Chapter Fifteen
I drifted through the next few days, performing the small rituals of married life as though following a script. I learned
to occupy space in the house without drawing attention, to move through rooms with the discreet efficiency of someone who
expects nothing and asks nothing. I mimed the public behavior of a wife without any feeling at all.
At night, I went to my own room and lay awake in the dark, listening to the sounds of the house: settling beams, the ticking
clock on my mantel, wind pressing against the shutters. From across the hall, I sometimes heard my sister’s voice, hushed
and coaxing. The squeak of mattress ropes, guttural noises, the sound of bodies moving in tandem. I buried my face in the
pillow and willed myself to sleep.
I told myself that if I could make it through the nights, the days would follow, one after another, until they blurred into
years. With time, the ache of what I was missing would dull. I had seen women fold their emotions neatly into corners, tuck
them away like spare linens. Not everyone got love, or joy, or even contentment. Surely numbness was better than despair.
Eng would not look at me. He had retreated almost entirely into himself and only addressed me directly when he had to, his
voice clipped and distant.
Chang watched me like a cat. Impassive, aloof, his eyes following my movements.
One afternoon in the study, I pulled the Bible from the shelf. I turned the pages aimlessly at first, skimming familiar verses,
until my eyes settled on the story of Leah and Rachel in Genesis—a tale I’d heard a dozen times in church but never truly
considered.
Jacob first noticed Rachel standing at a well, tending her father’s sheep. Struck by her beauty, he worked for her father
for seven years to earn the right to marry her. But on his wedding night, her father sent his plain older daughter, Leah,
to Jacob’s bed instead.
“What is this you have done to me?” Jacob demanded. “Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?”
Her father said the elder daughter must marry before the younger. Such was their law, their tradition. But he offered a compromise.
Complete the bridal week with Leah, and Jacob could marry Rachel as well, in exchange for seven more years of labor. Jacob
agreed. He bound himself to both women at once. The Scripture was clear: “So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel
more than Leah.”
My hand trembled as I closed the Bible, the leather worn beneath my fingers.
Leah—though she came first and bore Jacob many sons—lived the rest of her life in the shadow of her sister, the true object
of his desire. No matter how devoted she was, no matter how many children she bore, no matter what comfort or stability she
provided, she would only ever be the sister accepted out of obligation. Never the desired one.
The following day, while Addie was out for a stroll and I was sitting on the porch with a cup of tea and Mansfield Park, Chang confronted me.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked bluntly. “You decided you don’t like my brother?”
Eng, who had no choice about being present for this conversation, shifted uncomfortably, his gaze fixed on the ground.
I closed the book, setting it on the small table beside me. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not . . . personal,” I said.
At this, Eng scowled.
“It’s not, Eng. Truly,” I said, addressing him directly.
He looked in my eyes for the first time in days. His expression was cold, but he bristled with anger.
Chang stepped closer, tugging his brother along like an unwilling accomplice. “Then what is it?”
I tried to answer as truthfully as I could. “I thought I could get used to it. To—this.” I gestured vaguely among the three
of us. “To . . .” I shook my head.
Chang’s mouth twisted in a sour smile. “You agreed to it. No one forced you.”
“I didn’t know how wrong it would feel.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh. “That would be more understandable coming from your sister, who, unlike you, had no prior
experience.”
Eng winced. But he stayed silent.
I felt fury coil in my chest. “You will not speak to me that way, Chang.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Forgive me, dear lady.”
I turned to Eng. “You allow this.”
He stared at me through hooded eyes.
“What are you going to do?” Chang’s voice was brisk. “You want to leave?”
“I don’t—”
“Yes or no?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let us speak plainly,” he said with exaggerated patience. “So you leave. What happens then? You’ve already caused one major
scandal in your family. Now you will cause another. You’ll be shunned. You will never marry. You will spend the rest of your
life as a spinster in the home you were born and raised in, becoming less and less relevant to anyone.”
I gaped at him, stunned at the harshness of his words.
“And what about your sister?” he continued. “Have you thought about her? The shame would not be yours alone. Adelaide will
be forever marked. Worse, for her to remain in her own marriage will be illegal. She will be cast out too.”
Tears pricked my eyes. “I never should have—”
“Perhaps not. But you did.”
He said this with cool remove. I wondered if his careful solicitousness before the wedding had merely been a pantomime of
concern, masking his loathing of me.
My sleep that night was restless, threaded with unquiet dreams.
I woke at dawn. Put my hand around the oak bedpost with its frieze of wooden vines. Felt the pillow under my neck, needled
with goose feathers.
Hearing the cawing of crows in the trees, a childhood rhyme sprang to mind:
One for sorrow, two for joy,
Three for a girl, four for a boy,
Five for silver, six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.
Mama had always believed crows were birds of ill omen, their presence a harbinger of misfortune. I used to think it was just one of her superstitions.
Maybe it was true.
But I did not leave. I couldn’t bring myself to ruin my sister’s life—or, for that matter, my own.
Each night, as I lay in bed, I stared into the darkness and tried to imagine the months and years ahead, tasting only bitterness
and regret.
Every morning, I woke in my room with a wave of sickening remorse. The realization hit me fresh each time: I had made an irrevocable
mistake, one that would haunt me for the rest of my life.