I.
I absentmindedly run my hand over the bumpy, taut layer of a bright orange. I admire my selection and hold it up for my mother to see. She frowns and shows me some green discolored patches near the bottom, and I feel a rush of moody adolescent irritation towards her. I want to be outside, sipping cool beverages and smelling the chlorine of the community pool, not the grocery store, where middle-aged women with their meal planners inspect price tags and shoot nasty looks at my mother and me. But she had given me a choice: come buy groceries with me, or don’t eat the food I make with it.
I hold our reusable cloth bag open as my mom drops onions into it. My eyes sting as she puts in the last one. There are a lot of people in this aisle, and I watch their movements. All of their eyes inspecting each fruit as if they could taste it. My mother speeds through the aisles, quickly grabbing things off the shelf. I panic when she gets too far ahead of me, afraid that I’ll lose her, and be left alone. We walk into the register and the total begins to multiply with each buzz of the scanner. My mother eyes the total and searches her wallet for a crisp 20-dollar bill. Still 80 cents short. “I don’t have any more bills, let me try to find a coin,” my mother replies embarrassed, and I flinch at the accent coloring her words. The cashier glares at her, clearly annoyed, and I feel a need to start talking to my mom in my American accent, to prove to the cashier that I’m just like her. “Check your coin purse.”
While we are getting into the car, my mother’s eyes are encasing a storm. “Useless, horrible child,” she spits. “You cannot even use one dollar to help out your mother. You could have used your pocket money and we wouldn’t be getting home late.” She puts her key in the ignition and I feel a childish sense of terror as she turns out of the parking lot, my tears only blurring everything further.
I am still holding the bag of groceries, the cloth slicing into my hands.

II.
If I open my eyes wide enough when she’s yelling at me, I can convince myself that the tears are from the dust in the air, not her words. When she forces me to look her in the eye, I do, but not directly. I fixate on the forehead instead of her eyes. I need to create disconnection, at least a little.
Once, for a snide remark, she locked me in the garage. I knocked on the door, calling out her name until mommy didn’t even sound like a word anymore. When my father eventually lets me in, I take off my glasses and stare at myself in the dirty glass mirror. I study myself and try to see what features I inherited from her, but all I see is my childhood. There is a faded scar on my neck. I can’t remember which time it was from. All I can picture is the split second before when the world went quiet. The thrill of no please i’m so sorry i won’t do it again except it’s too late. The hand is already coming towards you, and there’s a crack of sound and a moment later, an eruption of explosive red pain, followed by the unexpected shame that comes after you, no matter how many times you’ve expected it.
I don’t wash off the blood—instead, I bite into the wound, my senses filling with warm iron.
That night, I stumble, bleary-eyed, into the doorway of my parents’ bedroom and see my mother leaning against the bed frame, crying into the phone. I felt a strange feeling of blame and revelation as if I had accidentally uncovered a conclusion I did not want to find yet.
I would cry whenever I saw her crying, even without knowing the context behind why.
The next morning, she beats me to the dining room. She was already done making breakfast. She silently slides cubes of mango from her plate into mine, and when I protest, she claims that they don’t taste good with her hot coffee.
The taste remains the same, only the flavor of her bitter apology crunching like gravel in my mouth.

III.
Kansas has the sunrises, and San Francisco the sunsets. I suppose I was too disillusioned with all the new beginnings in my life, so I went to the edge of the country to seek out the ends. Still, at that time, I had convinced myself that I was attending school in California because they had good medical programs.
In the two years I had lived there, I had always called—every Friday morning, always making sure to account for the time zones. But for the first time, there is a missed call under her name. I dial back with both two parts desire and trepidation—for what, I’m not sure.
How am I supposed to tell her that there is no way I can come home right now, with my medical internship and final exams starting soon? It’s only a diagnosis, anyway. But I have already envisioned her stern, pinched face in my mind, already hearing her scolding me for being ungrateful and selfish.
When the second call comes two months later, I book the very next available flight back home. It didn’t matter anyway—I was two hours too late.
I am a naive teenager in the grocery store again, clutching the oranges, and I can’t see where she is, and all I can see and hear and taste is metallic guilt and panic.
no please i’m so sorry i won’t do it again