A month after I move out, I drive myself downtown in the middle of the night and get the tattoo of my mother’s birth date removed. By the time I drag feet out my car and to the run-down parlor, I still don’t know why I’m doing it. 

 

The removal doesn’t hurt as much as getting the tattoo did. Getting it was a nightmare, the 1 then the 20 then the 1968 branded right across my rib. Right under my heart, I let you know gently and smilingly when I first showed you, like a kindergarten teacher offering a consolation lollipop. Removing it is a breeze in comparison, it feels like tight elastics snapping against my skin one by one. It’s quiet in the parlor as well. The damp smell lulls me nearly to sleep. 

 

In all honesty, I always thought I had high pain tolerance.  
 

You taught me to cook when I was eight, maybe seven. Most kids my age then would have been caught under their arms and swiftly evicted from the kitchen, or really anywhere with hot appliances and fire. But you always showed me so much blind trust. I liked that a lot when I was young. I painstakingly memorized every smile line and trace of crow’s feet when you smiled at me like you expected me to excel at something, and I inked it to the skin behind my eyelids.  
 

At least you knew to start easy, with eggs scrambled with tomato and noodles in soy sauce broth. You guided my fleshy hands as they struggled to hold the knife and made carnage of the scallions. You demonstrated by placing the diced tomatoes in the crackling oil directly with your hands, and I proved myself to be a brave knuckle-headed child when I followed suit with no hesitation. I won’t forget the oil burning my fingertips, the numb agony when you grabbed my wrists and thrust them beneath the running tap. I remember staring hollowly and welling up, too in shock to really cry, and too confused by the smile on your face.  

 

My brave baby. My big girl, all grown up now. It’s good to develop your heat tolerance early. See these calluses? These mean you can raise a family.  

 

Eight-year-old me looked up at you through a watery glaze and believed, soothed by the balm and love of your eyes. I nodded, my bottom lip tucked between teeth. I sniffed hard and swallowed and absently nursed my own hand as you explained the best temperature to scramble eggs at, the difference between extra fermented soy sauce and regular.  
 

Over time, my fingers grew the same calluses as yours, maybe even a few to spare as you had to work late more and more nights. I honed my ability to pick up on your every need. You’re quiet when you’re hungry, but prone to binging after a break-up or an argument with your manager. Rubbing temples means we’re out of your migraine medicine, and I run to the pharmacy before dinner to get the acetaminophen and the non-drowsy paracetamol. Finding you at the kitchen island when I get up for a glass of water late at night means you’re struggling with your insomnia again, so I insist you get back to bed and stay with you until your breaths even out. 

 

I learn what dinner foods and sounds prevent my little brother, your erbao, from sleeping easy. If he tosses and turns in his crib, I scramble to get out of bed and subdue him before his crying wakes you. I scoop him up and hold him against my chest, try a combination of lap bounces and pats of my cupped palm on his back. I’ve gotten quite good at this. I’m protective of erbao like any older sister would, and his cream puff cheeks and little pink nose make me want to absorb all of the responsibility he’ll ever have in his life, too. I never want to see him in pain, but this, this I do mainly because I love you.  

 

I think you’re the best thing in my life, Mom. I love your happiness and your excitement and your praise when I do something well. I love the suffocating security of your embrace, the weight of your head against my shoulder after a long day at work, and you climb into the dining table seat beside me as I scribble math homework. Nothing feels quite like the panic in your wide eyes dissolving into relief as you realize that I remembered to pick up my younger brother from daycare while you hadn’t. I love that you love me, even more that you need me.  

 

I get along well with the girls my age, but I can never understand why they make a point to oppose their parents on everything. You’ve always been the brightest person I know. Your joy is beyond infectious, and distracting. As is your sadness, and your anger. You never even tried to hide anything from me.  
 

Growing up, I always hated when you were miserable without reason. I hated sitting idly by and not knowing how to help. I held your hands in my lap and patted them like I would erbao’s, on the worst nights. I offered you every tea and pill I stocked that week, asked what you’d eaten, more out of instinct than anything else. The only thing that ever mattered more to me than your happiness was your sadness, the pulse of your sobs through my smaller body when all I knew to do was hold you through it. It scared me to death, realizing that you were as vulnerable to the world as it was to you, and the sharp pivots of your emotions. There could be a million reasons you feel this way, I wouldn’t know where to begin. 

 

The night I get into college, I make the worst decision and tell you the good news. I don’t even remember the conversation I tried to start between me showing you the email and your reaction. I just remember your watery stare up at me and childlike blankness, your shoulders trembling as if you were actually crying, but you weren’t. I freeze, your grip unyielding around my shoulders. I was never taught how to handle this. I search your face for a hint, any hint on what you want from me.  

 

But then you let me go and walk briskly to your bedroom. Your voice sounds farther away than it is. 
 

Go then. You should go, if you really want to.  
 

I’m not sure whether I really wanted to. I leave because you tell me to, and you tell me you don’t need me around the house anymore when you remember the grocery store and the pharmacy and the daycare again. You steal your responsibilities back and, in doing so, you leave me a vessel of comfort food recipes and fine print warnings on pill bottles. I wait and yearn to be used again. 

 

Even when I’m apart from you, I feel the phantom pains of being with you. My roommates are surprised when they see me stick my fingers into hot oil while cooking for them, the fast and reckless way you taught me to chop vegetables. My posture is stiff and upright for you to lean on. I’m still an impossibly light sleeper. My every habit, every scar and trauma I carry in my body formed in response to you.  
 

I know I’ll grow up, and I hope I’ll learn some day that no child is naturally mature for their age. In the meantime, your love is comfortable and safe, but with each passing day it’s reduced to single-phrase texts we exchange about erbao, your birthday feels stranger and more foreign on my ribcage. 1, 20, 1968. You used to tell me how your parents neglected your birthday and told you they’d celebrate it along with Lunar New Year’s, like how American families celebrated December birthdays on Christmas. 
 

When the artist is done, the removal scar blends in with my skin texture, but not well enough. There’s still a faint ridge of eggshell-colored scar tissue tracing the numbers, in the space right under my heart. I’ll still feel it with my fingertips, when my calluses wear out from underuse.  

 

I still drive to the pharmacy, the light of morning slowly starting to show through, and pick up one acetaminophen, one paracetamol, non-drowsy.  

 

I’ll grow up for real one day.