Red Thread Sisters (9781101591857)

by Carol Antoinette Peacock

  “Never an extra,” her mother stated firmly. “Never.”

  “Here, you must be thirsty after that McDonald’s hike. Let’s go inside and get you something to drink,” her father said.

  As Wen sipped her water, she kept repeating her parents’ words in her mind, as if to memorize them. Then she went back to her bedroom and picked up the old orphanage backpack waiting in the front of her closet. She flung the whole backpack where it had come from, in a dark, unused corner. She wouldn’t need it after all.

  Wen returned to the kitchen. “So about Shu Ling. This is possible, find her a family?”

  “We can help you,” said her mother. “After all, we found you, didn’t we?”

  “How we do this?” Wen asked.

  Carefully, her mother explained how the directors of the orphanages were allowed to send the Chinese government a certain number of names of kids available for adoption. Then the government added those names to the Shared Waiting Child List for families from all over the world to choose from.

  “Why just pick some? Every single kid in orphanage should be available for adoption. All just waiting for the day a family come to take them home.”

  “I know, sweetie,” her mother sighed. “That’s just how they do it.”

  “Many kids on The List?” Wen asked.

  “Over two thousand and counting,” her mother said.

  Wen swallowed. “Is Shu Ling on The List?”

  “We don’t know. Only adoption agency people have the password to that list. Nancy will know.”

  “We call Nancy now!” Wen pleaded.

  “It’s Sunday, sweetie. You can call tomorrow.”

  Wen felt like tomorrow would never come. If Shu Ling wasn’t on The List, it would be impossible for anyone to adopt her. She had to be there.

  But suppose she wasn’t?

  fifteen

  “You can call Nancy the minute you get home from school,” Wen’s mother assured her.

  But how could she go a whole day not knowing if Shu Ling was on The List?

  At the bus stop, Wen watched Emily and another girl catching snowflakes on their tongues. Two boys beside them were trying to scoop up enough snow for snowballs.

  “Hi, Wen,” she heard a voice say behind her.

  “Hannah!” Wen said. She waited to see Hannah’s sparkly teeth, but Hannah wasn’t smiling. “Why you are on our bus, not your own?”

  “From now on, this is my bus.” Hannah’s blue eyes were clouded just like they’d been at the parent breakfast.

  “Something is wrong?” Wen asked.

  Hannah shivered.

  “Maybe you take this bus just one day?” Wen tried.

  “My mom and I moved,” Hannah said. “To a smaller house.”

  “But you will still see your father?” Wen said.

  “Yes. But I can’t help it, Wen. I just can’t get used to this divorce. I still miss him. And the new house makes it more real that he’s not coming home.”

  “Like it used to be,” Wen said. “Of course.”

  When the bus came, everybody filed in the door, the boys shoving last. Hannah and Wen sat together in the back.

  “Michelle says half of the kids in America have divorced parents.” Hannah sighed. “She says it’s bad but it’s not such a big deal.”

  “Big deal for you. You still miss your father.”

  Hannah’s eyes filled with tears. “I really miss him.”

  Wen nodded. “This I know.”

  “Is it hard for you, too, Wen? Missing your friends from China?” Hannah asked.

  “Yes. Just learned Shu Ling may be on Big List, ready to go for adoption in this country. Learned yesterday.”

  “Well, that’s great!” Hannah smiled a little, but not enough for her starry teeth to show.

  “But maybe she is not on this list. Don’t know yet.” Wen sighed.

  “Oh, no. Then you’d still have to miss her,” Hannah said.

  “That’s it,” Wen said.

  Hannah lowered her voice. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Wen. About Michelle.”

  “She says many mean things,” Wen blurted.

  “I know. She and I have been friends since first grade. But when the divorce happened, she just acted like it was no big deal. Basically, she said ‘Suck it up.’”

  “‘Suck it up’?” Wen repeated.

  “It’s like saying forget about it,” Hannah explained. “So because of that, since last summer I haven’t been hanging out with her as much. I think maybe she’s a little bit jealous of you, Wen.”

  “Why jealous of me?” Wen’s eyes widened.

  “She gets jealous easy. Seriously. Back when I was in third grade, my family hosted a Chinese foreign exchange student. I really liked her, and I lived with her, for heaven’s sake. But Michelle got really jealous. So I think when she heard you were coming, from China and all, she got jealous of you even before she met you!”

  Wen paused. “Maybe Michelle not like China people.”

  “No. She just always wants me to be her best friend. Like, when I invited you to Halloween, and she was so mean to you. So if Michelle says something nasty to you, try not to take it personally, OK?”

  “OK. I suck it up,” Wen said.

  Hannah hugged Wen. Then, from her pocket, she got out her iPod and handed Wen one earbud. “Here, you use the right, I’ll use the left.” Hannah helped Wen fit the earbud snugly into her ear.

  Shoulder to shoulder, they rode the rest of the way to school, connected by the wires of the iPod.

  By afternoon, the snow had stopped and turned to ice.

  “Hurry!” Wen called to Emily, who was skating on the slippery sidewalk.

  “What’s the big rush?” asked Emily.

  “I call Nancy Lin today, try to find family for my friend.”

  “Cool.” Emily picked up her pace.

  “This adoption lady is nice, I guess, but she makes me nervous,” Wen said.

  “Why, Wennie? When Mom and Dad wanted you so bad, that Nancy Lin helped them. She was the one who did all the papers and stuff. And when Mom and Dad were approved, Nancy came over and they were all hugging, Wennie!”

  My mother and father wanted me so bad? Wen thought. She hadn’t considered this before.

  She wanted to ask Emily again, just to be sure, but she couldn’t bear to get a different answer.

  “Hey,” Wen called to her mother as she and Emily walked through the front door.

  Why couldn’t she call her Mom? Emily did it all the time. She could call her father Dad. For some reason, it was only the “Mom” that got stuck like a chicken bone in her throat.

  “I call Nancy now?” asked Wen.

  “Sure.” Her mother showed her Nancy’s card.

  Wen opened her cell phone and, fingers shaking, she pushed the little numbers. Wen had trouble understanding English on the phone. She couldn’t see the other person’s face or read their expressions to help her figure out hard words. As the phone began to ring, Wen’s breathing got shallower and shallower.

  Wen heard a voice answer. “Hello, this is Nancy.”

  “Good morning, I am Wen McGuire,” began Wen. Immediately she realized she’d gotten the morning part wrong.

  “So good to hear from you,” Nancy said. “How are you doing, Wen?”

  “Fine. My mother said you could find out if my friend on The List. I want to know if her name is here in America. For adopting.”

  “Ah, the Shared Waiting Child List. Wen, I’m free right now. Why don’t you and your mother come by and see The List for yourself?”

  An hour later, Nancy greeted Wen and her mother and led them to her small office covered with photographs of beaming American parents and their
Chinese children. Mainly, Wen saw babies. Babies in big hats, babies in their mothers’ embraces, babies on their fathers’ shoulders. Bald babies and babies with thick black hair. All these babies had families.

  Wen cringed. You should be happy for the babies, she told herself. They’re the lucky ones. They got picked.

  But what about the older kids? What about Shu Ling? What about her?

  “Ready?” Nancy beckoned Wen toward her computer. “OK, I’ve typed in the password. Wen, you must give me your friend’s Chinese name, orphanage, and date of birth. Then I can look her up.”

  Wen hovered by Nancy’s desk. Xie xie. Thank you, she wanted to say to Nancy. Thank you for helping me find my friend.

  But she just said, “Shen Shu Ling. Orphanage, Tong Du. I do not know her birthday.”

  “Her birthday is not a problem. I can find her without the exact date. How old is she?”

  “Twelve,” said Wen.

  Wen glanced over her shoulder at her mother, who nodded reassuringly. She got up to join Wen.

  Nancy typed, while Wen and her mother stood behind her. Then she clicked a key to open the screen. It was blank.

  “Tell me again. Maybe I entered the information incorrectly.”

  “Shen Shu Ling. Tong Du.” Wen clenched and un-clenched her hands.

  Nancy Lin’s screen stayed blank.

  “Oh, Wen,” her mother sighed.

  “She is not there?” Wen already knew the answer.

  Nancy got up from her chair and went to Wen.

  “I am so sorry,” she said. “Shu Ling is not on The List.”

  sixteen

  Wen sank onto the folding chair by the wall.

  “Not on The List! This means Shu Ling is . . .” Wen choked on the word. “Unadoptable?”

  “No, there is reason to hope,” said Nancy Lin.

  Hope? Wen slumped lower. This lady must be joking.

  “The Chinese government may have sent your friend Shu Ling straight to a designated agency,” Nancy explained. “Those kids aren’t on The List. Older kids with severe special needs often get placed with agencies that work extra hard to find them families.”

  “What is this des-ig—” Wen stammered.

  “Designated. Picked out,” said Nancy. “Shu Ling could be with one of those agencies and maybe that’s why she’s not on The List.”

  “Because she has very many special needs?” Wen asked.

  What was so bad about being twelve and having a small clubfoot?

  Wen pulled herself up as tall as she could. “So how we find out if she is there? With a des-ig-nated agency?”

  “It’s not easy.” Nancy spoke slowly, as if to be sure Wen understood. “Some designated agencies post their children on a big Web site called Rainbow Kids, which lists lots of adoption agencies. You go to each agency’s link and try to find her in their designated children photos. You could start there.”

  “What if Shu Ling not on Rainbow Kids?” Wen asked. “Sounds like very hard to find.”

  Then she saw her, standing on the dusty hill, waving at Wen.

  “Go over again,” said Wen. “Foot by foot.”

  “I’ll go slow,” Nancy said. “Step by step.”

  Wen got out a pencil from her backpack and began to take notes.

  “This will be very difficult,” said Nancy. “Even if she is with a designated agency, I cannot promise you will find her.”

  “I find her,” Wen vowed.

  “Don’t spend too much time on Rainbow Kids. Lots of their Web sites need passwords, which you can only get if you’ve done that agency’s adoption paperwork first. Instead, try the online adoption communities.” Nancy wrote some Web sites on a piece of paper. “They can help you.”

  Wen tapped her shoe. “What is this online com-mun-it-ies?”

  “Communities. Groups of people,” said Nancy. “All these people are searching for waiting children too. They have their own online page, where they describe kids they’ve seen or kids they’re looking for.”

  “Write to strangers?” Wen asked.

  “They’re not really strangers, because they’re all helping each other find kids,” Nancy said. “So you go to an online community, say ‘Waiting Children,’ and you post a profile of Shu Ling, the orphanage she comes from, anything that would help identify her. Somebody might have seen a girl that fits your description, and they would post to tell you where they saw her. They would look out for you.”

  Lookout people, Wen wrote.

  “Another thing,” Nancy went on. “Be sure to use the advocacy blogs.” Nancy wrote down more lines on paper.

  “What is this ad-vo-ca-cy?” Wen asked.

  “It means standing up for something,” her mother explained.

  “People have blogs where they feature children who need families badly. Once you find Shu Ling,” Nancy said, “get her on those blogs standing up for kids, so people will know to go straight to the designated agency and choose her.”

  Stand-up people, Wen scrawled.

  As Nancy led them out of her office, Wen avoided the pictures of the little babies again.

  “Good luck,” Nancy called. “Let me know when you get good news!”

  Back home, Wen strode to the computer. “We start?”

  “All set.” Her mother put on her plastic glasses that made her look like an owl. She sat beside Wen on the other half of the same chair. Wen pushed the On button and tapped her foot on the floor until the screen turned bright blue.

  “Nancy say go to the Rainbow Kids first,” said Wen.

  Her mother guiding her hand on the mouse, Wen opened the Rainbow Kids home page and clicked on the first agency on the list. Children’s pictures appeared on the screen. Asian Adoptions Inc. arranged the pictures in neat rows and assigned the kids American names. Wen saw a toddler posing against a brick wall.

  Ben, age 2 years. This adorable boy has a delightful personality. His Chinese name means “hope to face my life bravely.” His favorite activity is to be cuddled. Ben was born with cleft palate and bilateral cleft lip, easily repairable by surgery. Although his clefts can impede speech, he has begun to say one- and two-syllable words, including “Mama.” This outgoing little guy longs to find his forever family soon.

  Wen ached and moved to the next photo.

  Erin. Age 9 years. Severe burns. Erin came into care from a 2-month stay at a hospital, having had a fourth of her skin burnt, due to a fire in her home. Her parents could not afford the medical bills. She is cheerful, diligent in her studies, and enjoys reading fairy tales. She also takes care of the younger children. This sweetheart waits for a family to call her own.

  Page after page, Wen saw kids’ snapshots arranged like stamps on sheets at the post office. Only each stamp was a boy or a girl who wasn’t adopted yet.

  Wen closed her eyes to shut out the rows of little faces. Each kid was saying, Pick me! Pick me! All these children seemed to accuse her. You got picked. You got a family. We’re still waiting.

  Wen forced herself to open her eyes and start again. How else could she get to Shu Ling?

  Beside her, her mother gazed at the screen as if she were watching a very good movie or thinking about something that made her smile inside.

  “You found me this way?” Wen asked suddenly.

  “We did. We fell in love with your little face the minute we saw you, Wen. We said, ‘There she is, our daughter!’”

  Her mother paused. “You know, there’s an ancient Chinese legend that says an invisible red thread connects people who are meant to meet, no matter what. And even if that thread tangles or stretches, it never breaks.”

  “This red thread, I have heard of it.” Wen stared at the computer and tried to imagine how her mother and father had seen her picture on the screen and
known. Just like that.

  “You were ten at the time,” Wen’s mother went on. “Lots of families choose babies. But we’d already adopted a little baby, Emily. We wanted you.”

  Wen studied her mother, her eyes glazed, as if she was in a trance or lost in time. A glow of many candles spread across her cheeks.

  But suppose her mother and father had skipped her page by accident? Suppose her photo had been in the corner of the screen and her parents had missed it? She almost didn’t get picked by them at all.

  The awfulness of not being picked by her own parents struck her so hard, she swayed in her chair. Maybe she didn’t belong to just anybody. Maybe she belonged to these people—her mother, her father, and Emily, her family.

  “Now we will learn about family,” Teacher Jun had stated one day at the orphanage, opening his book. With chalk, he scratched on the blackboard:

  Family. As if someone had cast a spell on them, the kids sat motionless. Why would Teacher Jun teach them this? The word seemed to taunt Wen.

  Next, “Family members.” Teacher Jun wrote new characters on the board.

  Mama. An ache like a deep pang had spread through Wen’s body. Her arms weak, her hands trembling, she couldn’t write the characters naming this person she longed for but would never know and never call by name.

  Now, Wen looked over at her mother, whose eyes were soft and inviting. The mama she’d wanted sat right beside her. But when her mother reached out her arms to hug her, all Wen could do was pull away.

  Wen turned back to the computer. She pored over each new window, searching for a girl with a thin face, standing with one leg behind the other. Wen gripped the mouse tight. Just one more click, she knew, and that would be the click that led to Shu Ling.

  “Wennie.” Emily tugged at her elbow. “Come on, read me a book.”

  “Not now, much work. Later.” Wen kept her eyes on the screen.

  “You’re no fun.” Emily pouted.

  After dinner, Wen began seeing windows she’d opened earlier. Every kid’s picture began to seem the same. After a while, she saw only blurs. None of them was Shu Ling.