Chapter Forty
San Francisco
Helen
“Wake up.” I shook Philip. “Something’s wrong with Marigold.”
I was sitting on the bed holding our second daughter in my arms. Throughout the night, a hoarse barking sound had grated out of her lungs. Her lips were blue like a bruise, and whenever she coughed, her stomach turned stone hard. I wrapped her in quilts. Still she shivered. Her pulse galloped.
Philip stroked my cheek. “If she’s not better in the morning, we’ll take her to the doctor.”
He didn’t know the girls like I did. Rosie would stub her toe then wail for hours, Peony sobbed in my arms whenever she scraped her knees, whereas Marigold—a bee had stung her on the knuckle once and she didn’t tell me until a week later.
Even at four years old, she held in her pain. She was like me in that way.
While Philip slept, I was trying hard not to cry. Since having my three daughters, I hadn’t turned invisible once. I had sworn not to. My curse had quieted, the demon inside me gone dormant. I’d dared hope that meant my family and I were safe.
What a fool I was.
As I held Marigold, patting a wet compress over her forehead, tiny stabs of cold knifed up my bare skin. No, no, no. Once I saw the outline of my arms flickering, I dropped Marigold onto the bed.
It had been years since I last disappeared, yet I remembered my curse’s every cue.
My daughter stirred, looking for me in her sleep.
I didn’t go to her. If I picked her up, she might fall through my arms—or worse yet, go into the darkness with me.
I backed away, shivering, and desperately reached into my closet for a coat, a sweater, anything to get warm—but my fingers sifted straight through the garments, unable to grasp them.
How was this happening? I hadn’t held my breath. . . . Why was I starting to disappear?
I breathed in deeply, then out. No use. Under the moonlight, my skin had gone diaphanous, like rice paper in water.
“Mama?” Marigold whimpered. She crawled off the bed and reached out in the dark. “W-Where are you?”
Stay where you are, I wanted to say. It wants me, not you.
I kept still so as not to frighten her, but my daughter swayed deliriously, somehow finding my hand, her moist little fingers wrapping around my thumb. “Mama. Come back.”
Three words, armed with the feverish heat of her touch, and the cold slipped away like a broken spell. My body shuddered whole, and I scooped my daughter into my arms and under the blankets, trembling with her.
Marigold gave my hand a weak squeeze. “I dreamt . . . I dreamt that you left.”
“I’m here,” I whispered, still shaking. I’m not going anywhere, I wanted to add, but I feared that would be a lie.
Tonight my demon had returned, marking the end of my curse’s remission. What it wanted was yet to be seen, but of this I was sure: It was stronger than before—and hungrier.
On the wall, I saw my daughter’s shadow, stark against the empty place where mine should have been. I gathered her to my chest, singing to calm us both.
There are two hwamei in the tree,
Singing their sweetest song
For at last, the rain is lifting,
Chattering into the sea.
Heat swelled in the back of my eyes. This was the song I used to sing for Lily when she had trouble sleeping, and I only sang it now for Marigold. How much my daughter was beginning to resemble my sister. Their brows even bore the same pinch when they were in pain.
I smoothed it away with my thumb, wrestling with the weight that had arrived in my heart. I hadn’t been able to protect Lily, but I swore no force in this universe would take my child from me.
I love you, I thought, kissing Marigold on the cheek.
Then I picked up the phone and dialed the hospital.
It was pneumonia, Dr. Fung said, and it was a good thing I’d brought her in before the infection spread to her bloodstream.
“She’s not allergic to penicillin,” he reassured me. “She’ll be all right. She’ll recover.”
I blew a long exhale. “What can I do?”
“You need to take care that she doesn’t get sick. Her lungs are weak, so she’s more susceptible to catching bronchitis, and if she gets pneumonia again it’ll be hard for her to recover. Keep her away from cold air. I’ll give you a list of foods for her to avoid, too.”
From then on, I kept Marigold inside. It wasn’t easy. When I wasn’t looking, she’d try to sneak out the door to the market below our apartment.
“I want to leave San Francisco,” I told Philip later that month. “The cold air’s making Marigold sick.”
“We can’t leave. My job is here. The Association, our friends.”
“Your gambling partners?”
Philip flinched. “Marigold loves it here. Look at how happy she is.”
We were at Portsmouth Square. Peony and Rosie were chasing pigeons, and Marigold was trying to climb a tree.
“Careful!” I cried, grabbing Marigold by the shoulders. “You’ll fall.”
“Sorry, Mama.” Marigold wriggled out of my hold. Barely a second later, she was clambering up a different tree.
“Let her play,” Philip said. “You can’t lock her up in the house all day long.”
“Yes I can.”
“She’ll start school soon. Are you going to keep her from that, too?”
I was unmoved. “She’ll come home straight after.”
“Why not put her on a leash while you’re at it?”
“It might be good for her.” I paused to whet my tone. “It’d certainly be good for you.”
Philip’s expression soured. “It’s time to go home,” he said, calling for the girls. Marigold had heard him stand up for her, and she immediately took his hand rather than mine. Led by Philip, the pair walked ahead without waiting, and I pretended not to care.
San Francisco had been good to us in many ways, but it had its demons.
For one, Philip had started gambling again.
Innocuously at first, to make friends in the Association.
I’d even gone with him a few times. Though his losses were only a few dollars, each time he went he stayed out longer. I worried.
I knew the power of addiction. It had almost broken me.
I wouldn’t let it break my family.