Chapter Fifty-Eight
Yut Ying
We took a taxi to a pier overlooking Victoria Harbour. It was Marigold’s idea, and she wouldn’t explain. She only said there was something she wanted to show me.
We walked past the ferry terminal, past the vendors selling steamed peanuts and the boat rental stalls. My balance was still shaky, but whenever I glanced down at my feet and saw my shadow, slowly gaining substance—as I was—my confidence grew.
A few minutes after we arrived, it started drizzling.
Soft white mist curled over the sea, shimmering in a way that, for the second time in my life, arrested me.
I stopped to marvel. Here was a different port and a different time, yet the waters were the same.
And somehow I sensed that, like me, they remembered.
I ambled along the guardrail, watching the waves lap against the pier posts.
In the distance scudded the Star Ferry, cruising past clusters of fishing boats and sampans.
The air was fishier than before, the hills around us shorter—or maybe it was simply the skyline that was taller.
All gray and white like a crowded field of mushrooms, not so different from San Francisco.
Back in my day, there were no promenades of potted palm trees and yellow waste receptacles all in a neat line, no children twirling ruffled sun umbrellas or tourists taking pictures with their disposable cameras.
Yet if I closed my eyes, I became that na?ve little eleven-year-old waiting for her Baba to pick her up, so fresh from the countryside I could still taste the sweetness of Mama’s cabbage on my tongue.
“What did you want to show me?” I asked Marigold once we left the crowds behind.
She’d been quiet this whole time, almost serene but for that familiar pinch in her brow. She rolled up her sleeve, and my bracelet slipped down her wrist.
“Keep it,” I said before she could speak. “Your po po gave it to me when I left for Hong Kong. I should have given it to you long ago.”
Marigold almost smiled. “Neither of us is going to keep it.”
“What?”
“Did you know that carp have thirty-three vertebrae, same as a human?” she asked. “That’s how many links there are.”
I knew how many links the bracelet had. I’d counted them a thousand times. “What does that mean?”
My daughter cupped her fingers over the bracelet, half closing her eyes.
“A hundred years ago, there was a girl like Yeh Shen. I don’t know her name, but people called her Pockface for the red birthmark on her cheek.
Her family was poor, her early childhood spent toiling barefoot in the rice paddies.
Because of her face she was deemed unmarriageable and worthless, so when she was six years old, her mother began binding Pockface’s feet—breaking her young toes and bending them down against her sole, for the only way for an ugly girl to marry well was to cultivate tiny feet that curved like lotus petals.
Her mother was determined for the girl to lift the family out of poverty.
‘If not, you will live a miserable life like me,’ said the mother.
“Poor Pockface suffered terribly. One day she hobbled to the stream, undoing her bandages and dipping her feet into the water for a moment’s scant relief.
There she met a fish that gleamed like gold, and took solace in its silent company.
She visited it often, feeding it grains of rice from her own sparse bowl.
Together, Pockface and the fish grew up.
“When Pockface came of marriageable age, an old magistrate was looking for a concubine. Her mother seized the opportunity. She’d heard stories from her daughter about the golden fish in the stream, and decided that to provide a dowry, she would kill it.
One day, she put on Pockface’s jacket and pretended to be her daughter.
When the golden fish came swimming into view, she speared it in the belly, delighted to find that both its spine and its scales were made of solid gold.
She told Pockface to weave its golden scales into a veil to cover her face, and she kept the bones for herself.
Devastated, Pockface wept bitterly about her fate.
That night, she prayed to her friend for forgiveness and dreamt the fish told her to run away.
“ ‘I can barely walk,’ she cried. ‘How will I run away?’
“ ‘Sew my scales into slippers, not a veil, and line the soles with my spine for protection.’ The fish paused. ‘You will run swiftly and without pain. But heed my warning—as soon as you are safe, you must return my body to the water. If you do not, I will think you’ve become just as wicked as your mother. Do you promise?’
“Pockface promised, and to her astonishment, what the fish said was true. With the help of the golden slippers, she was able to walk, to run! She fled north and reached a town outside of Peking, where she married a goldsmith. For the first time, her life was happy.
“The following year, she went to the river more than once, intent on keeping her promise to the fish. Each time, she hesitated. My friend must be a divine spirit from heaven, she told herself. If I return his body to the water, my fortunes could all wash away, too. My feet will hurt again when I walk. Surely my friend wouldn’t mind if I held on to his bones just a mite longer.
He knows I’m nothing like my mother. More convinced by the day, she asked her husband to weld the fish’s golden spine into a bracelet she could wear.
“Years passed. Pockface had children of her own and her family became prosperous. Then she began to dream of her fish, who begged to be returned to the water so it could go to heaven. Plagued by these nightmares, she finally took the slippers to the river. She tossed one into the water, but she couldn’t bear to let go of the other.
One should appease the fish, she thought.
She returned home and asked her husband to turn the remaining slipper into a charm for her bracelet. After that, she thought no more of it.
“A month later, her husband was lost to sea, and that winter took away Pockface’s two oldest sons.
Heartbroken, she fell gravely ill. Before she died, she called for her daughter, who had an exceptional memory, and instructed her to return the bracelet to the river.
But Pockface was too ashamed to tell the story of her broken promise, so the girl remained ignorant of the bracelet’s true origins.
When it came time, she couldn’t bear to throw away her mother’s most prized possession.
She kept it for herself, thinking she was honoring her. ”
Marigold returned the bracelet to me. “And so began our family’s curse.”
I draped the golden chain over my hand, studying its forked links as they rested on the lines of my palm. They did look like fish bones.
And the charm? For so long, I’d thought it was a lucky peanut. Now I couldn’t unsee that the tiny freckles on the gold were fish scales, the oblong shape clearly a slipper. Chinese people never gave shoes as gifts—it meant to wish someone a rough and unlucky life.
“A fishbone Cinderella.” I couldn’t help laughing; the irony was too much. “To think, my mother gave me this bracelet believing it might protect me from our curse.”
“She didn’t know,” replied Marigold. “But now we do. We can fulfill the promise that our ancestors never did.”
“I was wondering why you wanted to come to the harbor.” I beheld my daughter in quiet wonderment. “Can it be as easy as that?”
“Sometimes the hardest things are the easiest.”
It had stopped drizzling, and as the clouds began their exodus, Marigold closed the distance between us with one step. She blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Ready?”
I drew back a step. “Wait.”
“What’s the matter?”
I didn’t know how to broach it, so I started with something else first. “I was thinking of the first time I heard the story of Yeh Shen. I’d just lost this charm.
” I touched the dangling slipper, my mouth bittersweet with the taste of fate.
“A friend found it. Somehow he got to telling me the story.”
“Was your friend Tommy Yeung, the chairman of Peaksoy?”
It shouldn’t have surprised me that she knew. “He was a boy when I met him.”
“You were in love with him.”
“Yes,” I said. “Until he married someone else.”
I tried to hide it, but still came the quiet crack in my voice. Even after so many years, I couldn’t think about Tommy without bitterness.
“He divorced her after two years,” Marigold revealed. “The reason he spearheaded that big campaign looking for you was because . . .”
“Because he still loved me?” I said. I held in a sigh. “Even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have changed anything. I was married. I had a child. I wouldn’t leave for someone who’d broken my heart before.”
Wind from the sea tousled Marigold’s hair. This daughter of mine was no stranger to heartbreak. I was to blame for that, yet still she tried to comfort me.
She said, seriously, “Do you ever wonder what might have been?”
I gave myself away by flinching. “Sometimes.”
“You could see him. We’re in Hong Kong—”
To that, I gave a vigorous shake of my head. “Your father and I might not have had the happiest of marriages, but I don’t regret marrying him.” I was holding the bracelet in my fist, and I uncurled my fingers for one last look. “Because of you. You and your sisters.”
Marigold was moved. She leaned her head on my shoulder, whispering, “I’m glad you’re back, Mama.”
“Me too.” I stroked her hair. For so long, I’d been afraid I would lose her. Never would I have guessed that she would be the one to save me. I owed her more than I could repay. But I could start.
“Do you ever think about Kenji?”
It was Marigold’s turn to flinch. From the way her entire body tensed, shoulders going straighter than the horizon, I knew she’d never stopped loving the boy.
She looked to the sea, watching a gull dive, skimming the waves with its wing. “A friend told me he moved to Japan for a job.”
“Really?” I feigned surprise. “Well, maybe he’s back. His last letter was postmarked from Berkeley.”
I could practically hear the snap in Marigold’s spine as she whirled to face me. Never had I seen her look so stunned. Her lips were parted, caught in a silent gasp, and without realizing it she grabbed my arm to steady herself. “What letter?”
For months, I’d braced myself for this conversation. I’d put it off, afraid that it would make Marigold hate me even more. No longer. She deserved the truth.
“He came by the bakery a few times looking for you before Peony got married.” I bit the inside of my cheek, not having the courage to meet Marigold’s gaze. “I told him what your dad threatened in the hospital. He said he’d wait until you were ready.”
When I looked up, tears welled in my daughter’s eyes. Her nose was red. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I should have,” I said. I had no excuses. “Your father shouldn’t have done what he did, and I shouldn’t have let him. He might not have enough time to realize that he’s sorry . . .” My voice broke. “But I am. Forgive me.”
Marigold’s tears spilled down her cheeks. She turned away to face the harbor and wiped her eyes with her sleeves.
I didn’t move, I didn’t speak. Part of me expected her to storm off and want nothing to do with me. But I waited, watching her lean against the guardrail, framed by the blue-green sea.
People always said Marigold looked the least like me, acted the least like me.
What did they know? I understood the ways her heart had broken over and over, how she pieced it back together again each time and protected herself by keeping her doors shut and her secrets close. In my own way, I had done the same.
Without realizing it, I found myself holding my breath. And as if she could sense it, Marigold turned, catching my arm. Don’t, her expression read.
After I exhaled, she let go of me and said, “Tell me about the letters.”
“A new one comes every other week. I keep them under your bed at home.” I hesitated. “I wasn’t brave enough to tell you before you left for Harvard. I kept hoping you might find them by accident.”
Marigold sucked in her cheeks. “It’s been almost two years. Do you think he . . . he . . .”
“The strongest love is between two people with resistant hearts.”
“Like you and Aunt Lily?”
The words were a pick, unlocking the last bolts around my heart. I smiled at her. “We’re not the only ones.”
I took her hand and raised the bracelet. “I’m ready. Are you?”
“Yes.” Marigold’s reply was tender. She stood at my side. “On the count of three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
Three. We flung the bracelet into the harbor, high over the sea.
As it arced into the sky, catching the bright and weary sun in a flare of gold, I saw the past and the future converge into a single thread.
A pock-faced girl who could speak to fish.
A cabbage farmer’s wife who remembered everything except her mother’s broken promise.
I saw Mama deep in a dreamless sleep, Marigold hugging a baby with Kenji’s floppy hair.
Myself at Sui Chan’s son’s wedding laughing and dancing with my oldest friend, then setting flowers in front of an altar for Lily—and later, Philip.
There came a ping I must have only imagined I heard—the sound of the bracelet splashing into the sea.
Into the depths it disappeared, plunging back to where it belonged.
I watched until the ripples it made had gone still, washed away by the unceasing tides, and the last swirls of mist rolled away in long, glistening strokes.
When I inhaled and held my breath, there was no lingering cold across my skin. No tingle or shiver. Only a warmth in my bones that I hadn’t felt in years.
I swung my arms, watching my shadow mimic me on the pavement. It waved when I waved. It followed while I walked, its outline dark and crisp and stuck to me as if we’d never separated.
Marigold was trying to hide her amusement. “It’s not going anywhere.”
I know.
I looked up at her, finding her face a cautious mirror of mine. We were full of questions for each other, of secrets to be shared and wounds we had yet to heal. All beginnings had to start somewhere.
“Looks like we missed lunch,” I said, linking arms with my daughter. “How about we get some ice cream?”
Surprise showed on Marigold’s face, then a smile broke out, bright enough to rival her name. Above us the sun had arrived with a new and wondrous way to make the harbor shine, and deep in the glittering sea, a fish found his bones.
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