Chapter Thirty-Three
The weekend of the Fourth of July, I was frying shrimp lo mein for the only two customers in the restaurant. Business was slow since most people were barbequing in their backyards, so I worked in the kitchen while Philip and Francis hauled rice sacks into the storeroom.
It was blisteringly hot, and I was feeling faint.
I held my breath, welcoming a brief interlude of cold before I let it go.
After finishing this order of noodles, I would go to the front and sit next to the fan.
Lately my legs ached after standing too long, and I rested one knee atop a stool for the scantest relief.
Philip and I had been married for over a year, and we’d started trying for a baby.
It’d been five weeks since I missed my last cycle, and the certainty that I was pregnant consumed me.
Last night I’d hinted about the possibility to Philip, and I’d never forget how the weariness of his day instantly washed away from his face, replaced by a joy that I’d never seen there before. A joy that I felt, too.
A child. A reason to fight and stay in this world.
The noodles were done. I tilted the wok to give them one last singe over the fire—something I’d done a thousand times.
Then I lifted the wok. I was weak from the heat, and as I wrapped both hands over the handle, I accidentally grazed my forearm over the blazing cast iron.
I jumped with a cry of pain. Without thinking, I held my breath, and the shimmering cold swept over me.
I disappeared.
I don’t know how long I was gone, but when I returned, the wok was on the floor, the noodles still sizzling on the ceramic tiles.
Damn it, I cursed, reaching for a broom to clean up the mess. I’d have to tell the customers that their order was running late.
I didn’t make it out of the kitchen. Three steps from the door, a cramp pierced inside my gut.
It knocked the breath out of me and next thing I knew, the world slid sideways from under my feet.
The broom dropped from my hand, thumping onto the floor as I bowled over, holding in a scream.
There came a warm gush into my underwear.
I froze, paralyzed by shock. I knew it was blood, I could feel it was blood, passing out of me in a slow mournful trickle. Yet I refused to believe it.
I sat there, enduring the pain alone and holding my stomach, as if I could will the baby back inside me—and keep it from spiriting away.
The customers grew impatient. They were looking for their noodles, then they were demanding their noodles. I could hear them, but I didn’t really hear them.
I’m sorry, I thought, cradling my arms and crying over the baby I would never hold.
“My sweet hwamei in the tree,” I whispered, my voice breaking.
“Fly up to heaven now. Find your aunt. She will take care of you until I can be with you.” I sobbed, thinking of Lily and my baby with their unsung dreams. “If you don’t want to wait, that’s all right, too.
Come back to this world in a better life, a happier life. Mama will never forget you.”
That was how Philip and Francis found me, hugging my knees, my sandals coated in a veneer of blood. The noodles had gone limp on the floor.
Francis knelt by my side. “What happened?”
“I’ll take care of her,” said my husband quietly.
He took the day off and drove me home. All he asked was if I wanted to go to the hospital, and when I said no, he didn’t argue. After a long silence, he asked, “Are you all right?”
I turned to the window, holding my breath. Within a minute, I could see the car door through my skin. Philip didn’t notice. If I kept disappearing little by little, how long would it take for him to realize that I was gone?
I’m not all right, I thought miserably. I wish I’d never married you, I wish I’d stayed with my mother in Tunglam. I wish I could disappear forever.
Philip turned on the radio. An English song crackled out of the speaker, a velvety male voice crooning about love and the moon. Jazz, Philip called it. My ear ached the whole ride home, but for once I didn’t mind. It took my mind off the pain in my heart.
When we arrived home, Philip sat me on the sofa, switched on the fan, and brought a cup of ice water.
My hand was limp when I took it. “It’s my fault,” I whispered.
“It’s not,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked you to cook. It’s my fault.”
I closed my mouth, tears catching on the corner of my lips. He wouldn’t understand.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
A sob wracked out of my chest. What I wanted more than anything was my mother, but who knew if I’d ever see her again? Sai Ma’s promise that I’d never find Mama haunted me even in my dreams. I wept until I fell asleep.
On Monday, Philip had to go back to work, but Francis stayed home to keep me company.
It was during this time I got to know my brother-in-law better.
He distracted me with games of gin rummy and taught me to play fantan.
I hadn’t eaten in over a day. I couldn’t, I was so glum—but Francis had a box of Hershey’s Kisses.
“For gambling with,” he explained. “You don’t have to eat any if you don’t want.”
After a few rounds, he coaxed me into a bite. Then another, and another. By evening our rug was speckled with crumpled wrappers, the silver foil catching the light and shining like stars.
“I’ll tell you a secret, little sister,” Francis said, halfway through the bag, “something even my brother doesn’t know.”
“What?”
“The day before I was supposed to leave for Hong Kong, I ate some bad shrimps.” He wore a slightly morose, slightly purposeful smile. “Marrying some girl I’d never met . . . that wasn’t for me.”
“You mean, you made yourself sick?”
He shrugged. “Better for Philip to go. I couldn’t leave Fortune’s Palace to him for two whole months. You know he makes better bread than rice—we’d have lost all our regulars.” His smile wavered. “Besides, Philip’s used to being a husband. He’s not good at being lonely.”
“Is anyone?” I asked softly.
“I don’t mind it.”
There was a wistfulness in Francis’s tone that surprised me and made me wonder whether, like me, he harbored a secret heartache.
“I’m glad Philip found you,” Francis said then. “You’re not as dour as I thought, aside from not liking music.”
“It’s not your playing.” I rubbed my ear, a habit I’d developed. “I had an accident when I was younger. Certain pitches make this ear hurt.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“It’s my trouble, not yours.”
Two guilty lines bracketed his mouth. He let out an exhale. “Here.” He scooped a handful of Hershey Kisses onto my palm. “Keep some in your pocket. Pain’s less bitter if you have something sweet to eat.”
That made me smile. “Thank you.”
“One thing about America, our chocolates are good. Better than Hong Kong’s, right?”
“I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t afford any.”
“I thought you came from a rich family.”
I hugged my knees to my chest, the ache of melancholy rising again. “Just because they were rich doesn’t mean they were kind. Especially not to me.”
Francis pursed his lips. “It’s a good thing you have a new family now,” he said at last. He touched my cheek. “After tonight, I’m not just your brother-in-law, I’m your brother.”
A rush of emotion swelled in my throat. I released my knees.
“Better?” he said quietly. He’d been tending to my moods all day. He knew there was still a fracture in my spirit, one that no amount of chocolates or rounds of gin rummy could heal.
“Francis,” I said, drawing a ragged breath. My voice sank into a whisper, “What if I can’t have children?”
My brother-in-law sat by my side. “You’re young and healthy. Why wouldn’t you be able to have children?”
“Because . . .” I swallowed, not knowing how to explain without telling him my secret. “I don’t even have a shadow.”
Francis stroked his forehead. He couldn’t tell whether I was being serious or not. “Your shadow’s right there.” He pointed to the wall.
I squinted, but still there was nothing. “You really see it?”
“Of course I do,” Francis said. “Shadows don’t run away. They only disappear in the dark.” He grabbed a flashlight and cast light opposite us on the wall. “See? Yours and mine.”
Was this also part of my curse—to be alone in seeing that a part of me was missing?
Of all the things to give up, a shadow had seemed immaterial, hardly critical to life or happiness.
Yet its absence had cast my body adrift.
Since losing it, I could never feel thoroughly anchored in my own skin.
I always felt like something was lost, throwing off the fragile clockwork that made me tick. But who would believe that?
“I see it,” I lied.
Francis switched off the flashlight. “Cheer up. Philip will be home soon with leftovers from the restaurant. I’ll make you ngau lam tomorrow.”
“With rice noodles?”
“A week’s worth,” he promised. “You need your strength, make sure you finish every bite.”
He really was my brother, the dai gor I had wished for. “I will.”
That night, while I lay in bed beside Philip—and the guilt and the pain in my heart were too much to bear, I let it hurt. I let Philip wake up and hold me. I let myself cry.
It was too late for me, I knew. A part of me was broken, and I couldn’t escape my curse. But no matter what I had to endure, never again would I try to vanish. Never again would I choose to become nothing.
To the gods and spirits and the ancestral mothers who had come before me, I prayed this would be enough to stave off the demons, to starve them and let them die.
Most fervently I prayed for this last part, that the torturous cycle that had aggrieved my mother’s life and her mother’s and hers—would end with me.
Should I have a daughter one day, let her be free.