Allison Zhang
My mother used to say my elbows were dangerous, that I was born sharp. She said this with her thumb tracing the ridge of my brow, not quite joking.
The first time I break my mother’s nose, I’m sixteen, and we’re fighting in the kitchen. I’m tall enough now that we stand eye-to-eye, though she still calls me xiao hai—little kid—in the same tone she uses to tell me to mop the floor or sort the bok choy leaves from the stems.
She’s screaming about my grades, my posture, the way I don’t look people in the eyes. I’m screaming that I’m not her, that I’m not going to end up hunched over a sewing machine in a converted garage, sniffing polyester threads and cursing the day I crossed the ocean.
I flail my arm, trying to grab the handle of a pot on the stove, and my elbow cracks her across the bridge of her nose. I hear the cartilage snap like a twig.
Blood spatters the stove. She makes a sound that reminds me of a rabbit I once saw get caught under a tire—high and wet and shocked.
***
My mother presses a dish towel to her face. The towel blooms red. She tilts her head back and mutters curses in Cantonese, each syllable sharp enough to draw blood on its own.
Then she drops the towel and says, “Look what you did.”
As if I don’t see the blood already.
***
At the ER, the nurse asks, “What happened?”
My mother says, “The girl hit me.”
I say, “It was an accident.”
We both say it like we’re reading from a script we didn’t audition for.
The nurse writes something on a clipboard and leaves the room. My mother is still holding the dish towel, pressing it to her nostrils. She keeps pulling it away to check the stain.
“I can’t smell anything,” she says. “Not the alcohol wipes, not your perfume. Nothing.”
I don’t tell her I’m not wearing perfume, that she’s the only thing I can smell—blood and sweat and something faintly metallic.
***
When my mother was seventeen, she lived in a dormitory in Hong Kong, sewing rhinestones onto evening gowns for a factory owner who paid her by the piece. Sometimes she slept under the cutting tables, scraps of satin sticking to her cheeks.
She doesn’t talk about it often, except when she’s angry. Then she reminds me she didn’t survive on one bowl of congee a day so I could grow up mouthing off about geometry homework and wearing jeans with holes in the knees.
“Look at my hands,” she says, splaying her fingers. The skin around her nails is puckered, dotted with tiny white scars.
***
The doctor tells my mother to keep her head elevated and to ice the swelling. He packs her nostrils with gauze.
She asks if she’ll be disfigured.
The doctor says, “Maybe a slight bump. Nothing drastic.”
She glares at me over the gauze and says, “Great. I’ll look like a gangster’s mistress.”
***
We stop at a drive-thru on the way home. She orders a Filet-O-Fish because it’s the only thing soft enough to eat. I watch her tear the bun into shreds, ignoring the sandwich entirely.
***
At home, my mother stands in front of the bathroom mirror, poking the bridge of her nose with a finger. Her face is a map of purple shadows.
I’m leaning in the doorway, trying to figure out if I should apologize or just leave.
She says, “You know what hurts the most? Not the nose. That you think you’re too good for me.”
I say, “I don’t think that.”
She waves her hand. “It’s okay. You want to be American. Americans are soft. They cry too much.”
Then she dips a washcloth in cold water and presses it to her face.
***
That night, I lie awake listening to my mother blow her nose into tissues, one after the other. The walls of our apartment are thin. Every snort has the sound of paper tearing.
I bury my head under the blanket and try not to remember the way her blood smelled—salt, copper and something sour. Old fruit.
***
When I was eight, my mother told me that when she dies, she wants to be cremated and scattered in the ocean. She said it like she was discussing grocery lists.
“I don’t want a grave,” she said. “Graves are for people who can afford to take up space. I want to disappear.”
I asked if she would float forever.
She laughed. “No. Even the ocean forgets people.”
***
A week after the hospital, the bruising on my mother’s face has turned yellow.
She tells me to drive her to the beauty supply store because she wants new foundation.
“Something with good coverage,” she says.
***
At the store, a woman offers to help match my mother’s skin tone. My mother winces as the woman dabs a sponge over her nose.
The woman says, “What happened? Car accident?”
My mother hesitates. Then she says, “No. My daughter elbowed me.”
The woman stares at me for a full ten seconds before turning back to the makeup samples.
***
On the way home, my mother holds the bag of cosmetics like a prize.
“At least the doctor fixed it. I don’t look too ugly, right?”
I tell her she doesn’t.
She scoffs.
***
In the parking lot outside our apartment, my mother suddenly reaches over and grips my hand so tight her rings dig into my skin.
She says, “Listen to me. Never let a man hit you. Not once. Not even a little. If he does, you hit him back so hard he remembers it every day he looks in the mirror. Understand?”
I nod.
She nods back. “Good girl.”
***
Later that night, she boils a pot of herbal soup. The steam makes her wince, so she leans her face away.
She ladles some into my bowl and says, “Here. This will keep your blood strong.”
She doesn’t say she forgives me. She doesn’t have to.
***
Sometimes I touch the bridge of my own nose and wonder if there’s a fault line waiting to crack open.
#
Allison Zhang is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. An immigrant and bilingual speaker of English and Mandarin, she writes about language, memory, identity, and the resilience shaped by both migration and chronic illness. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vagabond City Lit, SWWIM Every Day, Eunoia Review, and the Live Poets Society of New Jersey. She has been recognized by The New York Times, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and Hollins University. She is also the author of An Everlasting Bond, honored by the BookFest Spring Awards. Outside of writing, she enjoys hiking with her twin sister and spending time with her dog, Potato.