Father and son

I’m slow, so slow, it’s taken me 29 years to notice how alike my brother and father are. On the morning Fei was 29 years and a handful of minutes old we three were heading towards breakfast and I was at the tail end. From the front they had never looked alike. (I look more like Pa: I have his pale skin. We are also honest-to-goodness exaggerators: not good enough not to exaggerate but too honest to lie.) But from the back, I noticed for the first time, they had the same skinny arms, which they swung, when they strolled, at the same angle – like the pendulums of two clocks striking the same time.

They talked their men’s talk, of tax, tax, tax, which went over my head. Which was okay. I was happy to watch them and wonder: Nature, nurture, how does it all work? Thirty years apart, without always getting along, they made the same calculations and came to the same decision: of working on a degree in accountancy while keeping the day job. As far as I know, Fei didn’t talk to Pa about it; he just went for it, with a vengeance I could never have worked up. He hits the gym with the same vengeance…Pa’s vengeance.

Weeks ago his girlfriend was in Tokyo. She came home with clothes for us all and all the clothes (sweaters for Pa and Ma, slacks for me and shirts for Fei and Bak) were a perfect fit. Fei has always been a charmer who turns it on for his nearest and dearest – and girls – and of all the girls he could have charmed and brought home, he has chosen a girl who has gone and bought us all clothes. As I slipped into my new black velvety slacks, which were a better fit than a similar pair I bought myself, it struck me: She reminds me of my mother.