A choir concert like how us kids had in elementary, he asks. I tell him yes. I say I'll record it and show him.

Yes, he said. Record it so you'll have a souvenir.

But here we are. Sitting in silence, as he munches on the red grapes I brought for him. He tells me if I'm busy, that I can go. I tell him C has a choir concert later. It's not till evening so I'll stay with him till then. It's almost always my other siblings here with him anyway. Do my time.

And simply just me knowing I've disappointed him countless times. Me still feeling like I could never prove myself to him. Wild. A full grown, capable woman and still feeling it all. Generational trauma at play.

Maybe a lot of it is me. Kid me wishing I was born a boy because even at a young age I knew he wanted sons. Teen me constantly angry at all the unfair expectations and limits because I was born a daughter.

He and I, we're not the closest. A lot of it is the Asian in both of us, I suppose. How do you comfort a man who he himself never knew how to comfort because that was how he grew up, then ingrained in you that emotion is hidden.