“Two daughters,” she reminded me, holding up two fingers.
“Of course. Two lovely daughters.” I smoothed the blanket and kissed her forehead.
From the phone in my room, I called my parents. It was almost ten o’clock Friday morning. No one answered.
I crawled into bed and it was hours before Wei finally came up. I pretended I was sleeping. He undressed in the dark and slipped in beside me. He was careful to not touch me—no toe accidentally nudging my leg, or an arm against mine.
My parents’ eight-year anniversary, in the long narrative of their lives, was early in the story, before they’d even birthed their last child. Eight years was just the beginning: three years before my father’s disappearance, fourteen years before his return.
Wei and I had been married eight years. We had made vows that promised a long arc, a life in which eight years would be just a few forgotten slashes on a doorframe marking out growing pains.
Maybe Wei was right to come to bed and not say a thing to me. Maybe what made the years bearable was to let all those bad feelings slip beneath the surface unacknowledged. We closed our eyes and dove in, ears muffled and holding our breath, and when we emerged again, a lifetime would have passed.
—
The next day, we drove to Placerville for the opening of the Christmas tree farms. The hills were dry and golden up Interstate 50 through El Dorado Hills until we reached Shingle Springs, where evergreens began to mingle among the oaks. We parked in a gravel lot. Everything about the day was bright: the sunbursts through the treetops, the crisp air, the crystalline voices traveling among the trees. We marched around engaged in debate about each tree’s pros and cons: too tall, too wide, too sparse, too silver, and so on. Away from home, Wei and Jia Bao seemed to forget all the heaviness of their secret life. They joked and bantered, scooped up the girls and made them squeal. Wei threw his arm around me and nuzzled my cold cheek, and I glanced at Jia Bao; he was crouched beside Emily, discussing the differences between deciduous and evergreen trees.
We came down the hill at sunset, our six-foot balsam fir strapped to the roof of the car. We moved west toward the sinking sun. The sky turned a vibrant pink. Sacramento, a scatter of lights, opened up before us in its valley sprawl.
“Look,” I said to the girls, and they offered a polite coo of awe. I thought of the discrete memories of my childhood—vivid moments rising above the vagueness of long stretches of unremembered time—and I wondered if they would recall this day, and the five of us together.
41
A QUIET LIFE. I wanted mulberry trees shading streets where children played. I wanted Jia Bao furiously typing away in his apartment on Prince Street, that simple, sad place full of dust and the stink of cats, a martyr’s sanctuary. I wanted Wei, chalk on his fingers and clothes, lecturing in LeConte Hall to earnest undergraduates. I wanted Emily screaming across a playground in wild pursuit of her friends, and Stephanie curled up on a pillow in the reading loft of her preschool. I wanted all of that to continue, unbroken, through the winter and spring, punctuated by nothing but holidays marked by construction-paper snowflakes and hearts.
I met Mr. Lu at a restaurant in Oakland’s Chinatown.
We ordered American style, each of us getting our own lunch special. I had no appetite. It was just after the noon rush, and the kitchen was noisier than the dining room as the staff ate. We faced each other like lovers at the end of an affair.
Once again, I marveled at the controlled menace in Mr. Lu’s voice. His tone was friendly, but as taut as a piano wire being drawn across a person’s neck, as he expressed empathy—as he called it—for my difficult position.
He said he had heard that Wei was involved in some sort of scheme with Jia Bao.
I wondered how my face had unintentionally betrayed me at our first meeting outside the photo shop. This man had trusted me not to confide in my husband, and I had not. He knew my own marriage better than I did. His colleagues must have profiled dozens of possible informants, and somehow they had settled on me.
“Jia Bao’s gone now,” I said. “So there’s nothing more to say.” A week before, I’d helped Jia Bao clean his new place, a basement apartment in a worn-down Victorian accessible through a side door behind the backyard gate. Together, we had stood in the doorway and surveyed our task. An old turquoise refrigerator, dating back to the 1950s, stood behind the door and a rickety metal-frame bed with a thin striped mattress was visible in the gloomy bedroom. The odor of stale cat urine made me cough.
Mr. Lu asked me what I knew about Wei’s latest scheme. I was a piss-poor source; why had he continued to pursue me? Because insinuation was enough to move me to action? Because an indirect chain of events was more effective on American soil, where assassinations and disappearances were frowned upon? Isn’t that what I relied on—the protection of this land?
I told him the truth: I knew nothing. Wei had kept everything from me. All I knew—I gave this as a small token—was that Jia Bao would be speaking at a Unitarian church on International Human Rights Day. Mr. Lu smiled.
“I’m sure it will be well attended. Americans have a hearty appetite for the horror stories of other lands.”
I took a bite of my vegetables, soaked in some sort of gravy that the menu simply called “brown sauce,” and closed my eyes as I tried to swallow.
“Convince him to cancel. As you know, the island and the administration are having an image problem, and something like this will just fan the flames.”
“I’ll try.”
“Please do. I know you are busy, with a lot on your mind. Not only a wife and friend, but a mother.” He snatched up a piece of chicken and swallowed it. “By the way, if you need the name of a good day care, please let me know. One that won’t make such strange demands on its parents. Customer is king, right?” He shook his head and laughed. “Therapy. Really!”
To stave off my nausea, I gulped down a few mouthfuls of ice water. I feared the glass would slip out of my shaking hand. I set it down carefully.
I steeled my jaw against my chattering teeth. “If you know so much, what do you need me for?”
My audacity, fearful as it was, amused him. “Here we have it. She finally speaks her mind. Because only one person can deal with Mr. Tang’s manuscript for us.”
“Manuscript?” My voice was monochromatic, fake.
“ ‘Manuscript?’ she says. Yes, the manuscript. I want to emphasize to you that it will be a disaster if it’s published. A disaster for us, and a disaster for Mr. Tang.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“The funny thing is”—he smiled a smile that was not a smile at all—“he was too happy to take the money we gave him to stop writing it.”
I flinched. It’s a game, I reminded myself. Still, the question rang, a sharp, shrill bell of doubt: He’d talked to Jia Bao too? I knew too well the twisted path of good intentions. No, Jia Bao was not a hypocrite. Yet anybody could turn. No: I would not be skeptical. Jia Bao was not like other men. Did Mr. Lu see my expressions dance through this debate before I finally said, “That’s impossible”?
“Is it? It’d be best if there were a way I could be sure it would be destroyed. I’d ask you to destroy it yourself, but—well, I’m sure you understand. I need to oversee it myself. Do you think you can help me?” When I didn’t respond, he set an envelope on the table. “A small thank-you in advance.” I didn’t move. He wiped his mouth and dropped his crumpled napkin on top of his uneaten food. He left a ten between our plates. “This will take care of the bill.” He offered his hand and, pathetically, I shook it.
I waited until I was in the car before I looked in the envelope. Five hundred dollars. I rubbed the bills, wondering if they were fake. Could Jia Bao really have accepted their money? Perhaps the entire thing was a ruse; either way I’d lose. Sheepishly, I held the envelope up to my nose and sniffed. It had the distinctive smell of cash. I had taken it off the table; I couldn’t have left it there. Perhaps I could find a way
to return it. I folded up the bundle and zipped it into my purse and thought of all the people I would please and disappoint.
42
DR. MATSON—DAVE—HAD A NEW RUG, this one woven out of rags, in all shades of red and orange. I was fascinated by its hideousness. He had also installed a small burbling plastic fountain that plugged into the wall. It sounded like a leaking faucet; I yearned to give it a hard twist and shut it off.
Wei and I sat at opposite ends of the couch.
Dave’s eyes darted between us.
“How have things been since I last saw you?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said.
“Any more to say about it?” Dave encouraged. Dave always wanted us to say more, to flay ourselves open, go beyond flesh to the guts. If that had been possible, we wouldn’t have found ourselves here.
“Nope,” said Wei.
Dave nervously shuffled through his papers. “Well then, let’s talk about Stephanie?”
I squirmed. I was not sure I wanted to know. Every session—during which I had mindlessly flipped through magazines in the waiting room while Stephanie said god-knows-what to Dave behind the gloomy blank door—had made me less and less sure of everything. What kind of mother or wife was I? What kind of daughter had I been? Did the test of my existence come to this—the success of raising a child?
When neither of us answered, he continued. “So our sessions have been going well. She’s a very thoughtful little girl. Very observant. Careful with her words. You know all this of course. She told me about her imaginary friend. You probably know about him. She says that he ran away from home and that he lives with her now.”
“An imaginary friend? I’ve never seen her talking to herself,” I said. “Are you sure?”
Stephanie was so phlegmatic, so sensible. Once she had learned that unicorns didn’t exist, she had refused to draw them anymore. Even as a toddler, she had grabbed my face when I was talking to her as if to gauge my honesty. While Emily could be teased out of a bad mood, Stephanie didn’t respond to coddling baby talk.
“Doesn’t sound like her,” Wei grumbled.
“Yes, let’s see.” Dave perused the paper. “She says his name is Jaw Bow.”
“Jia Bao?” I said. Our four-year-old had spent her therapy session talking about Jia Bao? The hard pump of my heart shot tension up the sides of my neck. I stiffened, afraid to betray my surprise. How had I not known?
“He’s not imaginary,” Wei cut in. “He’s real.”
“What do you mean ‘real’?”
“She’s telling the truth,” Wei said. “A friend of ours, Jia Bao, has been living with us. But he’s moved out.”
Dave raised his eyebrows. “How long had he been there?”
I silently counted the months. “About two and a half months.”
“Two and a half months is a long time.” Dave drew the words out and his careful pacing was thick with implication. “It’s interesting that neither of you mentioned him.”
“Is it relevant? I thought these sessions were about us, my wife and I.”
“Has it caused any tension between you two?”
Up rose the memory that I had forced from my mind: lying atop the faded comforter in Willits, Jia Bao’s heart gently striking against my palm. Rooting against his hair for his most basic scent. I would recognize it again, the way a mother bird recognizes its nestling’s cry. Earth and oil and the generic detergent-and-coconut hotel shampoo. I forced a laugh: “No. Jia Bao is incredibly considerate.” Wei fiddled with the seam of the sofa arm.
“How did he come to stay with you?”
I waited for Wei to explain it.
“He needed a place to stay,” Wei finally said. “He was down on his luck, you might say.”
“That sounds like a lot of pressure on your marriage.”
“Not really,” I said, casting a glance at Wei’s firm expression.
“It can be hard on children to have their routine disrupted.”
But it wasn’t Jia Bao, I wanted to protest. It was Wei, out of the house in the evenings at his mysterious meetings; it was me, scurrying around with blood money hidden in my purse. I suddenly saw our lives from Stephanie’s point of view: the subterfuge so thick that the whole house was choked up with it. I was surprised Stephanie and Emily could even breathe amid all the dishonesty and wary glances.
I would speak up. We wanted to help Stephanie, right? “Maybe she talks about Jia Bao, but it’s not his fault,” I said. “It’s our fault. It’s you, Wei, talking about nothing but politics like the rest of us don’t matter.”
“Politics?” asked Dave.
“You could say I’m passionate about politics,” Wei quickly cut in. I understood—I was not to say anything about it. Even American doctor-patient confidentiality laws were not confidential enough for this situation. Yet another secret to worry over and protect.
“Very passionate,” I said. “When was the last time you were home early enough to tuck them in?”
Dave interrupted. “This is interesting and important, but maybe we can talk a bit more about Jia Bao, since that’s where Stephanie’s focus is?”
“Jia Bao is passionate about politics too.” I barely kept the sneer out of my voice. “Believe me, this is relevant.”
“I’m not interested in it for fun. I do what I do for the girls. You don’t get that?”
“ ‘What you do.’ What is that exactly?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, Wei. What is it that you do?” I turned to Dave. “Do you play bridge?”
“No. Why?”
“Apparently my husband is an expert at it. He plays a few nights a week sometimes.”
Wei rubbed his face and sighed. His voice was weary as he tried to dismiss my sarcasm. “I’m not having an affair, if that’s what you think.”
Did he really think I was so petty? “An affair?” I raised my voice. “Is this something else I should worry about? It didn’t even occur to me. Are you having an affair?”
“I just said I wasn’t.”
“Then why mention it?” I no longer cared if Dave saw how ugly we were.
“If you think I’m…interested in politics just for my sake, then you don’t know me at all. Do you think I want our kids to grow up like we did, without a country? Or like you, without a father?”
I flinched. “My father has nothing to do with this. The girls have a father now, even if he wishes he was rotting away in prison for being a martyr.”
Wei stood up so suddenly that I recoiled. “I’m done,” he announced.
Dave set aside his papers and beckoned to Wei. “Wait, wait, wait. Let’s just cool down.”
“I said I’m done.”
“Wei,” Dave said, “please stay to finish the session.”
“No,” Wei said. He struggled into his coat and his arm caught in the sleeve. “Fuck!” he shouted.
“What about Stephanie?” I screamed. “What about your daughter? This isn’t about you.”
Wei slammed the door. The fountain hiccuped and water splashed onto the floor. I wanted to follow him. All my veins throbbed, my throat felt crushed, my temples ached.
I loathed him.
Dave and I sat with the maddening burble of the fountain for too long. Finally, he asked, “How do you feel?”
My laugh was dry, almost a sob. “I feel awful,” I said.
43
THE CHURCH ON CEDAR STREET was modest, the feel of colonial New England in its pale wood planks, with a simple meeting room for the congregation set up with folding chairs. The audience was a mix of young people with long hair and loose clothing and older, professorial types in the style of classic East Coast liberals: properly trimmed and tailored in tweed and corduroy. Except for me and Wei and a few of our friends, everyone was white. Wei had completely ignored my halfhearted suggestion that they cancel the talk. I bitterly thought of Mr. Lu’s comment on Americans’ voyeurism of international tragedy.
At my insistence, we sat in the last row where I cou
ld watch the door. A young woman from Amnesty International, in tight blue pants and some sort of generic ethnic blouse—multicolored and stitched in a geometric pattern—introduced Jia Bao as “an asylum seeker from Free China, which is neither free nor China.” Wei snickered into his sleeve, masking it as a cough. I exhaled loudly. Wei leaned over and whispered, “Don’t mind me.” His frosty tone reminded me that he had not yet forgiven me for the fight in Dr. Matson’s office.
Jia Bao spoke for almost an hour, detailing his imprisonment and house arrest, and the overall situation in Taiwan. He told of his less-famous colleagues who were still in prison, and the common citizens too, who had lost their freedom for simply speaking their minds.
Jia Bao finished to impassioned applause. Questions followed: How do you think the impending change in US-Taiwan relations will affect the dictatorship? Is it really fair to call it a dictatorship? After all, Chiang Kai-shek was an ally. Will you ever return home? Do you think you can be more effective here than there? Do you call yourself Taiwanese? Would unification with China be the best route?
Even after the questions had stopped, people crowded Jia Bao at the podium. Alongside one wall, a table of cookies and Thermoses of hot tea had been set up. Wei joined Jia Bao at the front—perhaps hoping to take on some of the questions—while I wandered over to the snacks.
As I poured a cup of tea for Jia Bao, a low male voice said hello.
“This is quite awkward,” Mr. Lu said. “I didn’t expect either of us to be here. I didn’t expect there would be an event for us to attend. I thought you understood what I had asked you. I thought you had agreed.”
I pushed the guilt from my mind. “I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Don’t play the helpless female. You lied to me.” For the first time, he didn’t bother to hide his venom.
Feeling a cold disquiet rise up my chest, I touched my throat. “I tried. They didn’t listen to me.” Reflexively, I glanced at Wei to see if he was watching.
Mr. Lu, who missed nothing, followed my gaze. “I’m looking forward to meeting your husband. And seeing Mr. Tang again.”
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