My First Relationship Heartache (Part 3)

This is the 3^rd part of the story. The previous parts are here: 1^st, 2^nd.

Now looking back, I think she was trying to make connections with me through stories of her family. Talking about her family made her feel she was being intimate with me. I should reciprocate with my own family stories, but it was too painful for me to talk about my family. So I stayed silent and she continued in her fruitless effort.

She wanted to be an honor student and the class president. Connecting with me and salvaging me from my ignorant, unhygienic, unpromising rural background would contribute to her image of generosity and responsibility, and add a glowing item on her resume to present to college. Maybe I should not be so cynical. She was a very nice girl indeed and I was happy to be useful to her.

“My mom told me that she thought my father was having an affair.” One day she told me.

I didn’t say anything in return. I just stared at her with passive eyes.

“My mother is five years older than my father. So you know… My mother had always thought my father having a third person would be inevitable. And so it happened. But my mother said my father would never give up his children. He is not that kind of man. So he would not ask for a divorce at the moment, at least not until my little brother leaves home to go to college. That would be eight more years.” She said.

A third person means the woman her father was having the affair with. “Out of the rail” is another expression to indicate an extramarital affair.

“This is not the first time he is having an affair. He has two before, which eventually ended. However this time he is more serious. The third person is a colleague.” Apeng said.

“What? How come? You told me your parents are colleagues. So the three of them work in the same office?” I almost yelled.

“It’s an architecture firm. They are not really working in the same room though…” She said. “What will you do if your father has an affair?”

“I don’t know.” I said. However I was not being truthful. I actually knew what I would do—that was I would do absolutely nothing. I didn’t really care, but I really couldn’t speak the truth to her who believed in the myth of a home sweet home. My father could have as many affairs as he could afford or even escape to the South Pole. Whatever he did, I didn’t feel it was a thing that concerned me.

Apeng’s father came to visit her more often than other parents. He came every month. Whenever he arrived at our dorm, he would bring delicious food for Apeng, which he cooked himself. He would also talk to us. At the time, we had eight girls living in one very big dorm room. Our dorm used to be a two-story military barrack built by the Japanese during WWII. After more than five decades of inadequate maintenance, the whole building looked grim and dilapidated.

I was needling the collar of a new shirt when her father arrived. The bright collar was quite big, covering the whole shoulder area and draping part of the front area. It looked quite decorative on the shirt, but there was a problem. Whenever there was a wind, the collar would fly up. I had to fasten it with some needlework.

Apeng and her father talked. Then her father talked to Lan, who was also in the dorm. Then her father turned his attention to me.

“What are you doing? That was such a bad job.” Apeng’s father looked at me and laughed. “Let me show you how to do it.”

“Dad, Mom is waiting for you at home.” Apeng said and dragged her dad to the door. The next minute, they were gone.

When Apeng came back after seeing her dad off, I couldn’t help saying, “Mom is waiting for you. For two years, that’s the harshest criticism I’ve ever heard that you leveled on your father.”

“What are you talking about? My father doesn’t have a fault. Why do I want to criticize him? You mean the affair? That’s not my father’s fault. It is the fault of the third person. She likes other women’s husband.” She said.

I suddenly had a feeling that I was back in primary school, having a conversation of those typical ten-year-olds. We were about to be seventeen and this was the level of Apeng’s analytical skills. Or she just loved her father so much that she would defend him no matter what.

How could I connect with Apeng, who was practically a fundamentalist with unbridled fervor for her family? Suddenly I started to feel that having a pair of cold-hearted narcissists as my parents were not so bad in comparison. At least I would not be as blind as Apeng.

(To Be Continued)