By the time we were all munching Currywurst
and fire-grilled Thüringer
at Bratwurst Glöckle in Göttingen,
we had left Porto,
found a house in France,
slurped Phở steaming hot in Tours.
One month still to go before our move-in date,
I said to him:
“Let’s go to Germany,
for admin,
for doctors,
for your father,
for your aunt and uncle,
for Inge.”
We left the small car in France
and headed north,
him,
three daughters,
two dogs,
two cats,
sardined into a replacement car,
him on the phone and online,
booking appointments within an impossible window:
Dentistry
Gynaecology
Orthopaedics
Endocrinology
Paediatrics
Oncology
Ophthalmology
Dermatology
ENT
I booked his family,
for lunch,
for dinners,
for coffee and cakes,
like a good wife,
like Lai Yin.
It’s around the Gänseliesel that everything happens.
My first time meeting his family.
Him buying me walking boots
for my Eurorail journey,
to Paris,
to Venice,
to Sevilla.
Christmas markets,
upset stomachs after creamed mushrooms.
Coffee,
cakes,
ice cream with our babies and his family,
our first baby still in nappies,
lying down in the middle of the Markt,
forehead burning, "Dada, I am sick.”
The day after occupying our Airbnb,
Petra, my first baby, found work to pay for her next trip
to Austria,
to her boyfriend,
to her first love.
She cleaned Airbnbs,
scrubbed at the village butcher,
filmed promo shorts.
By the time we got to the gynaecologist,
we’d been to
the GP,
the dentist,
ordered my first pair of glasses,
eaten ngau lo mein (牛撈麵) and aap chow faan (鴨炒飯) with authentic wok hei at the Chinese restaurant across the street from Mister Spex.
Me.
My youngest, now eight.
Petra, my first, already active at sixteen.
My middle one,
in the car with the dogs, waiting her turn.
Him shuffling three clipboards,
filling out medical histories for
three of his women.