Bathtime
“Dèng Kāngtài,” my mother-in-law suddenly says into the comfortable silence that was previously only broken by the gentle splashes of water.
“Yes?” The hand that scrubs at her back slows in anticipation.
“Beautiful name. Quiet and exalted. It suits you.” She says this as she rubs at a patch of skin by her knee.
“Thank you,” my hand begins scrubbing once again.
“Who gave you that name?” She asks and ceases to rub at the spot by her knee.
I have answered this question before but she likes to make conversation during bathtime so I appease her, “My boss gave me my name when I was still working in China. He couldn’t easily pronounce my given name so he gave me a name that reflected my personality.”
Māma nods, “And your English name? I have forgotten it.”
I smile but realize that I cannot blame her. Sometimes I forget the name myself. The only time I see it is when a piece of mail is addressed to me.
“Latrice.”
“Latrice,” Māma’s tongue stumbles over the name as she echoes me. She nods, “Kāngtài is better.”
I mirror her smile and nod in agreement.
Even as a child, I was never called Latrice. Everyone from my grandmother to my peers had called me Latty. I don’t know why my mother named me Latrice. I used to get bullied because of my name. We lived on the North side of town and I was the only Latrice among Jessicas, Ambers, and Emmas. I asked why I wasn’t given a name that would have allowed me to fit in better, like Olivia or even Margaret, but my mother just shook her head.
Let those girls be Emma, Elizabeth, and Olivia. You are Latrice. You are noble. You will stand out. You are meant for things they are not.
I wore the name proudly after that, regardless of what those pretty white girls said. I forced myself to embody my mother’s words. Instead of trying to blend in, I embraced the fact that I stood out. I made myself stand out. I studied hard so that I could be at the top of my class and graduated high school as Valedictorian.
I had not grown up with an interest in East Asian culture but when I was offered a full scholarship to a university in China, I accepted it. I assumed the opportunity was what my mother meant when she said that I was meant for different things. It was only in Chengdu that I took the name Kāngtài.
I remember when my boss gave me the name. He had taken the entire weekend to think of it and came back on Monday and greeted me with a “Hello, Kāngtài”. I had smiled and my heart had soared. I had never felt such a connection to just two syllables before. My boss never knew, but in that moment, I shed the dry and broken skin of Latrice and became Kāngtài. My heart had ceased to ache and I felt as if I had been reborn.
I repeated my new name over and over in my head and drew every stroke carefully until it was second nature. Three years later I also shed Davis and gained Dèng when I married my husband. When I married my husband, it was not just us two who would forever be joined, but our kin as well. His māma was mine and my mother was his.
I grab the showerhead and bring it over to Māma. She tilts her head back as the lukewarm water cascades over her shoulders and back and chest. I place my hand at her hairline as I rinse out her hair. Despite Māma’s age and failing health, her hair was still long and healthy.
“All clean?” I ask.
She nods and smiles.
I return the showerhead to its hook and turn off the water. I grab the fluffy red towel and gently pat her face and then her hair. I wrap the towel around her shoulders and help her up from the shower seat.
As always, I inwardly wince as she stands, body trembling with the effort. Māma’s hand was so tight on my wrist that I knew that it would leave a mark, for all the strength had left her weak legs and traveled into her grip. I help her out of the tub with words of encouragement and mumbled apologies. I apologized for the pain that each movement caused her and for the clicking sound that emanated from her frozen shoulders.
“What do you have to be sorry for?” Māma asks with a bit of mirth to her weathered voice, “My condition is no fault of yours.”
I bow my head, “Yes, but I feel your pain as if it were my own. I wish I could take it from you.”
She shakes her head and chuckles as I squat down to dry her dripping legs, “I wouldn’t wish this pain on you, Xífù.”
She turns her death drip on the counter as she lifts each leg as I clothe her. In the beginning, this act had brought me embarrassment and her shame but I had been married to Fēnglì for twenty years now and we had done this ritual every other day for the past five years as her condition worsened.
No longer did we avoid eye contact and maintain a tense silence as I washed and dried her body. Now, we joked, we smiled. Māma told me stories as I lathered soap on her age-spotted skin. There was no longer the distance of formality between us. I had seen all of her, physically, and she had seen all of me, emotionally. There was nothing to hide. There was no reason to. Not anymore.
I carefully pull her shirt over her head and then lead her out of the bathroom. I lower her down into a chair and take my spot behind her. I take my time rubbing oil into Māma’s scalp and hair and then begin to braid her slick black hair. My hands are gentle but my grip is tight so that her hair doesn’t slip out of my fingers. I’ve learned long ago that Asian hair has a different temperament than my own.
I finish the braid and then wrap it into a bun. Māma studies her gnarled hands as I study my handiwork.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, “It’s almost lunchtime.”