Lucky Girl

by Mei-Ling Hopgood

  I told Min-Wei, and she said she would consider it.

  Yet I could tell her thoughts had already begun to return to Taiwan. A lot was waiting for her there: her friends, the food, culture, styles, and language that she knew, her social life, and yes, her family. Although she was hard on our sisters and acted like she didn’t need any of them, I sensed she cared for them more than she was willing to admit. Her boyfriend, Patrick, also hoped to reunite with her in Taiwan. She seemed less and less interested in going to English school, meeting new people, and being with me as the days wound down.

  I watched her growing detachment with both understanding and disappointed helplessness. I thought America could be the answer for her, the place that could change her life, as it had mine, but it wasn’t. As much as I wanted to help her, I knew I couldn’t make her into the person I thought she could or should be. No one—Ba, Ma, our sisters—had been able to do that in all of her twenty-three years. She would always be that strong-willed girl who had toughed her way into adulthood. She was a Tiger. I knew only she would decide her destiny.

  Min-Wei and I returned to Taiwan together on January 16, 1998, on a Singapore Airlines flight that had to make an emergency landing in Japan because it almost ran out of fuel. Irene and her mother and my American family would meet us a couple weeks later. As soon as Min-Wei got home to the apartment she shared with Jin-Hong’s family, she was on the phone making plans with friends. She was back in her element. I knew she must have been tired of being forced to hang out with me all the time, and she didn’t invite me along.

  “I don’t have to borrow your clothes anymore,” she announced proudly.

  I just smiled back and let her declare her independence.

  10

  CROSSCURRENTS

  I was nervous and a little annoyed before Irene arrived.

  Irene and her mother were hours away from Taipei and no one seemed to know what was going on—or at least I didn’t know. Ma and Ba could not come because plane tickets during the busy Chinese New Year holiday were unavailable. Jin-Zhi, Min-Wei, and I arrived at the airport with nothing, no sign, no flowers, no leis. The sisters who had been in charge of those things were nowhere to be seen.

  Min-Wei had tensed up, once again under the critical eyes of her older sisters. She and one sister had argued that day about wanting to move out on her own, and she had bickered with another about having to take the bus and train to the airport. Then yet another sister scolded her for telling me about their disagreements.

  “Mei-Ling doesn’t care if we fight,” Min-Wei told them. But our older siblings weren’t ready for me to see that side of the family yet.

  This is sisterhood, too, I thought.

  So everyone was irritable when we arrived at the airport. And when I saw that we were the only ones there, I became even more annoyed because I felt responsible for Irene. We borrowed a marker and paper and hastily made a sign with her name. Five minutes after we held up the sign, Irene and her mom walked out of customs.

  Irene was dressed in a gray and black argyle sweater, jeans and boots. She wore her hair layered, falling just below her shoulders. Her eyes were sparkly, and she flashed us a dimpled smile. She spoke English with a British accent then. Her mother, Monika, was a thin white woman with short brown hair. They looked exhausted but happy.

  We called out, waving and smiling.

  “So nice to meet you!” we exclaimed, embracing them.

  We quickly explained why our parents could not come to Taipei and relayed their apologies. We told them we would have to wait for our sisters to show up. I ran to buy them Cokes and guava juice, scowling all the way, trying to hide my frustration. After a fourteen-hour trip, they were being made to stand and wait in the airport.

  Jin-Feng and Jin-Xia and their families showed up as we were walking toward the exit of the airport. They told us they had misunderstood the flight time. My anger subsided when I saw they had brought bouquets of flowers. Jin-Zhi smiled and said, “You have our temper,” but I was in no mood to acknowledge it. We drove to our oldest sister’s house, where we fed Irene and her mother dumplings and presented them with gifts. They were glad to be allowed to escape into one of the bedrooms. While they did, we wondered aloud what Irene thought of us. This time I was on the other side of the door.

  IRENE’S FIRST VISIT to Taiwan went a lot like mine did. We ate constantly. We visited Taiwan landmarks. We took dozens of pictures of Irene and she took dozens of us. She and I talked for a long time one evening on a drive to have dinner with our uncle in Taoyuan, about boyfriends, jobs, and other daily things, but it was hard to find time alone. The freight train that is our family always managed to slam into any stolen moments together. Irene and I would get to know each other much better in later years, thanks in large part to Irene’s incredible willingness and ability to travel to visit me.

  After a couple days in Taipei, all of the sisters in northern Taiwan and their families caravanned down to Taitung to reunite with our parents, speeding our way through the precarious roads of the Central Mountains and driving down the coast.

  Ma and Ba met Irene with hugs and tears. Ba would later present Irene with a red envelope full of crisp, new U.S. hundred-dollar bills to pay for her trip from Switzerland—despite her protests—just as he had done for me. I didn’t notice any tears from Irene when she met our parents, but she got emotional when she saw Sister Gertrude, the nun who had arranged her adoption.

  At first, Irene followed my cues, joining me at the table for meals, taking photos when I took them, going into the kitchen with me to watch Jin-Hong cook, but she soon found her own comfort and rhythm. She wandered from sister to sister, child to child, interacting on her own terms.

  Irene seemed hard to read at first. She seemed reserved—even standoffish. We all puzzled over how she must be feeling. Later Irene would explain that she could be quiet in new situations, and this was certainly an experience she had never encountered before. She was taking everything in and felt conscious about making her mom, who did not understand English very well, feel comfortable. Irene was not an in-your-face, aggressive attention hound, like some of us; she bided her time, patiently taking things in. Sometimes it could take a while to get to know her well, but once you did, you would find that she was warm, giving—and quite feisty.

  I continued to play the role of the protective go-between, the filter between her and our birth family, though she never asked or needed me to do this. It was instinct. I was afraid that she might feel lost or offended. They persisted in calling her Mei-Hui, and I kept telling them to stop. Ba and Ma and my sisters wondered aloud about her health because she was shorter than the others. They meant no harm and were being their usual blunt Chinese selves, but I told them they should not say things like that. In another instance, Irene gave everyone Toblerone candies as gifts, but once we were in Taitung I caught my sisters giving them to our uncle. I later told my sisters that what they did could have been perceived as rude. They replied that they were trying to give uncle the candies to thank him for driving us around, and they thought it would be rude to ask Irene for more.

  The one time I did not try to protect her was when the girls decided to take her to buy her wedding jewelry. We were standing in the Taitung living room, and they were telling her what they were about to do. She, like I did, protested profusely. She looked to me helplessly, and I giggled.

  “I’m sorry, Irene,” I told her. “I can’t help you on this one.

  “Ba does it for all his daughters,” I said, repeating what Jin-Hong once told me.

  Min-Wei and a couple other sisters took her to the gold store, and I stayed back at the house. An hour later they returned, and Irene came up to me exasperated.

  “Look at what they picked out!”

  I looked and started laughing. Min-Wei’s touch, no doubt. Irene now had glimmering 24-karat-gold jewelry for a wedding someday, including a couple of pieces that featured perfect hand engravings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

&n
bsp; MA CALLED MIN-WEI, Irene, and me into her bedroom to sit and chat.

  “I painted my nails red because I was happy my daughters were coming home,” she announced, and Min-Wei translated. We all smiled at her. She wanted to talk to Irene, to tell her the things that she and Ba had told me the year before. “We were poor … We wanted you to have a better life … But we were very sad to give you up.” She recited these lines with more confidence this time, as if my visit had been the practice run she needed. Ma went on to explain that she didn’t want to give Irene up because she had been born in the Year of the Dragon.

  She shifted in the bed, rubbing her lower stomach. “I have trouble,” she grumbled, “getting to the bathroom in time.”

  “Are you still sick?” I asked her. I knew that shortly before I met her, Ma had been treated for cervical cancer. Surgeons were able to remove the cancer, but she still suffered from pain, incontinence, and other problems.

  “I am an old woman,” she said. “I have had a hard life. I have cancer because I had too many children.”

  Irene listened quietly, internalizing all this for the first time. Min-Wei’s voice was breaking, and I, too, could not hold back my tears. I excused myself. I rushed to the bathroom and started to bawl. Ma had given everything away, hoping she would be happy. She gave her body to Ba and to us and now she was left in shreds. I knew I was part of the reason that she had suffered. I had been one of her many heartbreaks, and I hated that.

  THAT NIGHT JIN-ZHI and I slept with Ma, so that Irene and her mother could have a room to themselves. Once Ma was snoring next to us, I asked Jin-Zhi if the story that Min-Wei had told me, about the woman that Ba brought home, was true. Jin-Zhi was startled that I knew.

  “Do not be mad at Min-Wei,” I said. “I want to know.”

  She hesitated at first, but then she confirmed it.

  “Yes, Father bring this woman and boy into the house. It is bad for Mother. She is so bad. And then I am so angry. I lock this boy in bathroom and I yell and threaten to kill him. But Father is angry at me. Things are so terrible. I run away. I cannot take it. I go to teachers house and hide. I leave Min-Wei at home. I know this is bad. I feel bad for leaving her alone. But I cannot take it. I am so angry at Father. Then Min-Wei is gone. She is lost. And I feel it is my fault, too.”

  I stroked her hair while she cried.

  “I do not tell you because I want you to like Father,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “But why did you tell me he was a good father?”

  Jin-Zhi paused, and then took a deep breath.

  “Yes. Yes. He is good father,” she said, “but not good husband.”

  She sniffled and I continued to smooth her hair in the darkness, trying to soothe the pain. At first Ba’s obsession had seemed a cultural eccentricity, a belief I personally abhorred but tried not to judge. Now I was close with the sisters who lived with the memories and the psychological aftermath of our past. They were absorbing the pain for me, in a way. My desire for the truth was causing them despair, and I did not know how to offer any relief.

  When the morning came, we pretended that I was not beginning to know the dirty secrets of our family. Irene and her mom were here. My parents and brothers were coming. This was a time to be happy. We all got up, ate our breakfast of rice porridge, and pretended that everything was as fine as ever.

  Several of us went to the Taitung airport to meet my American family. They were coming from Taipei, where they had been shuttled around for a day by my uncle, Ba’s younger brother.

  “Hello, Mother!” Min-Wei called, waving. My little sister was animated again, friendly and smiley. My mom spotted Min-Wei and she opened her arms wide to hug us. My parents looked a bit weary, but the strange, intoxicating newness of everything was powering us all through.

  MY BIRTH PARENTS’ large living room is like an echo chamber. The walls are made of cement and the floor is acrylic tile. Sound multiplies in every room. One joyous shriek of a nephew bounces outward and upward through the adjacent dining room and into the kitchen, up the stairwells and through the bedrooms, up the second staircase to the room where Buddha and our ancestors hold vigil and out onto the roof. Put twenty-five people in that living room, including my dad, whose voice could bust holes in your eardrums, add a few mahjong games and a dozen shrieking kids, and you have our Chinese New Year 1998.

  Ma and sister Jin-Hong manned the kitchen and pumped out dish after dish: fish, cabbage, carrots and garlic, dumplings, sautéed pork, bitter melon. We sat around the table and shoveled food into our mouths with chopsticks, then went back into the living room to rest before the next round. Both my mom and Irene’s mom were astounded at the amount of food served and eaten.

  We exchanged many gifts. My dad, a former high school art teacher, loved to create things, and had designed everything from my adoption announcements to the wood carving that greeted visitors at our home. For this occasion he had ordered customized T-shirts. He hand-wrote words in dramatic angles to simulate strokes of Chinese calligraphy, and sketched his own tiger. HOPGOODS IN TAIWAN, the bright red shirts said, YEAR OF THE TIGER 1998. He wrapped each shirt in red tissue paper. I watched him handing the packages to each member of my birth family. My sisters and little nephews and nieces examined them curiously. I felt a swell of both pride and a bit of embarrassment. Wasn’t this a little cheesy? But Ba immediately went to his bedroom and changed into his T-shirt, and my brothers-in-law wore them over their clothes. My parents gave Ba a silver wind chime with a tiger on it, and Mom gave Ma a necklace and locket with my baby picture inside. Ba presented both my parents with gold rings. I felt amused watching Ba boss my dad around; not many people could tell Rollie Hopgood what to do.

  My mothers sat in the hardwood chairs against the wall, leaning into each other, always touching. Two of my sisters hovered over them, acting as translators. I caught snippets of the conversation. “Thank you for caring for Mei-Ling … No, thank you for Mei-Ling … No, thank you …” My birth mother kept patting and stroking my mom’s hand. My mom observed that I had my birth mother’s petite fingers, which were wrinkled from the Taiwan sun. Mom was meticulous about caring for her nails, which were always trimmed and polished.

  My young niece and nephew were scared to death of my mom and her bright blue eyes and “yellow” hair. They would peek around the sofa at her, and when my sisters tried to force them to pay proper respects they would whimper and cry. My big brother, the one that my birth family adopted, kept trying to hug and kid around with my American brothers, who good-naturedly endured his brusque bantering even though they had no idea what he was saying. Irene played with our nieces and nephews. The family lit firecrackers and burned fake money for our ancestors to spend in heaven.

  I flitted from person to person, though I checked often on my parents, who seemed to be having a ball. At one point, when the chatter, the laughing, and the squealing seemed to be at its peak, I sat down alone in a chair off to the side, overwhelmed, trying to take in the madness: the children playing chase; Ba putting his arm around my dad; Mom holding Ma’s hand; my sisters sharing Chinese star fruit with their kids and my brothers.

  My God, I thought. Everyone, every person, every movement—all the chaos in this room is related to me in some way.

  The noise, the smells, and the faces blurred together and seemed to crescendo into some raucous masterpiece, dissonant yet harmonic, foreign yet familiar. It all seemed so unbelievable, yet it somehow made sense. I shook my head in wonderment and could do nothing more than take a deep breath and let the cacophony crash over me.

  THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH room in the Taitung house, so Ba arranged for my parents and brothers to stay in a friend’s spanking-new, never-lived-in, unfurnished apartment. In fact, the whole building was empty, though the water and electricity worked. My sisters brought pillows and blankets for my family to use on the hardwood floors. My family was good-natured about the whole situation, laughing, taking it in stride. They were so exhausted that they we
lcomed any crash space. It was better anyway. They could have a bit of quiet and privacy, something that did not exist in my birth family’s home. I had decided to stay in the house in Taitung with my sisters. My younger brother, Jung-Hoe, played mahjong with my brothers-in-law most of the night and then slept in the shrine room.

  The second day went much like the first, with some touring of the city, more introductions, and lots of eating. We explored Taitung’s sights. We posed for panoramic photos on the coastline, each of us balancing on our own boulder.

  That night, Ba drove my parents and brothers back to the apartment. My birth father was not a great driver. He had some trouble judging distances so he had installed two small light sticks on the front end of the car so he could see exactly where the car ended. He drove old-lady slow, at least ten miles an hour below the speed limit. The apartment building was less than a mile away, and I thought surely he could make it there and back with no trouble. Min-Wei and I waited in the living room, and Irene and her mother sat reading on the couch.

  Ba burst into the house screaming his head off and waving his arms in the air. His voice was so high and frantic that he sounded like a squealing pig.

  “Call the cops! Call the cops!”

  I couldn’t understand a word he said, but Min-Wei got a pale and panicked look on her face.

  “An accident,” she said. “A car accident.”

  My heart seemed to stop, and my head started pounding. No …

  “What happened?” I demanded. But no one knew, and Ba would not calm down to explain. We all jumped up and ran outside and down the darkened street.

  No. No. No, I chanted in my head. This man, this crazy man didn’t just harm the parents who loved and raised me? What will I do? Would this not be the worst possible outcome, the most horrible irony? That my birth family would destroy my adopted family?