Chapter Thirty-Five
Kansas City
Helen
In the months following my miscarriage, tension brewed between Philip and Francis. Whenever I tried to ask about it, neither would say a word. I didn’t pry. Two brothers living and working under the same roof, with me between them, were bound to have disagreements.
Then one night they came home bellowing.
I’d never seen Philip so irate. His eyes were red and he had his hand over his nose, a stream of blood catching on the fold of his lip. I assumed he was drunk until I realized—
“Francis punched you!” I turned on my brother-in-law, who threw his arms in the air.
“Ask him what he did tonight. Then tell me I shouldn’t have fucking hit him.”
“Don’t swear at my wife.”
“Hey!” I wedged myself between the brothers. “Both of you, enough!”
“Don’t you listen to him,” Philip growled. “I could’ve won! Everything is gone thanks to this bastard.”
Francis flexed his hand, wincing. The purple bruises on his knuckles bloomed like ugly violets on each finger. “That’s not how it went.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Francis was reaching into the refrigerator and grimaced when he saw we had no ice.
“We went to see Sam Bou for our paychecks, but the bastard was playing sic bo with Old Fok Hong. You know your husband, he can never resist a game of dice.” Francis slapped the fridge shut and the walls shook.
“Sam Bou said if we won, he’d give us back double. But if we lost . . .”
“I only played three games,” said Philip.
“Three?” Francis turned to me with a snicker. “The problem with your husband is once he has a bite of luck, he thinks he’s the god of gambling. One good hand, and he can’t stop.”
“I was on a streak, I was going to stop. Francis was the one who told me to keep going.”
“Bullshit,” barked Francis. “You kept saying you were going to make back what you lost.”
“I did—until you bet it away.”
I didn’t know whom to believe: my hotheaded brother-in-law or my bullheaded husband. How had I tied my fortunes to these two wastrels? I closed my eyes, reminding myself to breathe. “How much did you lose?”
“We lost our stake in Fortune’s Palace,” said Philip. “And—” He named a number.
I felt the strength drain out of me, which was a shame because I badly wanted to slap my husband—and his brother—in the face.
“Get out,” I seethed. “Both of you.”
Francis obeyed, slipping out the door without a word. Philip, however, stayed.
“Helen,” he started.
“Months and months of work,” I said through my teeth, my anger snowballing with each word. “All that money we were saving, all gone! Gone!”
“Listen—”
“Look at where we live.” I waved at our shabby home.
One leg of our sofa had collapsed and we couldn’t afford a new one, our plates and bowls were chipped, and the threads on our bedsheets kept fraying despite my attempts to mend them.
“I’ve heard it before, you promise you’ll quit.
Don’t bother lying to me tonight. Get out. ”
Philip’s face folded. “Wait, Helen—” He caught my arm. “I was wrong. I know I did wrong. I can fix it.”
“Fix it? This is what Sam Bou wanted. You lost everything.”
“Not everything. We still have enough—to start over.”
He got my attention. “Start over, how?”
“I’ve been thinking.” He drew a nervous breath. “You’re not happy here and neither am I. This isn’t a place to raise children. Let’s leave Kansas City.”
My arms fell to my sides. Was he serious? He looked serious.
I’d endured two long winters and a miscarriage.
On the nights when Philip stayed out late gambling, I planted myself in front of the radio so I wouldn’t feel alone.
When music hurt my ears I listened to the news, only to grow frustrated by how little English I understood.
More times than I could count, I shut myself in the shower and cried.
“Where would we go?” I asked.
“People are moving to New York and California. I wanted to go there after the war. There were more Chinese there, more jobs for us.”
“Then why’d you come here?”
“Sam Bou said there was more opportunity in the middle of the country. Kansas City only had five hundred Chinese—it was cheaper to start a restaurant here, fewer competitors.”
“So you followed him.”
“It was good for a while. You saw how well we were doing.”
Yes, but now all the Chinese were heading for the coasts.
Several of our friends had left already.
It’s getting too hard to live here, they’d said.
These Americans are cunning. They’re wary of us for taking away their jobs, so they call us Communists to make our lives difficult.
I spend sixteen hours a day doing other people’s laundry, tell me how I have time to be a spy!
Even Sam Bou had started hanging an American flag in front of the door to show where our loyalties stood.
“A new place won’t change anything. We’ll just be more in debt.”
“It’ll change me,” Philip said. He sat on the bed, a beseeching look in his eyes. “I’d make a clean break from Sam Bou. We could have our own home, our own business, too, once we save enough. We could start a family.”
It was like he’d read my mind. More than anything, I wanted to start over. I wanted a place I looked forward to coming back to every day, a husband I looked forward to sleeping beside every night.
“What about Francis?” I asked. The thought of the two brothers separating didn’t sit well with me.
“He doesn’t want to go.”
“But—”
“Don’t waste your breath. He won’t leave Fortune’s Palace. This is you and me, Helen. Do you want to go or not?”
“Yes.” I sighed. Knowing the way Philip and Francis quarreled, it’d be weeks before they spoke to each other again. “New York or California?”
“Well.” Philip nodded. “California doesn’t have snow.”
That was all I needed to hear. I clasped my hands. “California it is.”