我们留下来，他离开了

My father moved back to China when I was sixteen and my younger brother was eleven. Before that, the four of us had spent two short years together in Canada. He tried to adapt—tried applying for night shifts stocking shelves at the supermarket, tried running errands for people in Chinatown, even tried washing dishes in a few restaurants. But a man who had once managed dozens of employees back home ultimately lost to the barrier that read: “Fluent English Required.”

What was hardest for him to accept was my mother’s “stability.”
She had no prestigious degree and spoke only limited English, but she worked as a kitchen helper in a local Chinese restaurant. It was exhausting work, yet she never missed a day. She chopped vegetables, washed dishes, prepped meat—without complaint. She always believed: “As long as the kids get to stay and study here, it’s all worth it.”

But my father didn’t see it that way. Back in China, he had been a company manager—perhaps even a shareholder—confident in his familiar environment. Now, in a foreign land, he could only rely on friends to introduce him to temporary jobs. He was bitter. He was stifled. He often stood silently on the balcony after dinner, smoking. When my mother told him to cut back, he said nothing. Slowly, their conversations dwindled. Their arguments, however, escalated.

The fights were always the same:

—“Easy for you to say. I gave up a good job in China to come here. What, just so you could wash dishes?”
—“Then go back! You think I want to wash dishes? At least I didn’t leave the family behind!”

But the root of their conflict wasn’t about who washed dishes. It was the unspoken resentment neither could articulate: Who was really sacrificing more for this family? Who was more ‘worthy’ of staying?

They fought often over whether to buy a house in Canada.
My father argued that land here was expensive and said we should take the money back to China—invest, buy property.
My mother insisted we’d eventually need a home here since the kids were going to grow up and study here.

There were no resolutions—only arguments, swelling like waves, relentless and unending.

I often stood at the edge of the dining room, like a ghost.
My brother would hide in his room, headphones blasting music.
And I? I clung desperately to my mother’s side—helping her wash dishes, writing notes for her, translating doctor appointments over the phone. I tried to hold the family together, to become a bridge between their fraying emotions.

I knew I was too small to span the river growing between them.
But I thought—if I acted mature enough, tried hard enough, maybe I could ease their burden. Maybe they wouldn’t fall apart so quickly.

I memorized every term on the utility bills in English.
I secretly researched housing prices near school.
I even drew out the Canadian home-buying process on paper, hoping one day, when the arguing wore them out, they might stop and see—settling here wasn’t meaningless.

But that night, the inevitable finally arrived.

I saw my father sitting under the kitchen light, flipping through the electricity bill. His finger stopped at the line that said “overdue.” His gaze grew distant. After a long silence, he looked up at us and said quietly,
“I’m going back. I don’t belong in this world.”

I looked at him, then at my mother. I was terrified. I wanted to stop him, to change something.
I reached out and held his hand tightly, as if just by not letting go, I could undo what was already decided.

I had a thousand things I wanted to say, but nothing came out.
I stared at my mother’s face—calm, unreadable.
The air between us filled with something unspeakable.
They had probably known this would happen all along.

My little brother had been eavesdropping from the stairs.
When our father went into his room to pack, my brother ran to me and whispered:
“Is Dad leaving us for good?”

I froze. I didn’t know how to answer.
He was only eleven—but he already knew how to swallow his tears.

On the day our father left, my brother didn’t cry—not a single tear.
But on the way home from the airport, he turned his back to me and said softly:
“I’m going to make a lot of money when I grow up—so Dad will come back.”

But he never mentioned it again.
He never asked how Dad was doing.
It was as if he had locked that night away, along with the wind from the airport, deep in a place no one could reach.

We never spoke of that night again. But sometimes, in the quiet hum of the heater or the rustle of bills on the kitchen counter, I wonder if the wind from the airport ever truly left us.