On the last night of my stay in St. Louis, I slept with my mom on an old twin mattress down in the basement where I used to live. It's her bed now, they don't say how long she's been down there in that blue windowless room. She worried if we'd fit. But of course we fit, we're family. And after we pulled the covers up around our ears, and after we closed our eyes, she told me about all of the boys in college, the other students she knew from China and Hong Kong, how they made a list of girls, how they ranked them, and how for no conceivable reason ("I don't know why!") they put her at the top of the list. They really liked her! those boys in school. They tried to kiss her and she'd duck away. And under the covers of our little bed, under the darkness of our eyes, I heard her true surprise.
How did she find her man, the man she leaves each night to sleep alone in her daughter's cold bed? How did he find her and pluck her from the top of so many lists? How did they love each other before they stopped? Why did they stop. Why did it end.
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