“I took this one.” Jen pointed at one of them. “You were smiling and I took the camera from your father and snapped the picture.” Jen’s face softened as she looked at the picture, remembering the birth of her first child.
Lee looked at her mother looking at the photographs. I am right here, she thought, look at me! As if hearing her thought, Jen moved her gaze from the photograph in her hand to look at Lee directly, as if searching for the infant she remembered in the sickly half-grown girl in front of her.
“Here is one more. This is the only photograph I have of the three of us.” Jen handed the last photograph to Lee. It was a family portrait of An Ling, Wei Jen, and Little Jade from long, long ago, when the three of them were an intact family. Lee could tell that the picture had been taken in a photographer’s studio. The photograph was printed on a fine textured paper with ornate scalloped edges. Wei Jen’s hair was styled in soft waves like a movie star from the thirties. She was wearing a Qipao of bamboo-patterned silk with dark contrasting piping, and An Ling’s thick hair was combed back and shiny. He wore a starched white shirt and a dark tie. Little Jade was a baby with a perfectly round face and squinting, smiling eyes, She wore a light colored knitted outfit, complete with a bonnet trimmed with ruffles, all of it Wei Jen’s handiwork. The young couple was smiling dreamily into the camera as if envisioning a bright future in front of them. Yes, Lee thought, I have a mother and a father, just like everyone else.
“Thank you for showing me this.” Lee spoke in a tiny voice as she kept looking at the photographs, holding them with one hand and wiping her eyes with the back of her other hand. Everything had changed so much that she couldn’t fathom the fairly tale of an intact family, of herself, her father and her mother all being in the same place at the same time.
“I told you that you don’t need to say ‘thank you’ to me,” Jen said as she reached over to hold Lee’s hand. Her voice was a whisper. This was her first child, a child she had nearly lost and was not sure how to love. During the years that she had been absent from her daughter’s life, things had happened and had shaped her baby into this quiet, watchful girl.
Lee felt her mother’s fingers interlacing with her own. They both had long, slender, fingers. She pulled her mother’s hand closer, pressing it against her face with both of her hands. The warmth of Jen’s palm touched Lee’s cheek. “Mama,” tears streamed out Lee’s eyes. “Mama…” She was sobbing, not able to say a word.
“You still like to cry.” Jen tried to smile as she pulled her daughter into her ample bosom. Their arms were entangled. Lee felt her head cradled by her mother’s arms. She could hear her mother’s heartbeat, strong and rhythmic. This was where she belonged.
The End
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed the book. If you like the book,
please kindly post a review at Amazon.com.
Thank you.
Best regards, Sheng-Shih Lin
Daughter of the Bamboo Forest Page 22
