Mom made a sweeping motion with her hands, clearing the space in front of her. “No, she didn’t. It kind of came out of the blue. She’d been in the hospital for several days, really out of it, and then one day, she sat up in the hospital bed and said, ‘Nancy, I have something to tell you. I want to tell you about my family’s trip to America.’”
I knew the story, and knew Madison did, too. When we were little, we used to beg Po Po to tell us the story over and over. She made coming to New York from China sound magical — the subways and the five-and-dime stores. We always laughed when she told us her first words in English: ice cream, balloon, and paper doll.
Mom took a long breath and blew it out slowly. “I know you know the story, the one she liked to tell. But this time she told a different story. She talked about the things she never liked to talk about: her father dying suddenly in their apartment, and how she and her mother became stuck in the U.S. after the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
When Po Po told her story, she always made this part the shortest. She would say, “Then, after my father died …” But this was just what I was afraid of with my dad traveling to China — something happening to him in a faraway place.
Mom stared at the empty space she had made in front of herself. “I knew that my grandmother and mother had to work in a warehouse, cleaning, just to make some money. What I didn’t know was that they had to go to dozens of places to look for work, because people refused to hire them, thinking they were Japanese. Some people spat on them, and called them ‘dirty Japs.’”
Po Po had never made the warehouse sound like a bad place. When she told me about it, she always made it sound wonderful, because it was the place where she and her mother met Joe Fong, the man who would become her stepfather. But now I realized she must have been covering up: A warehouse was probably not a great place for a kid.
Mom sat up and gripped the edge of the table. “Then Po Po reached over and grabbed me from where I was sitting next to the bed. ‘It was all supposed to be temporary, you know!’ she shouted. ‘We were supposed to go back!’”
My heart sped up, as though Po Po herself had shouted at me. My grandmother had never raised her voice at me, not once in my whole life.
“I started patting her, trying to soothe her. ‘Yes, Ma, I know. You couldn’t go back, because of the war, and then you all met Joe.’ I couldn’t figure out why she was so upset. Didn’t she have a good life in the U.S.? Hadn’t she been happy all these years?”
I was so lost in the story, thinking of my grandmother, that I had forgotten where we were going on this journey of memories. But Madison remembered the destination.
“She wanted to go back because …” started Madison, but Mom interrupted.
“Because there was another daughter, Po Po’s little sister. They had left her in China.” For a moment I felt swept away by those words. Another daughter. If Regina and I had been the girls in this story, another daughter would have been me. “At first I thought I had misunderstood, but Po Po was too specific. Her sister had been two years younger, and they had left her with an aunt to care for her until they came back.”
Mom blinked. “I don’t know why she never made it to the States. I can guess. There was so much going on in China then. War, famine, the Japanese invasion.” She took a drink of water and looked at me. “I gathered that your grandmother’s mother tried to find her for a long time, but her letters were never answered, and they assumed the worst. But they never forgot. Your grandmother never forgot her sister.”
“Then why didn’t Po Po ever tell me about her? Why did she wait so long to tell you?” I asked. I didn’t want to know this about my grandmother, that she lived with such a sad secret. I didn’t want this to dilute all the happy memories I had, the good ones.
“I don’t know why she didn’t tell us earlier, Lucy,” said Mom. “Maybe it was just too sad for her to talk about. I think that at the end, she realized the secret would disappear with her if she didn’t say anything.” Mom laced her fingers together and rested her chin on the little bridge.
“But how could anyone not know what happened to her?” I demanded. Maybe if someone had known, Yi Po would not be coming to the States now.
“Lucy,” Kenny interrupted impatiently. While we had been talking, Kenny had quietly devoured the quiche, a hot dog, and most of the General Tso’s chicken. “Don’t you know anything? China was a mess back then. You know how the U.S. had the Civil War? North versus South? China had one, too, when Po Po was little.”
When Kenny talks about history, you can’t help listening to him. He gets so excited — and Kenny doesn’t get excited about much.
“The Nationalists fought the Communists for control of China until the Japanese invaded. The Japanese were brutal, killing millions of Chinese, so then the two groups joined together. Once they drove out the Japanese, they starting fighting each other again. The war lasted over twenty years. And all that time, people had to literally run for their lives, from the fighting, the soldiers. It wouldn’t have been hard to lose track of someone.”
Mom gave Kenny a wide-eyed look, possibly because ever since Kenny turned fourteen, he usually spoke in three-word grunts in front of her. “How do you know all this, Kenny?”
Kenny stopped and stared at her, as if he just remembered she was there. “Books,” he said, and shoveled a forkful of salad into his mouth.
“So, Mr. Wu went to China to look for her on one of his business trips?” asked Madison.
Mom shook her head. “He didn’t go looking for her. You’ll have to get Mr. Wu to tell you the whole story. All I can say is, noodles were involved.”
Noodles? What did that mean?
Madison smiled at me. “Isn’t it incredible that she lived through all of that and is coming to visit? She’s finally getting reunited with her family,” she said. Apparently Madison had forgotten who was getting the short end of this deal.
“Yeah,” I agreed sarcastically. “Maybe if I’m really lucky there will be a long-lost brother, and he’ll come, too.”
That night, thoughts about Yi Po as a little kid kept popping into my head. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like. What if I had been separated from Kenny and Regina? It would be weird to know that I had a brother and sister, but not really know them — the way I know that Kenny can recite all the area codes for every major city in the country, or that Regina hates pulpy orange juice.
Mom had said Po Po’s sister was younger. Maybe she was too little to remember Po Po.
I heard a thump in the hallway and peeked out the door. Dad was getting his big suitcase out of the hall closet.
“Hey, Mei Mei,” whispered Dad. Mei Mei means little sister. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Lots to think about.”
Mom had gone to sleep awhile ago. A light glowed from beneath Kenny’s door, but we could hear him snoring. Regina was still out with her friends.
Dad pointed at his briefcase leaning against the wall. “Am I getting a surprise package for this trip?”
“Da-a-a-ad.” That was something I did when I was little. I used to put stuffed animals and drawings in his briefcase. I even let him take Matilda, my stuffed mouse, once for good luck.
“Oh, come on,” said Dad. “It’s a long trip. Matilda would make great company.”
A nervous shiver shot up through me. Long trip. Why couldn’t I have one of those dads who worked from home?
“You can have Matilda,” I said. “But I have a better idea.” I tiptoed downstairs and got a couple of DVDs and a magazine. I ran back upstairs and grabbed Matilda.
“No peeking,” I told him. I put everything in his briefcase. “It’s a new and improved surprise package.” Dad grinned.
“Thanks, Mei Mei,” said Dad. “Now I’m sure to have a great trip.”
Making the surprise package took away some of the shaky feeling. Now I just wished that I could tear Dad’s trip in half. I wanted him to come home soon — but I
didn’t want her to come with him.
Dad left in a taxi early in the morning. I didn’t get up but I thought I heard the taxi door slam shut. I tried to ignore the fluttery feeling in my chest.
When I finally did get out of bed, I looked over at Regina, who was still sleeping. Her hair spilled across her pillow and her face was gentle and soft. She actually looked nice. For the last few days, I had been so mad at Regina for tearing my quilt that I had barely spoken to her. Now, I wished for the old days, when Regina acted like I was the one who was special, making me little presents and bragging about my basketball to her friends.
Regina sat up and rubbed her eye. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey yourself,” I said.
“Is Daddy gone?”
“Yeah. I heard the taxi this morning.” It was weird to start talking again after giving her the silent treatment.
There was a pause, and then we both said, “I wish he didn’t have to go.” We laughed.
Regina patted her bed. “Come here a sec, Lucy.”
I walked over slowly. When I was younger, when we first started sharing a room, I couldn’t wait for morning, when Regina would call me over to her bed. She would pull the covers over us and we would pretend to be stowaways on a ship or orphans hiding from bad guys in a cave. I couldn’t remember the last time we had done that. I leaned on the side of her bed, both feet planted firmly on the floor.
Regina sat up and pulled up her knees under the sheets, forming a smooth pink mountain. She pulled her arms around herself and took in a quick breath.
“Lucy — I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry I tore your quilt.”
I don’t know where tears come from, but somewhere I was having a rush order of them. Not little trickly ones, either, but great big gushers. I think it was because I could tell from the way she spoke that Regina knew exactly what I was feeling — it was more than the quilt. It was missing Po Po and knowing that there would be no other quilt from her.
Regina gave me a hug. “You know that if I could take it back, I would — don’t you? I would give anything to take back what I did.”
I nodded. “I know.”
Regina was crying, too, now. “I still miss her, you know. We all do.”
“I wish there was more to remember her by … I’m so scared that if I lose something, or forget something, that one day there won’t be anything left,” I said.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of five things about Po Po. She sang along with the radio when she drove. She loved peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Her fingernails were always perfect ovals. She kept little dishes of treats all around the house. On my eighth birthday, she and Regina decorated my birthday cake to look like a basketball court. I loved that cake, even though the hoops threatened to crash into the icing the whole time they were singing “Happy Birthday.”
I thought of something to say to Regina — something to make her happy. “I think Po Po would have been proud of you for starting the Chinese club and getting that scholarship.”
Regina smiled, her cheeks squeezing out a few more tears. “You think so? She had gotten so sick by the time the club was really taking off.”
“Definitely. What did she used to say? About the frog?” For a second I panicked. I couldn’t remember what she said exactly, just the vague murmur of her voice.
“She said ‘don’t be a frog at the bottom of a well’ — jing di zhi wa. The frog in the well thinks he has life so great, but all he knows is the well. He doesn’t know what the ocean is like. Think of greater things you can achieve.” As soon as Regina said it, I could hear my grandmother’s voice again, cheering us on.
It felt as though Regina and I had been on a seesaw for a long time, up and down, back and forth, trying to get the upper hand or avoid being on the bottom. Now we had reached a point of perfect balance. No one was higher or lower — we were just right.
A few days later, Mom, Kenny, and I drove Regina to school, three hours away. The car was so full that Kenny and I had to rest our feet on bags and hold boxes on our laps. Then we found out we had to schlep Regina’s stuff up four flights of stairs.
“Couldn’t you have gotten a room on a lower floor?” asked Kenny as we looked up the long flights of stairs. “Or gone to a school that’s heard of elevators?”
We spent the whole afternoon carrying Regina’s stuff up the stairs, though by the end a small herd of guys in Regina’s dorm was helping us. All hoping, undoubtedly, for a chance to talk to Regina. By the time Mom, Kenny, and I left for our hotel, Regina already had plans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next day.
We stuck around for another day so Mom could go to a bunch of boring parent meetings, and then we drove home. Before we left, Regina pulled me aside and handed me a box.
Inside, there was a beautiful silver snowflake pendant on a red ribbon, in honor of my middle name, Mengxue, or Snow Dream. When she was six, Regina had a dream about finding a laughing baby in a basket by a snow-covered forest. She told my mom about the dream, and a few days later, Mom found out she was pregnant with me. When I was born, Mom decided that Mengxue would be my Chinese name.
I turned around and lifted up my hair so Regina could tie the ribbon around my neck. Then we hugged good-bye.
“Thank you,” I said. “Watch out for those boys.”
“Be good,” she said.
Regina could be bossy, selfish, and annoying. Her grades gave my parents unrealistic expectations about mine. She always hogged the closet, took too long in the bathroom, and nagged me about cleaning up my half of the room. But I was going to miss her.
In a few days, my family had gone from five to three, and the house felt strangely big. Mom, Kenny, and I rattled around inside, like marbles in a coffee can. When Mom went back to work, Kenny was in charge now that Regina was gone. This was kind of a joke since Kenny lives in his own world. He’s always reading one fat book or another, and when he’s not doing that, he’s losing things. Mom and Dad say this is because Kenny is a math genius. I say it’s because he’s a space cadet, and I’m tired of helping him look for his jacket/keys/homework/right shoe before school.
On Saturday, Mom took Madison and me to Sharpe’s so we could get started on the great room-decorating project. While I wasn’t going to get to enjoy the room as all mine, as Madison pointed out, I was going to be living in it, so why not have something nice? We also had to buy school supplies — that was the deal we struck with Mom.
We decided to go to the school supply section first. It was wall-to-wall moms and kids digging through bins of markers, pencils, glue sticks, scissors, and notebooks. One little kid had found a space on the floor for a tantrum. “I wanted THAT ONE!” he screamed, pointing at another little boy who must have been holding the last Spider-Man pencil box.
Madison and I looked at the school supply list. “C’mon,” she said, pulling on my arm. “We’ll start at one end of this mess and work our way across. You check off the items as we find them.”
Together, we found the number-two pencils, ballpoint pens, index cards, highlighters, red felt-tip pens, three-ring binders, wide-rule paper, and pocket folders. We were picking out dividers when a voice rang out. “Madison! Lucy! Don’t get those dividers! They don’t have reinforced holes.”
We should have done school supplies later.
At the end of the report folder aisle stood Talent Chang, steering a cart overflowing with school supplies. A huge econopack of tape was preparing to fall off the top of a mountain of colored pencils and manila folders. “Hey, Talent,” said Madison cheerily.
Talent picked up a different package of dividers and put it in our cart. “Get this brand. They’re much better.”
“Wow!” I said sarcastically. “Thank goodness you saved us from inferior notebook dividers.”
Talent looked at me. “You’re welcome. Don’t you hate it when they rip?”
Madison elbowed me gently. “Are you shopping for school supplies, too?” she asked.
�
�I’m not shopping for myself, of course. I finished that shopping as soon as the school list became available,” said Talent. I imagined her breathlessly checking the school website until the supply list was posted. “I’m here with my parents. They’re helping start a Chinese school.” She looked at me. “It’s going to be on Saturday mornings. You should come.”
Chinese school? On Saturday mornings?
“No way! That’s when we have basketball practice!” Last year, we had come within one game of going to regionals. I was determined that we were going to make it this year.
“Lucy,” Talent said, “Chinese school is much more important than basketball.”
“Whoa,” said Madison. “You really think so?”
“Basketball is fun,” I said.
“Having the ability to converse with millions of people is also fun,” countered Talent.
“Maybe you don’t really understand basketball. Have you ever been in the gym when there’s ten seconds left and the teams are tied?” asked Madison. Madison, being nicer than me, actually seemed concerned that Talent didn’t understand basketball.
“Don’t you want to be part of a culture that has lasted thousands of years?” Talent asked me.
“When you need Chinese to play basketball, come talk to me,” I said.
Talent ignored my comment. “The school won’t be just about language. The Chinese school curriculum will cover significant cultural events, handicrafts, food … though, come to think of it, are you even fluent in Mandarin?” She squinted, like she could tell by looking at me.
If she says that I need help on how to be Chinese, I’m going to wrap those eight rolls of tape around her mouth. “Well, it sounds super exciting, but no thanks,” I told her.
“I think you’ll be sorry,” said Talent, frowning. “I’ll see you Tuesday.”
“See you, Talent,” said Madison. I didn’t even bother saying good-bye. After we watched her leave, Madison sighed. “Feeling rude today?”
It’s different for you, I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “Can you believe she said Chinese school was more important than basketball?” I figured Madison had to agree with that.
The Great Wall of Lucy Wu Page 3
