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Mrs. Zhao and Mrs. Wu
- University of Iowa Press
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1 4 2 Mrs. Zhao and Mrs. Wu Mrs. Zhao must return to China. Cynthia does not want to think about it. She will have to start looking all over again for someone to replace her, and when is she going to find the time to do that? She will have to run an ad, or at least post a notice at the vegetable market, because she’s certainly not going to get lucky again, not like she did with Mrs. Zhao. A little slip of paper pushed into their mailbox—“Chinese lady, 50, looking for work,” with Mrs. Zhao’s name and telephone number. She will have to post a notice; she’ll need her friend Sharon’s help to write it out. And then the women will call, and she will have to find a way to screen them over the phone, apologizing all the while for her atrocious accent. The phone is much harder, because M r s . Z h a o a n d M r s . W u 1 43 she can’t use her hands. She needs her hands to get her point across. Mrs. Zhao does not want to leave. She has a good job, a California driver’s license. But she must go back to see her uncle. He is dying of cancer, or if not cancer, a tumor or maybe ulcers. Cynthia is not too sure. The uncle has two nephews, both here, and Mrs. Zhao. Naturally she is the one for it. She can cook for him, bathe him, hold the rice bowl up to his mouth. Her husband does not mind. She will be back in a month, maybe two months, and in the meantime, their daughter will take care of him. Cynthia could call an agency. Most of her friends do that. Cynthia has seen the results. Young American women, resting between semesters. Who need the money. Who are willing, if the money is right and the hours aren’t too long and the mother doesn’t want much in the way of cooking or cleaning or laundry, to come into your home on a daily basis for the care and feeding of children and pets. Cynthia would rather have Mrs. Zhao. She has not yet told the children. They like Mrs. Zhao well enough, but maybe they will not be too upset? Mrs. Zhao is too Chinese, they tell her. Cynthia reminds her children that they are Chinese too. It does not send them to the mirror. They know what they look like, but they do not feel Chinese. Mrs. Zhao has been good to Cynthia’s children. She spends most of her time bending down to them, checking eyes, ears, nose, throat. Is there enough light for reading? Put on this hat when we go to the park. Peter is six; she still wipes his nose. Wear a scarf too, if it’s windy. Sometimes she does the shopping right before she meets them at the bus stop, and when they get off, she’s waiting for them with treats. They dig for the boxes from her pink plastic bags. Panda-head cookies with chocolate cream. Sugar rolls they brandish like cigarettes, tapping out the crumbs for ashes. Cynthia once read the box labels and groaned. Everything with palm oil, the worst kind. She asked Mrs. Zhao to buy minibagels instead, or the low-fat granola bars, this kind, with the red printing on the box. Mrs. Zhao nodded hard. The next week, panda heads again. Cynthia’s husband, Martin, will certainly miss Mrs. Zhao. He loves her ma po tofu. She also does a beautiful job with his blue denim shirt. She would iron all the white ones too, but he takes 1 4 4 M r s . Z h a o a n d M r s . W u those to the laundry down the block because Mrs. Wong, who owns the laundry, would worry about him if he didn’t show up on Mondays. He never sends Mrs. Zhao to the laundry. He doesn’t want to upset Mrs. Wong. Cynthia’s friend, Sharon, thinks Cynthia has struck gold in Mrs. Zhao. But Sharon speaks fluently, and her kids do too, since they spend every summer with relatives in Taipei. Cynthia’s relatives are all here. Sharon’s mother takes care of Sharon’s children . I’d give anything to have a Mrs. Zhao, says Sharon, but my mother would never forgive me...