by Patti Lacy
“Yeah, right,” Joy muttered, but her voice had lost its edge.
Perhaps sensing familial fireworks, the officers scurried away, leaving Kai with Andrew, Gloria, Joy, and the deafening roar of silence. As Kai took her seat, unable to do anything else, she begged the fates to whisper her next move. The axis that spun Joy’s world, the Powells’ world, her world, depended on their help!
The fates—oh, those capricious things . . . hateful one moment, joyful the next—refused to answer.
7
“Like, what in . . . is going on?” Joy raked her hands through her latest dye job, which was red-purple, black-purple, purple-hideous.
At the sound of cursing, Gloria clutched her stomach, which roiled with abandon. “Joy . . .” she began. Bleary, narrowed eyes and a chin-dimpling smirk halted further words.
Instead, Gloria made a list of her faults. She hadn’t exposed Joy to her culture. She’d changed the subject when Joy asked about her “other” family. That last time China had been mentioned, as Joy’s runaway destination, Gloria had diluted Joy’s angst with words about counseling. About God.
Joy doesn’t want—or need—my words. Gloria sealed her lips and prayed that her stomach—and her heart—would settle.
“Joy, just calm down, okay?” Gloria noted how Andrew’s gentle voice and godly demeanor soothed Joy. He builds a bridge to Joy while I flounder on the shore. If anyone could revitalize this teenage wasteland—their family’s wasteland—it would be her Andrew.
“Recently your sister—Dr. Kai, here—contacted us.”
“Like, how recently?”
“Last week,” Andrew continued.
Curses again stained the air. Gloria hugged herself, as if warding off the vile words. When had Joy begun talking like this, thinking like this?
“My sister contacted you last week? Like, seven days ago? I’m the last to know?”
“We planned to tell you, Joy.”
“Like, when? Next century?”
“Perhaps I can explain things” came from behind her. It was Kai.
Gloria swallowed a bitter taste . . . a bitter truth. Never had a voice infused such concern, such humility. To think, two hours ago, she’d . . . hated Kai.
“I’m listening.” Joy planted her hands on her hips, tapped her boot toe, and eyed her sister with curiosity. “If you’ll step on it, that is.”
Again Gloria tried to swallow the frustration and bitterness Joy’s words evoked, but this time, it didn’t budge. Suddenly she whirled from Joy, scrunched her shoulders, and clamped both hands over her mouth. Too late. She heaved, unable to hold back the contents of her stomach.
“Mrs. Powell.” Kai, a sudden hovering presence, offered a paper towel, murmured kindnesses, and led her back to her chair. Andrew, with similar ministrations, helped her sit, took another towel from Kai, and cleaned off her hands.
Gloria kept darting glances toward the mess on the floor, the mess on her hands, the mess she’d made with Joy, the mess she’d made with Joy’s new relative . . . Oh, God, I’ve majored in messes!
Kai knelt beside Gloria’s chair. “It is nothing. Someone will tend to it later.”
Tears blurred the chiseled features, the expressive eyes in this older version of Joy. Gloria nodded and tried to relax. Kai had taken control. It felt so good, so right, to place her trust in this woman.
Kai handed her another damp towel. “Here. This will feel good.”
It did.
Again Kai checked Gloria’s pulse. “Reverend, your wife needs to be seen. Please contact her physician. I suspect it’s a virus, but let’s be sure.” Kai massaged Gloria’s back with circular motions that strangely lessened the ache in her belly . . . and her heart. Each touch brought insight. Kai truly ministered through medicine . . . and compassion.
“But the police . . . Joy . . .” Andrew spoke in a pained, most un-Andrewlike voice.
“The officers haven’t moved a muscle. See?” Pointing out the window, Kai reflected a calm that eluded the Powells. “You can apprise them of the situation. With this, on top of the earlier fainting spell, your wife must be seen.”
“Mom? You fainted?”
Concern laced Joy’s screech. Thank goodness she doesn’t totally hate me. In the midst of this mess, I’ve been gifted another blessing.
“You can drive your wife to her doctor.” Smooth-talking Kai addressed Andrew as if Joy hadn’t interrupted. “There’s no need for an ambulance.”
Gloria jerked upright. “I can’t leave Joy here! It’s just an upset stomach!”
“I do not believe that is the case.” Kai’s comforting smile had set into stone. “I am concerned about you, Mrs. Powell. You need to see your physician.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “If you are not . . . amenable. . . to my suggestion, I will ask the officers to call an ambulance. Liability concerns and health regulations will have them racing each other to the phone.”
“Mom!” As Joy waved her arms, purple hair slapped her cheeks. “Just, like, go!”
“Joy’s in good hands here.” Andrew knelt on the other side of Gloria.
Gloria battled the urge to leap from the chair and slap them all silly for ignoring her right—her duty—as a mother to stay here. Whether Joy liked it or not.
“Trust me, Gloria. It is the right thing to do.” Kai’s lips had parted; the eyes were soft with compassion.
Gloria bowed her head, then lifted her chin and tried to mask her emotions. It seemed to work for Kai, who had nonchalantly pulled out a cell phone and offered it to Andrew. “Call her doctor. Now.”
“Patrice Davies on West Berry,” Gloria mumbled, just in case Andrew’s brain had rusted, like his jaws. “I’d rather go to her than Carl.” Less embarrassing with a woman . . .
Andrew returned the phone to Kai, who said, “I’ll check in later. Dr. Davies may have questions.”
“All right.” Andrew moved to Joy, held out his arms, and then let them drop when she didn’t budge. “I’ll be back, sweetie, okay?”
Joy rolled her eyes and sighed, but the nervous jangling of a dozen bangle bracelets betrayed her nonchalant act.
“You’ll be fine,” assured Kai.
As Andrew left to update the officers, Gloria’s stomach roiled again. I won’t be fine until Joy’s fine. “I love you,” she whispered, though Joy had turned away, as if entranced by something across the room. Her newfound sister?
Kai stepped close. Gripped Gloria’s arms. “I will take care of your daughter.”
Gloria squeezed Kai’s hand in appreciation, then got to her feet, hugged the teenaged statue, and stepped away. “I’ll be back—we’ll be back—as soon as we can.” She managed to smile despite the space between her and Joy, which was three linear feet, though a million emotional miles. “You hear, Joy? Everything will be okay.”
Joy’s mouth fell open.
Is she that shocked that I’m hopeful? Gloria felt her lip quiver, but it wasn’t because Joy was in jail or because her stomach was cramping. How long had it been since she’d presented Joy with anything but a smothering anxiety under the guise of concern? Gloria dug her nails into her palms. Be still and wait, she prayed, then spread her hands and stared at the indentations. She’d had this hand-digging habit all her life. The anxiety too. How many habits must she shed before the three of them again became a family?
Andrew returned to the room. “The cops freaked out when they heard about what happened. If we don’t go now, they’ll call the EMTs.”
Again Gloria hugged her daughter. For the briefest moment, Joy pressed against her. A minor miracle. The first of many? As Andrew led her from the room, that was her prayer.
“Joy . . .” Kai inched closer, mustering techniques she’d honed to treat children petrified of doctors, their needles, and the pain they inflicted. She could not wound this child who possessed Father’s brow, Mother’s lips, First Daughter’s lustrous hair . . .
Kai blinked. This child had knife-sharp eyes, a sneer the size of Beijing, and was shoul
dering Mount Tai–sized boulders on her petite frame. Go slow. Lay a foundation. Kai forced her eager feet to stop two meters from her youngest sister. “It is an honor to meet you.” Kai extended her hand in the American way. “How I have longed for this moment.”
Glistening pools of pain—of curiosity?—met her gaze and held it. “You longed for it?” Joy finally asked.
“With all my heart.”
Joy crossed her arms and stood motionless. The door framed her as if she were a still life of a rebellious teenager, with her grungy jeans, goth haircut, heavily lined eyes, black blouse cut low enough to expose red bra straps, bra cups edged with lace. Joy desperately wanted to be noticed . . . or loved. Dared Kai hope it was the latter?
“Then why did it take you so long to get here?”
Kai recoiled as if the question had grown fangs and bitten her. Of course she had expected it, but that did not lessen the shock of being spewed with both spit and hate. Kai forced rhythmic breaths. Her muscles began to relax, her thought patterns to settle. Joy did not know the mountains she had climbed, the valleys she had traversed, to reach this point. She surely suspects abandonment . . . or worse. Kai resettled her gaze on the face of her sister.
“Why?” Joy swore. “Why won’t you answer me? Can’t you at least give me that much?”
Tell the truth.
Kai’s scalp prickled as if a breeze swept the stuffy room. Was it the fates, speaking to her?
Tell the truth. It will set you free.
Was it Old Grandfather, delivering a message from the other world?
More curses. “Are you listening?” A wail whistled from those purplish-black lips. Joy crumbled to the floor, rested her elbows on her knees, and buried her head in her hands. “Why won’t somebody tell me what is going on?”
Kai longed to wrap her arms around her sister and bathe her with all the tears that the Changs had shed for her. Instead, she rushed to the quivering pile of denim and lace, placed her hand on a thin, frail back, and stroked in sync with Joy’s cries. It worked with the mother. Perhaps it will work with her child.
“I will tell you everything.” Kai continued to massage her sister’s back. “Everything you want to know.”
Joy seemed to stop breathing. Then she lifted her head and fixed Kai with an all-too-familiar gaze.
Kai had seen sorrow engraved on the face of a Cultural Revolution denunciation victim, had heard sorrow in the screams of a Cambridge parent whose child lay dying in the aftermath of a drive-by shooting. Sorrow straddled racial divides and trespassed the houses of the rich, the poor, and everything in between. The capitalist, the Communist, and everything in between. Sorrow had taken residence in the life of her youngest sister. Tears filled Kai’s eyes. Oh, that she could salve this pain!
“Is my mother alive?”
Kai shook her head.
Glossy lips quivered. “My father?”
Breath whooshed, so relieved was Kai to bring good news. “Yes! His name is Lao.”
“Do I have sisters? Brothers?”
A gurgling brook rose. “Yes! Ling, aged thirty-nine, is the oldest. We call her First Daughter.” Kai bubbled the joyous news. “Then me. I’m . . . thirty-five. Mei, Third Daughter, is thirty.” She took a breath, longing to share her sisters’ stellar qualities.
A tear blazed a path through Joy’s makeup. Proof of her sister’s pain threatened to burst the dam Kai had built to maintain control. Kai reached out. Her fingertip met petal-soft skin and absorbed the tear.
Joy raised her chin. “Why did y’all give me away?” was asked with such a strange mix of hush and intensity, Kai’s control melted. She, too, became a heap on the floor. They half sat, half lay, shoulder to shoulder—for an eternity? For a minute? Then Kai found Joy’s small, cold hand, cupped it between hers, and began to speak.
8
FALL 1979
A VILLAGE IN EASTERN CHINA
Something crashed into Kai’s consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open. Had the Red Guards returned . . . again? She lay on the kang; fear prohibited even a nose twitch.
A rumble—thunder?—reverberated in her bones. It had been years since that awful day, when the insanity that had imprisoned Mother and Father came knocking—and reduced to shards the windows that Father had been so proud to install, the windows that labeled them as bourgeois pigs. Kai did not understand the insanity then and she did not understand it now, but it had taught her to sense the tremors preceding life’s upheavals.
For five stomach-gnawing, back-breaking years, the sisters marshaled for battle, First Daughter the boss of Kai; Kai the boss of Third Daughter, Third Daughter the boss of the chickens and crows. Though Kai had argued a baby could not command, First Daughter insisted that Third Daughter actively engage. “Everyone must feel important,” she had whispered. First Daughter’s words gave Kai the strength to rise each morning, the courage to trust in sleep each night. By the time her parents had hobbled home in 1973, Kai was sick to death of being important. But the time to be of real importance—massaging Father’s emaciated limbs, rubbing lotus cream on Mother’s scabs—had just begun.
Was this new insanity a dream? Kai stretched her legs across the kang’s padded quilt until her toes touched First Daughter’s safe, solid calf. She let out a sigh at the comfort of her sister’s presence. A moon sliver cast shadows over First Daughter’s lustrous skin. Perhaps calm would prevail.
Again thunder rumbled . . . or was it Father’s voice?
A breeze whipped through the window and tangled First Daughter’s hair. Kai sat up straight and pricked her ears like a nosy goat’s.
Father was cursing Mother! Saying things that Kai had not heard since the day she had been forced to hurl stones and nasty words like used shoes at her parents. The very thing Father just yelled at dear Mother.
Last night’s dumplings clumped in Kai’s stomach. Had Father slipped back into the hateful spell that had imprisoned his mind for two years after his return? Kai pushed back her quilt and left its comfort. She must stop Father. After all, she had nursed him day and night until he became Father again . . . or a close relative of the man he had been before the Troubles.
Kai crept into the hall. Careful not to dishonor the calendars that bore portraits of Mao by touching them, she tiptoed past the kitchen to the door of her parents’ room.
“How could you allow this to happen to us?”
“It is the fates.” Kai strained to hear Mother’s voice.
“The fates? It is your stupidity.”
It took no effort for Kai to hear Father.
“I will not allow it.”
“It is the fates,” Mother repeated.
“Will it be the fates when they again beat you with chains and whips? Call your daughters cow-devil and snake-spirit counterrevolutionaries? Reeducate them in Tibet?”
Kai longed to skitter back to the kang, pull the quilt over her head, and pretend that the Troubles were not again stirring up dust that hid in crevices like evil spirits. But she must know what angered Father.
“That business has been discarded along with Mao pins and Madame Mao operas.” Mother snorted, making Kai decide that a fever had affected Father’s mind. “After what we suffered, they would not dare.”
“They would not dare?” Father’s mad demon laugh caused Kai to tremble. “Wild-greens dumplings and millet porridge have masked the memory of the rice husks and vermin’s dung that we lapped from bowls. Do you not remember the beatings you endured because you miswrote one lousy character?”
Something creaked. Had Father risen? Kai skittered toward her room and then froze in the hall. Father would curse her if she were caught eavesdropping.
“Yes, you have forgotten all,” Father continued, “now that Second Daughter monitors her class and spit no longer stains her face. You have forgotten, now that Third Daughter finds such joy in school and in the camaraderie of her classmates. If the village chief discovers the secret in your belly, your defiance of Family Planning pronouncements
, he will fire-breathe his fury.”
“I do not believe it!”
Father emitted a manic cackle. “You will. Fury lies dormant, like a sleeping hateful dragon, ready to slay you with one noxious breath.”
Kai’s spirit slithered onto the floor though her bones kept her upright. Mother, pregnant? Oh, what would they do?
“You are wrong!” Mother hissed. “China has changed.”
“China will never change. And I will never endure such suffering again. Not for a baby. There is no choice. You must abort this child to save our family.”
Kai bit her lip, winced at the metallic taste, and fended off an image of a bloodied chicken. Its bloodied embryo. A bloodied . . . Mother. A bloodied baby!
“I will not murder a child.”
A slap rang out.
Mother groaned.
Kai clapped her hands over her ears. It did not stop the sound of what she believed—what she knew—was her father striking her mother.
Numb, Kai worked her way back to her room. She moved as if she were dead, her feet not feeling the floor, her hands not feeling the wall. Was she floating, or had she died at the horror of hearing Father beg Mother to kill a child? Her future sibling?
“You can divorce me.” Words careened off the walls and slammed into Kai.
“I will not divorce you.”
“You must divorce me, for I will not kill a gift of the fates.”
Something like a sob came from Father and froze Kai in place. So Father had not gone mad, at least not entirely.
“How can I divorce the one who picked lice from my hair as we lay, starving and shivering, in prison? How can I divorce the one who bore me such loyal children, even if they are daughters?”
“I will bear you another child. Perhaps this one will be a son.”
A brother? Kai threw back her head. Banged it against the wall.
“Shh! What is it?”
