough sleep to not want to be woken up. You weren’t very good at covering up the extra info you’d found out, otherwise none of us would have been the wiser. So, instead of being sneaky, you clearly showed that you knew the house inside and out, and when you met Essa, supposedly for the first time, you greeted her with a sense of familiarity and she beamed at you, one of the first true smiles I’d seen in a while.

“That entire week you hung to her. I was amazed, and very jealous. I had been looking forward to meeting you for so long, and it seemed that you preferred her over me. I comforted myself by becoming very good friends with Eva, and learning about you and talking with you when you would let me.

“When it was finally time to say goodbye, you were so sad, and cried having to leave. I must admit, I wished that you were crying for me, but I knew then and know now that you were crying for Essa. However, when you saw each other again, about four years later, both of you had changed so much that you couldn’t create that connection again. I know Essa remembers that time, but I’m sad that you’ll only ever get to remember through stories.”

Nana sat back in sorrow, no longer seeing me, but seeing the child I used to be. “Don’t worry Nana. I have a good relationship with Aunt Essa, and I think I prefer this one to the first one. This one matches our personalities and is based on us both liking the other, and not on either of us being afraid or needing someone else to hold onto. Did that make sense?”

“Of course it does. You both have grown so much since then.” Nana sighed before heaving herself out of her chair and patting my cheek before heading back to the kitchen. “Come on, we need to box up the pie, Vanessa’s party is going to start soon, and we don’t want to be too late, do we?”

I followed her in, and leaned against the counter opposite the pie and oven. “It’s ok to be kinda late, though I think we should probably be there before they cut the cake. Seeing as that’s the whole point of going to a baby’s gender reveal party, it would be really rude of us to miss it.”

“Oh yes! I forgot we were doing that. Oh silly me,” Nana said, puttering around with the pie.

I rolled my eyes. Whatever. Remember, she can call herself whatever she wants, I don’t need to confirm or correct her. Outloud I asked, “Do need help with anything?”

“No, dear. I’ll be fine. I should be ready to go in just a few,” Nana called from over her shoulder. I had no idea what she was doing, hopefully nothing that would get us in trouble with the law.

“Cool. I’ll go get ready. Meet you by the door in 5 minutes?” I head out towards the corner of the house my guest room was in.

“Of course!” I heard a response but not much of it, and it was short, so I assumed everything was good and collected all I would need for that night.

Seven minutes later Nana swept into the entryway where I was leaning against the wall, reading the third of the six books I’d brought with me. I looked up and followed her out to her car.

“You know, I still don’t know why you haven’t gotten your driver’s license,” Nana criticized as I positioned myself in the passenger’s seat.

“You know I haven’t gotten my permit either, and you know my reasoning already. Plus, I’m not afraid of your driving. If you don’t want to drive me around, though, I do have a bike that I can use more often.” I didn’t want to start in on this again, it was an old subject dating back to my freshman year, I didn’t need to go over it again.

“No, no, it’s not a problem. I’m fine to drive you when you need it.” I could tell she was going to continue with a ‘but’ so I jumped in and said, “Thank you, by the way. For driving and for letting me help with the pie.”

“You’re very welcome. Your help is always appreciated. As I’ve always said, ‘food tastes better when it’s cooked with someone you love.’”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I let the car fall into silence until we arrived at Aunt Essa’s house. There were already multiple cars parked around the house, so when we made it up the hill to the front door, we were greeted by many people, some of whom were family members, but many as well that were Essa’s friends. In those first few hectic minutes I said goodbye to Nana and went to find people that I knew. Success! I found my second cousin Rich, who’d collected all of the pre-graduate and graduate students. They were the only other people around the same age as me, and even then most of them were at least two years older than me. Not that you or they could tell.

An hour later, almost exactly if I remember right, we were called in from the patio where we’d been playing Scrabble, an old game that we still reveled in, to see the gender reveal commencing in the sitting room. Essa and her husband, James, I think, had opted for a cake, and it was situated in the middle of their main table with everyone around.

As I walked into the room, I tried to figure out why Essa was having this party and if there was anything amiss that would mean the Aunt I knew and loved hadn’t changed drastically. She was one of the biggest influences in my young adult life, once I’d moved away from home, and she’d been the one to explain to me the LGBTQ movement in Minneapolis, and what roles there were to play as a straight supporter. In all of that, I would have thought that she’d let her child be whatever gender they wanted to be, and I was disappointed that this was what she’d chosen to do. It was part of the reason why I hadn’t talked to her since first arriving.

“Quiet everyone,” James called, and silence fell over the mob of bodies as Essa cut out a slice, very carefully keeping the color a secret, before lifting out the cake with a flourish for everyone to see a green interior.

There was silence for a moment before one of Uncle Danny’s kids called out “It’s an Alien!” and all of us, the college students, and some of Essa’s friends, burst out laughing, even while Uncle Danny shushed the 5 year old with a smile on his face. The older folks, the more conservative part of the crowd, joined in laughing nervously, looking around to try and figure out what they missed. I came around the table to hug Essa, saying, “That was brilliant! And the cake looks delicious!”

“Thank you! I’d take credit for it, but the Hy-vee bakers are the ones that really deserve the praise.” Essa laughed and hugged me back. This reunion was broken up by Grandpa John, Nana’s former husband, and Essa’s dad, interrupting, “This really was a brilliant joke. Can we see the real cake now?”

“Oh dad,” Essa started, “This is the real cake. Our baby can decide to be whoever they want to be and we’ll support them.” At this she smiled up at her husband’s face.

Grandpa John looked kind of shocked before he turned around and started trying to explain what exactly ‘green’ meant when it was in a gender reveal cake. Rich and his friends were still laughing and had progressed from alien jokes to conspiracy theories about E.T. Essa had started cutting more of the cake and handed a plate to me, still smiling. As I went back over to the other college students, I couldn’t stop grinning, and laughed despite having never seen E.T.

Hours later, when only Nana and I were left of the guests, I was cleaning up with Essa. Nana was almost asleep in the guest room, after Essa had offered her place for us to stay the night. I was crashing hard, but I still helped Essa, and laughed with her. It had been too long since it had been just the two of us.

“You know, Essa,” I started, not really knowing where I was going.

“Yeah?” Essa looked up from the trash bag she was tying, “What is it?”

“Do you remember the first time we met?” I asked.

“Which time?” Essa asked, finishing up with the trash and heading towards her own couch.

“What do you mean?” I ask, following her.

She made herself comfortable before looking straight at me. “Well, there were three different times that we met and had to start over, as you didn’t remember the time before. The last one was when you were ten and I was twenty and I came to visit you and your family in Oregon.”

“What were the other two times?”

Essa sighed, before starting, “The first time I met you, you were a week old and in the process of scaring everyone you came into contact with. You had this eye contact thing that freaked people out. But even then you were so sweet and sure of yourself. The second time we met was when your family came back for a family reunion. You were four then, I think. You stole away from your nap and found me up on the roof. I still don’t know how you managed that trap door, but you did it, and while I never let you back up there, we still spent a lot of time together. I told you all the nitty-gritty details about our family members, which came to a head when you clearly dictated how Cousin Danny had managed to get invited to the reunion. I couldn’t contain my laughter at his face when you revealed just how much he wasn’t a family member. But then we met for the third time and we had to start all over again. I was really sad, but hey, we’re good friends now, at least.” At this she smiled sadly.

I smiled back, before continuing, “Can you tell more me about that second time? I asked Nana the same question, and she talked about us hanging out, and stuff.”

“Oh, Mom,” Essa said derisively, scowling, “We didn’t have a good relationship then. I was in trouble all the time because I kept on getting in the police’s face when they’d show up and start harassing my friends. The ones that got harrased were my friends that looked black and hispanic, and they’d just randomly get pulled over and questioned, especially if we were in a bad neighborhood. But if it were me or my white friends, the police wouldn’t bat an eye, no matter where we were. Sometimes they’d even offer help us stay safe if we were in a bad neighborhood, like we needed the help. Didn’t matter gender or previous encounters at all, that difference stayed. And I couldn’t let that stand.” At this point I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Essa barreled on, “I mean, seriously. She kept on telling me to not get involved, but they were my friends! I couldn’t just let them get in trouble when I knew they hadn’t done anything wrong. It didn’t matter to Mom that they were being unfairly treated, her only thought was to protect me. The thing she didn’t realize was that I wasn’t in danger when I stood up to the police, because I’d learned how to be charming and how to mollify people, including the police, but I could be in danger if I let this discrimination continue. Because I’m not white, and we already have history of asians being discriminated against, so if I don’t stand up for my friends, who will stand up for me when I’m in that position?”

“I will, you know that. I’ll stand up for you,” I say, “But I get what you mean, even as a white person who hasn’t experienced a lot of discrimination.”

“Thanks. But see, if I were mean, or didn’t help you when you’re in trouble, like I have helped in the past, you might not say that.”

“Then that means what you did and what you are doing now is that much more important.” Essa smiled at my declaration before lapsing into silence. I broke the silence after a moment by asking, “Was that the only thing you were mad at her about?”

Essa focused on me again, before shaking her head and saying angrily, “No. There was also a new idea I’d come across with my friends. It was the concept of making the world a better place for the next generation, for your kids and grandkids and great great-great-grandkids. I’d heard some of this from your mom, and a number of other parents, including Kanye, crazy enough, but I hadn’t really been able to internalize it until I started investigating it for myself. I read Ta Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, and I read stories of parents doing crazy things to protect their children. And when I was done with that first round of research, I went up to a roof and cried.”

“Do you remember which roof it was?” I asked, just out curiosity.

“No,” Essa laughed, “I had so many that I’d found a way onto that they all blended together in my head. They were all ‘The Roof’ to me.” Essa shrugged, knowing I would understand her love of heights. “Anyways, that day I cried for my birth parents who had either given me away or died, but either way didn’t make the world a better place for me, and I cried for Mom and Dad who made my life better, but didn’t make it as good as I could imagine it. At that time, I was angry that they hadn’t done better. Now, I know that my life was better than they’d been able to imagine when they were younger. But at the time when I met you during that family reunion, I was angry with Mom for not making a better life for me. For not giving me a better life before I became an adult the way I thought she could have.

“In some ways, I was angrier once I met you, and in others, I felt better about the world. Amanda had given you a beautiful life. You did have a better life than what I remembered, in a place that supported you in ways I wasn’t supported, so I was happy for you, even as I was angry that I hadn’t gotten the same. I couldn’t turn that anger out on you, so I just funelled it into the existing anger I had at my Mom.” She saw my disbelieving look, and giggled, continuing with, “Yeah, yeah, I know, not the best outlet. I’ve found better now, see!” She held her hands out gesturing towards the room we were in, probably. She could have been gesturing to the world.

“I know,” I shot back, “And I’m going to take them all!” I jumped at her and hugged her tight making her squeal. We both laughed, and only subsided when James came in from the other room.

“What did I miss?” He asked, sitting next to Essa, who, still laughing, cuddled into his side.

“Oh, nothing much,” I replied, sitting up from the spot on the floor that I’d rolled to while laughing. “Just some anger management skills.”

“I’m sad I missed them then. If they were funny enough to have you both rolling, I would have liked to hear them.” By now, both me and Essa had recovered from the bout of laughter, and looked at each other.

Essa mollified him by explaining, “You’d have to have been there.”

“Very well,” James replied, looking down at his wife.

Seeing as they were very comfortable, and definitely going into couple mode, I decided to head to bed. Yawning, accidentally if you can believe it, I stretched and said, “I need to head to bed, guys. I have enough homework to fill my room, and if I don’t get enough sleep tonight I’ll never get through it all.”

“Good luck with it,” Essa said, starting to get up, “Do you need me to show you to the guest room?”

“No, I think I remember where it is. If I do need help, I’ll come back here and get you.” Essa stood up all the way and came over to give me a hug.

“Thank you for coming.” Essa smiled at me, her face lighting up from within. I smiled back.

“Thank you for having me. I had a great time.” Essa hugged me again before letting go and heading back to James. Just after I turned the corner up the stairs I heard Essa giggle and I smiled. Thank goodness she found someone to love without losing herself.