Allison's Archives

The humidity attacks me like a rabid creature sicced by the island. 

The road home from the airport curves like it is trying to avoid the water. They want to build a light rail through my hometown. The houses have grown taller in practice but still squat low in theory. The paint either brightens or peels with commitment. Things have changed so much that they look the same. Nothing here pretends permanence; I borrow the same philosophy. 

My parents’ home smells like old prayers and freshly mopped hardwood floors. The door frame remembers my height better than I do. My high school uniform hangs in my wardrobe tempting me to step back into it. I unzip my suitcase and it sounds too loud, like I will wake something that insists on staying asleep. I can see the sea from my balcony; it keeps breathing—it has never stopped for me. Pardon, sorry, forgive me, my darling—the sea is not breathing, it is seething. I ask it what it wants from me. An apology? An offering? A body to bury back into its shore? 

Someone calls my name—the one that fit my mouth when I was younger, when crying came easily, when this island cried with me—and it comes out two syllables instead of three, just the way my parents had intended. Cheng Jie. There is no Allison here. I answer out of equal parts muscle memory and guilt. 

Someone tells me welcome home and I say it’s good to be back. What I really want to say is, the word ‘home’ feels heavy, like it’s filled with water. This island is home. This is where the history of me was written. Where my name was given meaning and where I responded to that meaning. Where I am closer to water than to god. Where I first had my heart handed back to me in pieces. Where I first fell down then got up with gritted teeth. Where my fingers curled themselves around a pen and refused to let go without claw marks. Where I was told to talk less—who wants to hear about all of this anyway? Who wants to listen to you? God, are you listening? Can you hear me over salt and water? This is where I learned god does not cross waters for a daughter. 

An island is a place that teaches you limits: Water abundant, exits few. No matter the limits as long as my tears flowed unlimitedly—as long as salt met salt. And it’s not just the sea; the air on this island knows me. It mauls at my cheek and rakes through my hair, it presses against my chest the way it did five years ago—intimate and accusatory. I wonder if the air can tell how much time has passed. I wonder if the air knows my name by two or three syllables. 

And what is this taste in the air, this scent wafting from the sea? A vague mix of sentiments, to be sure; I try to decipher: Pride, regret, and longing. But which takes the lead? Which should I make decisions with? The sea does not answer and neither does god. All they do is call out every variation of my name I have ever responded to. 

I left a place that teaches you how to stay; islands are good at teaching you everything that leaves must come back changed or not at all. Who wants to hear about all this anyway? Who wanted you to leave in the first place? Who beckoned you home now? Sometimes all that matters is that I came back.

Daughter of the island. Daughter of my father. Never the daughter of an answering god.