Picture Bride

by C. Fong Hsiung

  On Easter Sunday, Daniel picks me up around four. My stomach performs crazy somersaults throughout the twenty-minute ride to Unionville, where his parents live. I still doubt if his family will accept me—an Asian who is so clearly different from them.

  Daniel’s parents own a charming house—white siding with blue trim—that looks like it belongs in a postcard. White picket fences flank both sides of the front yard. Daniel uses his own key to unlock the double-paneled door. He rattles the large brass knocker and announces, “Mom, Dad, we’re here.”

  A delicious aroma wafts up to the foyer. A little girl dashes out from a room, her rich black curls bobbing around her head. She runs into Daniel’s open arms. “Uncle Dan, look what I got from Nana.”

  She pushes a soft, pink bunny in front of his face.

  “Ooh, nice bunny.” Daniel bends on one knee, his arms around the little girl’s waist. “Let me get a good look at you. Hmm . . . you’ve grown a whole week.”

  “Really?” Her eyes widen in wonder. Then she gazes up at me with a curious expression.

  Daniel laughs, ruffles her hair and lifts her up. “Yes, really. Brittany, this is Auntie Jill.”

  I hold out a wrapped parcel. “Hello Brittany. I have a present for you too.” I give her the doll I bought for her.

  Her eyes dart uncertainly from me to Daniel. A clear voice, with the hint of a smile, calls out beyond the door directly in front of us. “Say thank you to Auntie Jill, Brittany.”

  Hesitantly she takes the box from me. I turn towards the speaker, who now approaches us. The woman, Daniel’s mother, has the same blue eyes and blonde hair as him, and her light blue, caftan-style pantsuit flatters her tall and big-boned frame.

  I stick out an awkward hand towards Mrs Russell, but she throws her arms around me, cheek meeting cheek. “Finally we get to see you.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you too, Mrs Russell,” I mumble.

  “Please call me Maureen. We’re not formal around here.” She starts to walk away. “Come, come. Let’s go inside and meet the rest of the gang.”

  We follow her through the door. A silver-haired man, lounging in a La-Z-Boy, rises. The smiling face could be Daniel’s, thirty years from now. He grips my hand in a firm shake. “I’m Jim, and this here is Mike.”

  A younger man, good-looking in a swarthy dark way, leaves the couch to join us.

  “Mike’s from India too,” Maureen says. “His parents are Anglo-Indian. They immigrated to Canada during the fifties.”

  It is so Daniel not to mention anything about his brother-in-law’s background. He wasn’t lying when he told me that his parents didn’t care about my ethnicity.

  The young woman—by default, Kim—grins from the floor, one hand holding her baby’s feet while the other slips a diaper under her. “Please don’t mind the mess while I finish up with Hailey.”

  Mike returns to his seat. “I hear that you’re from Calcutta. My parents came from Bombay.”

  Although Mike was born in Bombay, he grew up in Toronto. Since he has visited his relatives there a few times, we are able to swap a few stories about India.

  We spend the next half-hour in pleasant conversation. Maureen pops in and out of the room, checking on the progress of her turkey, now cooling on a rack.

  Dinner is a lively affair. Brittany is strapped to a booster chair between Maureen, who is at one end of the table, and me. She feeds Brittany mashed potatoes whenever the child is not stuffing peas and small pieces of meat into her busy little mouth. Meanwhile, Hailey sits in a baby carrier on the other side between her mother and grandmother, drooling over her teething ring, leaving a trail of wet dribble on her bib.

  The three men argue about the Toronto Maple Leafs’ chances at progressing in the play-offs. The team has advanced to the second round. Left on my own, hockey would have remained foreign to me, but Daniel often watches the sports channels when we are together. Without trying too hard, I am learning about the game that engages many a dinner conversation. In India, we played field hockey.

  By the end of the evening, I find myself comfortably discussing any topic at the table; any reservation I had about their acceptance of me has evaporated. As he drives me home, Daniel reaches for my hand while he steers the car with the other. “Well, what do you think?” He throws a quick glance at me.

  “They are wonderful people. They made me feel so welcome. After a while, I forgot I was a guest.”

  He squeezes my hand. “I’m so glad you like them. I know they feel the same about you.”

  As I give a sigh and look away he asks sharply, “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything is so wonderful on your side. If only my family could be as accepting as yours.”

  He says, “We’ll make things work.” His hand reaches for mine again and clasps my fingers. “I love you, Jillian.”

  ·17·

  Wendy bounces into my room with a beam on her face. I put my hair brush down on the dresser. “Did you win something?” I ask her with a laugh and I pick up my brush again and run it through my hair. I’d heard that brushing your hair a hundred times a day makes it shiny and healthy.

  Her hands squeeze me harder than usual. “Yes, I did. Alan proposed and I accepted!”

  “This is wonderful news! I’m so happy for you. Tell me everything.”

  Wendy lifts her left hand to show off a solitary diamond that sparkles as it catches the overhead lights. “At dinner tonight, a waiter gave me a note soon after we finished eating. I thought he was giving me the bill. Alan looked on with a silly grin on his face. I wondered if he wanted me to pick up the tab. When I read the note, I almost fell off my chair.” She hands me a folded piece of blue paper. “Here, read this.”

  The note, neatly printed with calligraphic care, says, “I am incomplete without my soul-mate. Please make me whole and marry me.” I catch a whiff of perfume from the paper.

  I hug Wendy. With her daughter Julie’s death anniversary in a couple of weeks, this couldn’t be happening at a better time. I’ve been worried about how to distract her from dwelling on her daughter’s death. “How romantic! I wouldn’t have dreamed that Alan was such a mush. Have you set a date for the wedding?”

  “We’re planning to get married this fall. Nothing fancy, you know. We’ll have a civil service and invite a few close family members and friends. Will you be my maid of honour?”

  “Yes, of course, I’d be delighted.” I’d been a bridesmaid once when I was seventeen. That was a lifetime away in a different world. Not much had been expected of me then. I only had to show up at my aunt’s wedding wearing my best dress. Being a maid of honour for Wendy will require much more, I figure.

  The next day I give Daniel the news at the office. I prattle on enthusiastically about the wedding and my role in it. Daniel smiles and nods at everything I say, until I notice his distracted expression.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  His eyes meet mine briefly before he looks away. “Uh, nothing, why do you ask?”

  I touch his cheek. “You are physically here, but your mind is far away. What’s the matter?”

  He opens and shuts his mouth without saying a word.

  “Daniel?”

  “Uh . . . nothing’s wrong. I was listening to you and thinking how excited and happy you are about this wedding.”

  “Okay, then.” I throw a quick glance around us—see no one in sight. I stand on my tippy-toe and peck his cheek. “I love you,” I whisper in his ear.

  “I love you too, and you can do better than that.” He pulls me towards him and kisses me on my mouth.

  A few days later, I receive a call from the personnel department asking me to meet Liz Bromley. What does the personnel manager want with me?

  When I arrive, she gestures towards a chair across from her desk. I have been here bef
ore only twice, once for my interview and then on my first day of work.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’ve called you for this meeting.”

  I rub my clammy palms underneath the desk and wait for the bad news.

  “I’ll get to the point. It has come to our attention that you are dating another employee. That is against company policy.”

  My eyes widen in surprise. Everyone in the company knows about the no-dating policy, but no one has ever heard of it being enforced. I can name a few other couples who are openly seeing each other.

  Liz locks her fingers in front of her and leans forward. “Are you aware that there is such a policy?”

  I nod, still at loss for words. I bite my lower lip.

  “Well, consider this a warning. If you and Daniel continue to date each other, then one of you must quit your job.”

  I am trembling. I try to choke back the words that come to me.

  She raises an enquiring brow.

  “Uh . . . who . . . I mean why? I’m sure you’re aware that we’re not the only ones.” That didn’t come out the way I wanted.

  Liz does not flinch. “Someone has filed a formal complaint about you and Daniel.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head.

  That evening I call Daniel. After ten or more rings, I drop the phone. Wendy is at Alan’s place again—she spends more time with him than she is home nowadays. I slap a sandwich together with some cold cuts and lettuce. Kicking up my feet on the coffee table, I sit back, deep in my thoughts, and absently chew my food.

  There comes a knock on the door just as I am about to make tea. I go to open it, and seeing it’s Daniel, I throw myself at him.

  He holds me tight at the waist and kisses me long and deep. I sense an urgency within him—and a hint of something that I haven’t felt before. When he releases me, he says in a strangled whisper, “Nobody is going to make me give you up.”

  “Did Liz speak to you too?”

  He nods as he comes inside, his lips compressed in a tight line.

  “Who would be so mean as to file a complaint like that?” I ask.

  He sits down on the couch. “I got a call from Barb a few days ago. She wanted to make up with me.” Barb is his former girlfriend who’s been chasing him recently.

  “I told her to stuff it.” His face is grim. “I don’t think we have to look very far to find out who called Liz. Barb used to work at Central.”

  I sit down and lean against him. “I’ll start to look for a new job tomorrow.”

  His body tenses as he mutters an expletive. “No, you stay. I’ll leave.”

  “I should quit. I’m studying to be an accountant, and I need to be in a job that’s more suitable.”

  “Then we’ll both leave Central. My dad has been chomping at the bit, waiting for me to join him. His firm is getting bigger now and this will be a good time for me to start.”

  “Why are you not already working for your dad?” His dad owns a real-estate brokerage company.

  “When I finished university, Dad wanted me to work for him, but I needed to prove to myself and everyone that I could make it on my own. I think I’ve done that now,”

  I can’t help thinking that I’ll miss Central. It’s where I met Daniel, and Wendy.

  Daniel drapes an arm around me and pulls me closer to him. “We’ll make more new memories.”

  I have an urge to sing this morning. My life has taken a turn for the better in the last year, and distancing myself from the trauma of my arranged marriage to Peter fills me with an inner peace. Daniel called earlier to wish me a happy birthday. Now I watch a robin land on the ledge outside my office window. It cocks its head with an inquisitive stare, and then hops around pecking at something. It flaps its gray plumes over its orange breast, enjoying the warm sunshine. I wonder what Daniel has planned for my twenty-second birthday. He was very secretive about this evening.

  Even after the party Wendy threw for me last year, I am still uncomfortable celebrating my birthday. Like most families in Tangra, we only marked major milestones, like Ah-Poh’s upcoming birthday. When we were younger, Mama boiled two eggs—a good-luck token—for our birthdays, when she remembered. This was her low-key Hakka way of celebrating. She would joke that we should remember her childbirth pains on our birthdays, and that we should give her gifts instead of the other way around.

  Daniel picks me up at my place shortly after work. We are both dressed up for the occasion but I still don’t know where we are going. I think he looks rather like Robert Redford.

  As we drive past familiar landmarks, I soon notice that we are heading towards his house. When he turns the car into the driveway, I give him a puzzled look. “Did you forget something?”

  “Come inside with me,” he says with a twinkle in his eyes. He walks around to my side and holds the door open for me. Then, touching my elbow, he guides me up the porch steps.

  Bewildered, I watch him press the doorbell. “What are you doing? Who’s inside?”

  The mystery deepens when a stranger opens the door. The man wears a black bow-tie on a white shirt with a matching black vest and pants. He steps aside as Daniel urges me in. He leads me into the dining room, which he only uses when he entertains. A picture-perfect setting—delicate white china, silverware, crystal wine glasses, and two silver candlesticks flank a bowl of red and white roses, all arranged elegantly on snow-white linen.

  I suck in a sharp breath. “Oh, this is too much.”

  “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he says, and kisses me.

  When we break our embrace, Tom, our impeccably-dressed waiter, magically appears and pulls a chair out for me. While he unfolds and places a napkin on my lap, Daniel takes a seat at the other end. He has pulled in the table to make it shorter.

  Tom pours champagne for us and then leaves us alone while we toast. Soon Tom returns with two plates holding short skewers of chicken, beef and shrimp kabobs arranged on a bed of greens. When we finish the appetizers, he serves grilled peppercorn salmon with long tender asparagus stems.

  While we wait for dessert, I rest my chin on my hands and lean forward. A warm and pleasant glow fills my body. “This is the best birthday I have ever had,” I sigh.

  “You can thank me after dinner.” Daniel’s mouth lifts with a mischievous grin.

  Tom serves us a beautifully presented dessert of chocolate mousse and then disappears for good—the front door has audibly closed shut. On my dessert I notice a tiny iridescent decoration and pick it up with my fork. I look up at Daniel. He pushes his chair back and with a few quick steps he stands before me, turning my chair to face him. Holding my hands, he kneels down on one knee. I am speechless.

  He takes the ring from me, wipes it clean with my napkin and then holds it at my ring finger. “Jillian Wu, will you marry me?”

  The tears flow without inhibition.

  Later we make love upstairs in the bedroom, and all my inhibitions are gone.

  A few weeks later, Wendy and I watch Daniel and Alan— our arms behind each other—pick up the last two boxes. Already the apartment, devoid of our personal belongings, no longer feels like home. Tears glisten behind Wendy’s lenses. I pull her closer to me. This is where she raised her daughter.

  Although Alan owns this place, he wants Wendy to live with him at his house. Six weeks from now they will become husband and wife.

  Daniel comes over, his arms full, and pecks my cheek. “Ready to leave?”

  My gaze wanders around the apartment that has been my home for over a year. A sense of loss washes over me—this is the place where I tasted joy and freedom in Canada. I breathe deeply and reply, “Yes. Let’s go.”

  Although we will not be married, Daniel and I will be starting our new life together today. My parents wou
ld be appalled, but I cannot live in the shadow of their anger and shame any longer. I made one last effort with a letter to Mama, but her response through Shane sent a chill to my heart.

  We follow the two men down the stairs. Alan drops his box in the back of his station wagon while I open the back door of Daniel’s Mustang for him to unload his.

  Wendy saunters toward me. We hug each other. My eyes moist, I tell her, “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and for opening your home to me.”

  She tightens her embrace. “You have no idea how much you have meant to me. You will always be like a daughter to me.”

  We cling to each other until Alan says with a laugh, “Ladies, you’re only going to live fifteen minutes apart.”

  Wendy lifts her glasses and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. I wave as I swing my feet inside Daniel’s car. I look upstairs at the windows one last time.

  Daniel shifts the gear into drive. He shoots a glance at me. “I promise you, you will love your new home.”

  I sit back and close my eyes, recalling Shane’s letter. I remember it completely.

  “Dearest Jillian,

  “Congratulations on your engagement. I am thrilled and excited for you. You deserve to be happy after all that you’ve been through.

  “The bad news is that Papa continues to be angry over his perceived loss of face in the community. He believes you are piling on even more shame with your upcoming marriage to a white man. Mama understands why you want to marry Daniel—if you love him as much as you say you do, then he must be a wonderful man—but she cannot make Papa see your and our points of view. Yes, all of us, Mama, Robert, me, and even Ah-Poh, are pleased with your news. But you know how strong-willed and stubborn Papa is, especially about his views on marriage.