Chapter 11 #2
Ethan chuckled. What in the world—?
GW
Don’t give away my secrets, bro.
MW
I leave my phone for two seconds…
That had to be Michael.
DW
Mwah-ha-ha
GW
Is that supposed to be an evil laugh? I hear whining.
BW
DW
It was obviously an evil laugh.
DDW
I apologize for my idiot brothers. Gavin tells me you’re a physician. Good to have another person with a brain in the family.
Wait. Who was DDW? Apparently, not the same person as DW.
BW
[clearing my throat] PhDs are just as smart as MDs.
DDW
You keep telling yourself that, professor.
Ethan laughed. He didn’t know who these people were, but they were funny.
SW
Hey, Ethan. I second Daniel’s remark. I’m not sure we’re representing the other branch of the Wright family very well. Let me know if you need anything.
So these were the rest of the cousins—Michael’s brothers. Ethan had assumed, but it was nice to have something confirmed.
DW
Sam’s a billionaire, so when he says “anything,” he means ANYTHING
SW
I’m not a billionaire.
Yet.
That earned a couple of laughing emojis from the brothers.
SW
And as long as we’re offering each other’s services, I’m sure Derrick wouldn’t mind picking you up. He owns a plane.
DDW
Guys, I’m sure Ethan has more important things to do than listen to you bicker. E-feel free to keep ignoring us.
Ethan started a message, then deleted it. What was he supposed to say? Was there an appropriate response to these bizarre messages?
EW
Not ignoring you. Just trying to figure out who you are.
SW
Sorry about that. I’m your cousin Sam, brother #3.
DDW
I’m Daniel, the oldest. We should have started with our names. This is what happens when you let the baby be in charge of anything.
DW
I’m 34. Sheesh.
GW
DW
Sigh. I’m Derrick, BTW. Brother #6
BW
Bryan, #5.
GW
Grant, #4 Welcome to the family, such as it is.
Ethan was smiling like an idiot. He liked these guys—what he knew of them, anyway. He worked a little logic, then started typing.
EW
Daniel, Michael, Sam, Grant, Bryan, and Derrick. Yes?
The remark got a couple of thumbs-ups and a couple of yes-replies.
Thanks.
It didn’t feel like enough. Their messages made him feel welcome, almost like what Michael had said was true. That Ethan was family.
He wasn’t about to put that in a text, though.
Pathetic much? He wanted to say he looked forward to meeting them, but maybe he never would.
It was one thing to reach out over a Signal chat, but they hadn’t exactly invited Ethan to dinner, and if they did, what would Ethan’s sisters think about that?
His half sisters. These guys were his full cousins, though.
His thumbs hovered over the keyboard as he considered and disregarded multiple replies. He finally settled on a message and hit Send.
EW
Right now, we just need prayers.
DW
On it.
SW
My wife and I have been praying for you both.
DDW
Ditto…and ditto.
MW
What Daniel and Sam said.
BW
We’re praying too.
GW
EW
Thanks. I appreciate you guys.
And he did, more than he could express.
After the doorman delivered their meals, Ethan fixed two cups of tea from a supply he’d found in a cabinet.
A few minutes later, Mei Lin emerged from the bathroom, barefoot, hair wet and hanging not quite to her shoulders. She wore nothing but the T-shirt he’d left draped over a chair in the bedroom. It hung to her knees and… Oh boy.
“I’m sorry.” The fear he’d seen the day before flashed in her eyes. “I couldn’t find anything—”
“It’s my fault,” he said. “And you don’t hear me complaining.”
“It’s a little big.”
“No.” He looked her up and down. She was his wife, after all. “It’s perfect.”
She dipped her head and smiled shyly. It faded when she looked at the food he’d spread across the table. “I assume you’re very hungry.”
“I’m hoping you are.”
Her raised eyebrows told him she wasn’t that hungry.
“Don’t worry about it.” He pulled out a chair for her. “Just eat what you can.”
He sat across from her, took her hands, and offered a blessing. Then, he tried very hard not to watch her and mentally calculate calories and grams of protein.
She managed half a bowl of congee, a whole egg tart, and two bites of a scallion pancake. She set her chopsticks down. “I’m sorry.”
“Why do you keep apologizing?” He hadn’t meant to snap and felt guilty when her eyes widened. “I’m sorry. And I should be sorry because I was rude. What are you sorry for?”
“For being so much trouble.”
“You’re not…” He took a breath. “I’m glad I’m here with you. I’m glad we’re together. This isn’t easy, but I wouldn’t be anyplace else in the world.”
Ethan hoped he could love her well enough that she would remember her own worth.
She didn’t eat anything else, so he hurried through the rest of his meal and, when he’d finished, stood and gestured to the living room.
“Will you tell me about Lu Feng?”
She followed him and perched on the sofa. “It’s a long story.”
“We have nowhere else to be.”
She drew in a breath and exhaled slowly. “He was a doctor at the hospital where I worked, admired by the staff and the village. He was the kind who worked late and saw patients who had no money. He seemed like a good man.”
“Okay.”
“When a woman came in who needed care…” Mei Lin frowned.
“You understand that in the villages, lives are hard. The women have homes and families, and they work in the fields or factories. Their husbands… Some husbands were not helpful—working far away or expecting to be waited on at home. Some were not kind. When a woman came to the hospital, we would fix her, but we couldn’t keep her until she was fully healed.
We would send her home with instructions to rest.”
“Of course. What else could you do?”
“But they didn’t always rest, you see? Sometimes, we would see the same women, over and over.
When that happened, Dr. Lu would say, ‘This one needs time to heal. This one cannot go back yet.’ And he would arrange for her to go to a…
” She paused, searching for the word. “A place for therapy, or just to recover.”
“Like rehab?”
“Yes, like that. The center was in the city. She would go and rest and get strong before going home.”
“Who paid for it?”
“Dr. Lu said a charity he worked with covered the price.”
“It sounds like he was helping them.”
“Yes.” Her voice was quiet. “I thought he was like you, a little. The kind of doctor I knew you would be—the kind who really cared.”
Ethan hoped he’d lived up to his wife’s expectations. He’d certainly tried to. “And then what happened?”
She closed her eyes. “There was a woman, ài Le. She was young, maybe twenty-two, with a quick smile and one of those laughs that makes you laugh with her.” Mei Lin opened her eyes again. “You know what I mean?”
“Infectious.”
She tilted her head to the side, thinking about that. “Like a virus?”
He chuckled. “In a good way.”
“If you say so. Anyway, this woman’s husband liked to drink. He had broken her arm.”
“Aw, that’s terrible. Did you report him?”
Mei Lin’s smirk told him that wasn’t protocol or wouldn’t have done any good.
“Dr. Lu arranged for ài Le to go to the center. When she left, I hugged her goodbye.” Mei Lin took a sip of tea, her hand shaking a little.
“A month later, her husband came to the hospital, looking for her. I was surprised she hadn’t gone home by then.
A month was a long time to stay gone. The man said he had stopped drinking and he wanted his wife back.
He asked me for the address of the center. ”
“Did you give it to him?”
“I didn’t know the address, but I had a phone number. I called and told the woman who answered who I was and asked to speak with the man’s wife. She was tapping on a computer—I could hear in the background. And then she said the patient had never arrived.”
That was concerning. “What do you think happened?”
“I thought it was a paperwork error. Maybe she went to a different center. I asked Dr. Lu, and he said she ran away, that she didn’t want to return to her husband.”
“I guess I can see—”
“No. ài Le didn’t want to go to the rehab. She had children. She went because Dr. Lu insisted, but she wanted to go home. It made me curious.”
Ethan almost smiled at the word she chose—curious. As if that covered her walking head-first into some kind of a criminal organization.
“I called the center back, and then I called the other centers and asked about the other women. I discovered a number of them had no records. I started asking questions. Not of Dr. Lu, of course. I looked at medical reports and made phone calls.” She lifted her tea, then set it down without sipping it.
“That was when I realized Dr. Lu was lying. And doing something terrible to those women.”
“What did you think he was doing?”
“He was sending them somewhere. He was selling them.”
Oh. Oh. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How? How can you know that?”
“They had been sent away, and there was no record of them anywhere.” Mei Lin stood and paced.
“None of them had gone home. Not all of them had abusive husbands. Some were just in need of a little more time to recover. There was one who’d gotten the flu.
She should have been home within a week.
Another had had a miscarriage but had a bunch of kids at home. She just needed a few days to sleep.”
She stopped and faced Ethan. “They were all young—in their twenties. They were all attractive. They were all from small, poor villages. And none of them went home. They left husbands and children and parents and everything behind. They all sent letters to their families with excuses—they were leaving, they weren’t happy, they wanted to move to the city.
Their reasons were similar. And their messages were always emailed—typed and sent from the same email address.
These women never contacted their families again. ”
Ethan took that in, the enormity of what Mei Lin was saying. Lu Feng had stolen them. Sold them. “How many?”
“That I could find? Nineteen.”
“Whoa.” He sat back. “That’s a lot. How did nobody report them?”
“Dr. Lu said they were safe, and he has authority. Was a villager going to contradict him?”