Chapter Thirty-Two
thirty-two
AUGUST 1990
ADA lay in bed for most of the next day in shock. The phone kept ringing with condolences and requests from journalists. Edith made food only for it to sit out on the table.
She felt trapped. She wanted to leave the house, but she couldn’t drive and didn’t want to ask Lucille. Most of all she couldn’t bear her mother’s absence through all of this. She finally got up and went downstairs to the library.
Surprisingly, Mā was there. She looked up from her desk. “Bǎo bèi? What is it?”
Ada closed the door behind her. “I thought you were gone. Where were you?”
“Meeting with the lawyer.” Mā sighed. “Going over the proceedings. Dad didn’t have a will.”
Ada took stock of her mother’s appearance. She had lost weight over the last few months and her face had a gaunt weariness to it. “What does that mean?”
Mā shrugged. “Everything goes to us. It’s what he would have wanted.”
Ada nodded. She focused on the bookshelves with the titles she’d practically memorized. The collection of Yeats poems was missing. Her mother followed her gaze until they locked eyes.
“I reorganized the shelves a bit,” Mā said in Mandarin. “Actually, now that you’re here. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Ada stared at her.
“About what’s going on between you and Sophie, maybe?”
So that was why Sophie had ended things with her. Ada tried to formulate a response. She could say the notes were from her English class. She could deny it. Or she could plainly say the truth. What then? “How did you find out? Who told you?”
“Does it matter? I’m your mother. Of course I know. You should have told me a long time ago.”
Her mother looked strangely calm. Was she furious underneath? Upset that Ada had kept this from her? Ada couldn’t tell, and it terrified her.
Ada picked her words carefully. “What did you say to Sophie last night?”
Mā flinched. “ What? ”
“I saw her go up to your room. And afterward she told me she couldn’t see me anymore.” She took a deep breath. “Did you tell her to say that?”
“I didn’t.” Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Sophie ended things with you?”
Mā was pretending not to know. Ada was sure of that. “What did you tell her, then? We—” Her voice caught. “We care about each other.” And then, even quieter, she confessed, “I care about her. A lot.”
Mā watched her, and Ada fought the urge to hide.
“You should probably respect her decision, shouldn’t you?” Mā said. “I know what it’s like at your age. It’s easy to get swept up in your feelings. But you should be cautious about this. If Sophie came to her senses, then so should you.”
Came to her senses? “Mā,” Ada said slowly. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
Ada stiffened. She’d kept her feelings a secret all this time because she’d wanted to protect what she and Sophie had. She didn’t want to have to explain it to anyone. She’d thrilled at realizing that the things she’d only observed in the past between other couples at school—the electricity, the tension that passed between them with a look in the middle of class, or the murmured words between lockers—she felt all those things and more for Sophie. Being with her was the easiest, most natural thing Ada had ever done. Of course she knew the words other people around her would use to describe it, words they spat and hurled at each other, and it made her skin crawl. But did her mother think those things, too?
She’d heard her parents whisper about it in disparaging tones, how Dad’s co-star had been fired from a movie because he was seen with a man at an awards show after-party. And now Mā was finally looking at her just like she’d feared. Like something was wrong with her.
“Bǎo bèi, I am trying to be prudent. I want what’s best for you. You know that, right? She’s the housekeeper’s daughter. I know you’ll get some sense. We can forget this before anyone has to know.” Mā said this as though she thought Ada would be relieved.
Housekeeper’s daughter? Ada thought of what Sophie had told her. That they’d all grown up the same, gone to the same schools and lived in the same house. But she realized now that in Mā’s eyes, they would never be equals. That even if Mā was okay with her and Sophie being together, she’d always think of the Dengs as less than.
“You don’t know me, then,” Ada said. “At all.”
Mā’s expression turned cold. “I am a tolerant mother,” she said. “I could have thrown her out for this. Or sent her away. But I didn’t.” Mā stood up from the desk to face the bookshelves again. The conversation was over.
Ada paused at the foot of the stairs and looked up at the closed doors. Who could have told Mā? Lucille? But Lucille always came to Ada first. She and Mā always fought. And she’d been preoccupied at the party.
Which left Rennie.
It dawned on Ada. Of course it was her little sister. Ada remembered the night when she kissed Sophie’s cheek in the garden and had glanced up to see Rennie’s light wink on for just a moment. Rennie had been watching them.
Ada knocked on her door.
“Come in.” Rennie was sitting on the floor, looking up at the wall. She jumped up when Ada came in. “Do you think Mā would let me repaint my walls?”
Ada shut the door behind her. “Did you tell her?”
Rennie’s eyes widened. “What?”
“About me. And Sophie. Did you tell Mā about us?”
Rennie frowned. “No.” Ada knew she was lying. “Why? What’s going on with you and Sophie?”
“Come on, Rennie,” Ada snapped. “ Stop putting on this act. You saw us. You were spying on us.”
“What?”
“You saw us that night in the garden,” Ada insisted. “And you went straight to Mā.”
“I didn’t.” Rennie shook her head vehemently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Rennie!” Ada’s voice came out sharper than she’d meant.
Her sister’s bottom lip began to tremble. “Fine! I just couldn’t sleep,” Rennie said. “I wasn’t trying to watch you, swear. I just saw, and then you saw me watching you—”
“You always do this,” Ada accused. “You always go to Mā about everything. Even when we were kids.” Rennie would trail behind her and Lucille and Sophie, crying to Mā when they didn’t include her. “But this is different, Rennie. This isn’t your secret to tell. Do you know what would happen if everyone knew?” Her voice rose. “If people found out? You ruined everything between me and Sophie. I hope you’re happy.”
Ada didn’t want to stick around and hear Rennie try to talk her way out of this. She turned to find Lucille in the hallway.
She had heard everything.
Ada pushed past her twin sister and went to her room, but Lucille followed her. “What’s going on between you and Sophie?”
Ada used to tell Lucille everything. But she looked at her sister’s mocking, expectant expression and realized she was tired of it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What the hell? What is going on with you? Come on. Tell me. I should know.”
“Why?” Ada retorted. “Because you always think you deserve to be in my business? Because you want to control every part of my life?” She knew her words were sharp and she reveled in it. She’d never so much as raised her voice at Lucille. She heaved a breath. “Stop— pretending like you understand me.”
Lucille stood still. She opened her mouth, and then shut it. She heard Lucille slam the door behind her as she left.
SOPHIE had never again touched the dried purple flower from her nightstand. And yet she was still in pain. She’d been trying to sleep, but night after night she couldn’t stop thinking about Mr. Lowell. Did his heart seize? Did it happen suddenly or over the course of hours? He was alone in his hotel room. He didn’t call for help. Did that mean he was unconscious at that point?
His last moments consumed her. She kept dreaming about him dying over and over, in front of her. Falling to his knees. Thrashing on the floor. Froth bursting from his lips. Sophie would wake up tangled in her sheets and shivering as daylight came.
She knew that Vivian had gotten a lawyer because she saw his business card on her desk. The others thought he was Mr. Lowell’s, just informing her of the terms of his assets and inheritances. Which ā Yí got all of.
But Mr. Lowell’s family was closing in. The phone kept ringing. Her own mother answered it at one point and went to find Vivian.
“Tell her I can’t come to the phone right now,” ā Yí said.
“It’s his mother. She’s been asking for you this whole weekend.”
“I can’t. I need my own time to process. Tell her I’ll call her later.”
“Okay.” Her mother set down her dishrag. “I’m going to pick up Rennie.” She turned. “Girls, get ready for dinner.”
Sophie watched all this from the kitchen counter, where she was trying to force down leftover rice. She couldn’t eat. The grandfather clock ticked, and her heartbeat knocked erratically with it. She watched Vivian, but ā Yí didn’t even look at her. She couldn’t fathom the thought of this continuing. Tomorrow she would have to go back to work at the library. And then—?
Ada came into the kitchen, followed by Lucille. Sophie looked away and clutched her chopsticks tightly. She could feel Ada’s eyes on her. Sophie ducked her head and brushed past them. When she looked back, it wasn’t Ada staring at her, but Lucille.
Sophie shut herself in her room. Elaine had already gone back to San Francisco. She watched Bà out in the garden as the light fell. Her parents were so focused on taking care of Vivian’s daughters and making sure that the house was in order that Sophie slipped by, invisible to them. She had to stay that way, too; if they asked too many questions, she knew she would fold. About everything. She knew that. The pain pummeled her in waves, seizing her stomach. Her lips were numb and cold, but she was sweating. She went to the aspirin bottle and swallowed three more.
The phone rang again after dinner. This time Vivian went to get it. Sophie watched her stand over the phone while it rang. She picked up the receiver and let it fall. And then she went into the library.
Sophie followed her. ā Yí looked up when she entered. Sophie closed the door behind her. “What do they want?”
ā Yí’s voice was calm. “His mother wants an autopsy.”
“They’ll find out,” Sophie choked out in terror.
“Lower your voice,” Vivian said sharply. She sat and shifted her papers. “He’s not getting one.”
“Why not?”
“Because only the next of kin can authorize it. And I’m the next of kin.”
“You can’t—” Sophie balled her hands into fists. “She must already suspect something.”
“She shouldn’t. My husband died of an overdose. Everyone knows that. He was no stranger to that possibility. You mix sleeping pills and alcohol and you take that risk.”
“But they don’t believe you.”
Finally ā Yí looked up but said nothing.
“What if the police get involved? What if we get put on trial?”
Vivian slammed her palm against the table. “We won’t.” Sophie jumped. There was a dangerous look in the older woman’s eyes. Her hair was disheveled; her clothes hung off her too-thin frame. “You need to calm down. 醒一醒 .”
“ā Yí,” Sophie said. Her whole body was shivering now as tears fell down her cheeks. “Please.”
“ Stop crying . You can’t lose your mind.” Her voice dropped. “You put us all at risk.” Vivian straightened up. “Everything will be fine. Just do as I say.” She reached out and held Sophie by the shoulders. “We keep this to ourselves. All right?”
Sophie nodded. She swallowed. At the door, she swore she heard footsteps. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
But when Sophie opened the door, the foyer was empty.
That night she went for a walk in the garden. She stopped in front of the roses and looked down at their perfect blooms. Bà had clipped the tops where they’d grown too tall.
If only she hadn’t kissed Ada in the library, if only they’d stopped there, if only they’d never tried to—
She had seen that vision so clearly. She and Ada in a house of their own. In a garden of their own. A part of her still clung to the possibility and she hated herself for it. Her insides contracted in searing pain and her head spun. Sophie fell forward, her palms braced against the ground, and vomited into the dirt. She knelt there, her stomach heaving, as a final, horrible thought entered her mind.
Vomiting. Lips numb. She’d been feeling ill for days.
You can’t lose your mind. You put us all at risk.
What if—
Her pulse thudded wildly. She remembered Vivian’s cold eyes on her, judging her, but now Sophie realized Vivian had not been judging. She had been calculating.
Could Vivian be poisoning her, too? What if it was slow this time? Little by little, until Sophie dropped dead?
She would never , Sophie thought in a panic. She was paranoid. But she didn’t know what Vivian was capable of anymore. What if this was her way of making sure that Sophie could never testify? Could she make this look like another accident?
Sophie was the daughter of a gardener and a housekeeper. Her name would disappear and no one would care. Vivian would explain it away to her parents. After all, hadn’t they been in debt to her their whole lives? Hadn’t Vivian shown them nothing but kindness?
The clouds above her started to swirl. Sophie clutched her stomach and staggered forward. There was only one way out. She had to escape. Now.