ISSUE 10 | FALL 2011
I spoke through my tears to finish what I had planned to say, ―If you don't want to forgive for the sake of the other person, do it for yourself.‖ I heard the crowd clap as I walked back to my seat. I grabbed the Kleenex box to blow my nose, and sat down. I looked up and saw JB. He shook my hand and pulled me up for a hug. ―You're a deep man, Mr. Lam.‖
Later, I was in my classroom packing up, sorting essays on my desk, and I realized I had lied to my students. I couldn't have completely forgiven Bah Ba because I hadn‘t dealt with what he'd done. That's why the image felt so fresh; I was seeing it for the first time. I couldn‘t be sure if Ga Jeh had really forgiven Bah Ba, or had merely hidden the images from herself. We hadn't talked about the abuse since she'd revealed it to me. What exactly happened? Did she blame our mom? Did she blame me? Her room had been directly across from mine. How could I not have heard her door open and close? I told myself that I'd call Ga Jeh as soon as I finished grading my papers, but I didn't. Admitting to myself what Bah Ba had done was one thing, broaching the topic with my sister was another. Should I initiate the conversation, force her to confront the past or wait for her to bring it up, when the time was right for her? I didn‘t know how I should help Ga Jeh with her balloon, how to keep it from popping—I was still a rookie.
Dickson Lam was born in Hong Kong and raised in San Francisco. He received his MFA degree in fiction from Rutgers-Newark University and is also a graduate of UC Berkeley and Columbia University. He is currently an MFA candidate in nonfiction at the University of Houston where he is working on his memoir.
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