Equilibrium

When I was a child my father used to tell me about the day he met my mother.

He said he was 23 years old, during one of his numerous travels, he is part of a well-known company that runs along the seven seas, bringing goods to every corner of the world.

He had met her due to a trip to Hong Kong, she was the daughter of a business contact in there, the man (my grandfather) had taken him and others to celebrate a dinner at his home in Beijing, father said he was flabbergasted by how beautiful she was.

He recalled making a fool of himself, trying to impress her. My mom would later say that he was so clumsy and nervous that night that she found him quite cute.

After that, my father tried to meet her, he was nagging at Mr. Wang with made up excuses just to talk with his daughter. Father said that mom was cold and harsh the first time they spoke. On the other hand my Mother expressed that he was corny and sweet, but she was afraid of infuriating her father. After all, she depended on her family, she was only 18.

The months passed and father became a constant visitor in the Wang's household. He would schedule more trips to China than necessary, only to keep in touch with mother. She later told me that he was convincing her of escaping with him.

My father, whose business was settled in England, planned to take mother with him without Mr. Wang's approval. The reason? My grandfather wasn't very keen of him, he didn't dislike father but he refused to give his blessing, saying she was too young for marriage.

The route was from Beijing to Hong Kong and then they would take a ship to England.

They managed to arrive in Hong Kong but the plan was ruined when Mr. Wang put a reward for his lost daughter. No ship would take them out of Hong Kong without turning them in.

They spent two years more in Hong Kong, in which I was conceived, father was neither getting his payments nor help from his brother's back in England.

When I was born, they lived in a small house in Hong Kong, it was possible thanks to my mother's decision of contacting her cousins, who seeing her pregnant, took pity and helped her. When talking about this, father was always bitter, he said the cousins were prideful and would always rub their money on his face, he was especially spiteful of the Korean one, saying he was always encouraging mother to abandon him.

Father never talked to me about the following three years of my birth, he only said that those years made him realize the kind of woman my mother was, and that those years were horrendous enough for him to take the hardest choice of his life.

He saved enough money to pay the ship to take him to England, prepared the luggage and one night decided to leave, he took me with him while mother was asleep.

In the ship he got the help of a woman called Marianne, father said he promised to pay her when they arrived in England, she would sing lullabies for me at night as well as read some stories I don't remember.

I don't remember much about that, I only recall vividly my life in England, surrounded by my uncles and cousins, I remember my father's wedding with Marianne and after that, the arrival of the twins.

I do remember dreaming about my mother, she was becoming a blurry image for me, it didn't help that my father refused to talk about her anymore. He would say that she had abandoned me, that if she really loved me she would have come with us, that she had started a new life and a new family, he said that as I was no longer important to mother, I didn't have to bother to think about her.

I remember feeling jealous at the twins, for they received more attention than I did. I remember my father teaching them how to read, while he just paid a tutor for me. I remember him playing with them in the front yard, while I had to play with the nanny when I was their age, as he was always working away.