Chapter Forty-Two
Berkeley
Marigold
Marigold was eighteen when she witnessed her mother disappear again.
It was April, Marigold’s favorite month.
The sky was bluer than a peacock’s neck, and the rain puddles that had gathered by the downspouts were finally drying up.
Tulips dappled the streets, green ivy sprawled over the fences, and Cal students bustled into Three Flowers for pastries to eat out in the parks.
Marigold had put on her luckiest red shirt, usually reserved for the first day of Chinese New Year, 14K gold-plated earrings, and since this was a special occasion, she donned her old silk gloves, too, taking comfort in the distant little giggle she heard when she tugged the fabric over her fingers. All good omens.
At half past four, the postman arrived. She dashed to the mailbox like it was Christmas Day and nimbly sorted the mail. A Sears catalog, a handful of bills, a flyer for the weekly sale at Longs’ Drugs. Two envelopes, one white and one pink.
The white one was from Stanford University.
Holding her breath, she tore it open.
Inside was a single sheet of paper. A bit slippery to grasp with her gloves, but she held on firmly, turning it right side up.
Dear Miss Yuen,
We regret that we are unable to offer you admission to Stanford University—
Thirteen words. One sentence. A dream shattered.
Marigold let go of the breath she’d been holding. Her heart sank. For a long while she couldn’t move.
Four long years of studying, of scraping for each measly point in class and striving for perfect grades. All for what? Rejection.
“Marigold?” Peony called to her from inside the bakery.
Marigold couldn’t speak. The envelope was crumpled in her hand, held low like a flag at half-mast.
Peony rushed out and hugged her. No words were needed.
Tears trickled down Marigold’s cheeks. She knew it was pathetic, being this emotional over a university, but she couldn’t help it.
Studying was the only thing she was good at, and she’d dedicated herself to the one dream she thought attainable: going to the best school and studying with the best professors.
Her life to this point had been a journey bracketed by two imaginary parentheses; Stanford was the destination.
How it hurt to find out she wasn’t worthy.
“It’s okay to cry,” whispered Peony. “You worked hard for this. Harder than anyone I know.”
Marigold leaned against the side of their house, the broad ivy leaves crinkling behind her back. “It wasn’t enough. I . . . wasn’t—”
“You’re more than enough. You just weren’t lucky this time around.” Her sister pried the rejection letter from her hand. “Just you wait, in four years they’ll come begging with a scholarship.”
“Med school’s even harder to get into than college.”
“Which will give them time to realize their mistake,” Peony said sagely. “You’re going to be the first person in our entire family to go to college. It doesn’t matter whether it’s at Stanford or Timbuktu, can I tell you how proud I am of you? So proud.”
Marigold felt her shoulders go soft. There was beauty in having someone believe in you the way Peony did. She did feel a tiny bit better.
“I haven’t gotten in anywhere else yet. If I don’t get a scholarship, who knows if I can—”
“Don’t.” Peony raised a shushing finger to her lips. “If you don’t get at least one full ride somewhere, I’ll get Paul to quit plumbing until we bake enough cakes to pay your tuition.”
“Paul, bake?” Marigold allowed a laugh. “I hope you have insurance.”
“Exactly.” Peony took her by the shoulders. “Come on, let’s get back inside.”
“Wait.” Marigold showed Peony the pink envelope. It was square and thin, addressed in slanted block letters to Ha Yut Ying.
The name their mother never used.
“Look at where it’s from.” Marigold pointed. “South Church in Guilin.”
She and Peony exchanged excited looks. “Do you think . . .”
“Has to be.”
Marigold wiped her tears. “It can’t be an all-bad-news day. Let’s go show Mom.”
When Three Flowers first opened, they had started with five pastries: bak tong gou—a fermented white sugar cake that was Philip’s favorite—pork and cabbage steamed buns, wife cakes, cocktail buns, and egg tarts.
The egg tarts were the most popular with customers, but the cabbage buns were Helen’s favorite.
“This is what I grew up eating in Tunglam,” she’d told her daughters. “Before the war, your po po would steam mantau every morning and stuff them with cabbage, sometimes minced pork and a boiled egg, too.”
“Will we ever get to meet her?” Rosie asked.
“I tried looking for her when you were little. It was impossible.”
“What about now?” said Peony. “President Nixon went to China, they say Mao is opening up to the West.”
Helen looked uncertain. “I don’t know . . .”
Peony persisted. “We’ll write to the Chinese consulate. We can get the address at the library.”
Marigold was quiet. Eight hundred million people lived in China, and the majority had no record of existence. The odds of locating a single woman were worse than finding a pearl in a clam. They needed to narrow it down.
“Why don’t we write to the churches?” she heard herself suggest.
Helen shook her head. “I’ve tried. The Red Guards destroyed all the ones near Tunglam.”
“Maybe Po Po moved farther away. Let me try.”
So she did, writing letters whenever she had a spare moment. Eight months later came a letter from South Church in Guilin.
Their mother was sitting in the bakery with two regulars—Aunty Yip and Aunt Florence, who were daring each other to get a perm.
Three Flowers had become a local hub for middle-aged and elderly Chinese: Uncle Ng in the corner reading an Old Master Q comic and cackling, his wife trying to set up her son with Rosie, and Aunty Yip and Aunt Florence bending Helen’s ear about how pretty they’d look with curls.
Helen saw the return address, and her eyes widened. “Mrs. Yip,” she said, her hands shaking. “You read it.”
Aunty Yip reached for a pair of scissors to cut open the envelope. Her Chinese was the best of anyone’s, and she wore a bright red smile as she scanned the letter.
“Helen, Helen!” she cried, her pitch rising. “They found her!”
Aunty Yip read the letter aloud, but Marigold listened with half an ear. A black-and-white photograph had slipped out of the envelope, falling onto the checkered floor.
She picked up the picture carefully, examining the fragile print.
It showed an elderly woman on a wooden bench.
Strings of gray hair clung to her cheeks, the rest tied into a loose bun.
The flesh on her face drooped soft, full of lumps and pleats; she bore little resemblance to Helen.
Yet she wore a faraway look that Marigold recognized.
“Mom,” Marigold said, tugging her mother’s sleeve. “Is this Po Po?”
Helen had been smiling. She still was when she looked down. “She’s old now.”
Then, as she reached for the photograph, her body went rigid and her hands shook. Marigold saw her skin glimmering like crystal facets under the sun, every pore catching the light.
“I’ll be right back,” Helen said, hurrying toward the back of the bakery.
Marigold followed her mother through the door into their home, pausing inside the vestibule leading to the kitchen.
The Yuens used it to store sacks of flour and sugar and an industrial-sized bucket of rice, but Marigold had always appreciated the space it provided between the bakery and the kitchen. It let her spy.
In the kitchen, Helen sagged against a tall cabinet, leaning her head back against the Chinese tear-off calendar. Her whole body was trembling—no, flickering.
No, no, no, she seemed to mouth. She hugged herself, rubbing the gold bracelet on her wrist, then she went to light the stovetop.
Click, Marigold heard the lighter switch on.
A small orange flame darted to life, but before Helen could ignite the burner, her arms disappeared, and in a blink, so went the rest of her.
Marigold burst into the kitchen.
There was no one there. The only sounds were the birds chirping outside, the honks of cars at the traffic light.
It had become cold in the kitchen. Marigold felt goosebumps, and a wave of nausea surged in her throat. She usually loved the smell of the kitchen, of the sponge cakes rising in the oven and the sweet, marinated char siu hanging from above the counter dripping oil into a bowl.
“Mom?” she cried. “Are you here?”
She opened the cupboards, she even looked in the fridge. The only thing she found was Helen’s gold bracelet, its hook clasp still pinched shut. As she picked it up, the gust of cold disappeared.
“No need to shout,” said Helen, standing in the doorway behind her. “Oh, you found my bracelet. I was looking for it.”
Marigold spun. Impossible! “How did you—” She bit her cheek. “I saw you vanish. You were in the kitchen, then you weren’t.”
“Yes, because I went outside.” Her mother struggled to put on her bracelet. “Help me with this.”
Marigold observed that Helen’s wrist was too thick for the chain to have fallen off on its own. A fact she wisely kept to herself. “I’ll have to open the clasp.”
“Careful of the charm. It gets loose.”
Marigold opened a cupboard drawer, taking out a pair of tweezers the bakery used for decorations.
The trickiest part was getting a good grip on the clasp, which kept snagging on her gloves.
With patience, she pried one end open, catching the charm on her palm as it slid off the hook.
It was an odd shape, almost like a freckled surfboard. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“A peanut. I think.”
Helen’s tone was quiet, almost tender, which surprised Marigold almost as much as the fact that she had actually answered.
“Did Po Po give it to you?” Marigold tried to sound cheerful. “You’ll be able to ask her soon.”
Helen shrugged and held out her arm. A sign she was done talking.
Marigold wrapped the bracelet around her mother’s wrist, tempted to take off her gloves and sneak a touch. Most objects only delivered a glimpse of the past, but Helen had worn this gold chain for years. It must be a trove of her memories.
Or not, she thought, recalling the last time she went delving into Helen’s past.
She reattached the charm to the hook, then gave it a final squeeze. “There. All done.”
“Thanks.” Helen rolled down her sleeve.
“You still look pale,” said Marigold. “You should drink some water—”
“I’m fine.” Helen’s nostrils flared. “No need to play doctor.”
Another time, Marigold might hold back from arguing, but she’d seen the pain on Helen’s face when she’d been struggling not to disappear. Her mother needed help.
“Mom, you can talk to me. Stop preten—”
“I am talking to you.” Helen ripped off today’s date from the tear-off calendar. “It’s Monday. Did you hear from Stanford?”
“Yes.” Marigold was startled that her mother had remembered.
“And?”
“And . . .” Marigold’s voice turned soft, vulnerable. She set down the tweezers. “They rejected me.”
A bar of silence followed, and deep in the secret trenches of her thoughts, Marigold dared imagine that Helen might reach out and pat her shoulder, that she’d offer a word or two of consolation, in that tender tone she’d taken when talking about her bracelet.
A muscle on her mother’s cheek twitched, and she folded today’s date in half, then half again. “I told you girls don’t become doctors,” she said with a sniff. “No need to make that face, Marigold, it’s the truth. Go, take the sponge cakes to the bakery. They’re done cooling.”
Marigold gritted her teeth. Any concern she’d borne for Helen evaporated as she picked up the still-warm tray.
She left the kitchen and didn’t look back.