Heiress Apparently

by Diana Ma

  “My dad told me to be discreet,” she says dryly, “and I promised not to post pictures on Weibo of Mimi and me making out, so I guess we’re cool. He says we’ll talk more when he gets back from his business trip.”

  I don’t get to ask more questions because we’ve crossed a stone bridge and reached the east patio.

  There’s still a little time before moonrise, but red lanterns have been hung all around the raised wooden patio. Their glow provides all the light I need to see three people sitting around a rectangular teak table on yellow silk-cushioned chairs.

  My aunt sits facing us. An older elegant woman in a long black dress who must be my grandmother sits across from her. An elderly man with white bushy eyebrows sits at the head of the table. My grandfather. The one who disowned my mother and betrayed Eric and Mimi’s grandfather. Nausea sweeps over me.

  Then my grandmother turns around and smiles gently at me. “Wai sun nu, ni hui jia la.”

  Her words hit me right in the heart. Granddaughter, you’ve come home. “What do I call you?” I ask, but her forehead wrinkles. Maybe she doesn’t speak English. I repeat the question in Chinese.

  Confusion fades from her face, and she responds in Chinese. “Jiao wo Po Po.” Her smile wobbles.

  Call me Po Po. A hot core of emotion wells up in me.

  My grandfather slowly gets to his feet. “Welcome,” he says in accented English.

  It’s a mild night in mid-September, so there’s no reason for the goose bumps rising coldly on my skin. My whole time in Beijing, I’ve pushed my way through obstacles, searching for answers about my past. I’ve finally reached the man who has been responsible for every dead end, every blocked question. But now that I’m here, I have just one question. “Is my mother welcome here too? Because I can’t stay if she’s not welcome.”

  A tense silence falls over the patio. Alyssa gives my arm a heartfelt squeeze of support.

  “Lao Gong, ni da ying wo,” my po po says. Husband, you promised me.

  My aunt raises blazing eyes to her father. “Yes, you promised us both that Lei could come home.”

  My grandfather’s bushy eyebrows draw down over his sharp eyes as he peers at us all. “Fine,” he says at last. “It’s been long enough.”

  A little half-assed, but I’ll take it. My exasperation at my grandfather is mixed with relief. I would never claim a home that didn’t welcome my mother.

  “Will you join us, Gemma?” my aunt asks.

  Not trusting my voice, I nod and sit next to my po po. This is my family now. And soon, I’ll call my mother and tell her that it is hers again as well.

  Alyssa sits beside me and grabs my hand. She’s bouncing up and down, squeezing my hand so hard that it’s cutting off my circulation, but I can’t fault her for her enthusiasm.

  A servant brings out a tray of rolled-up towels and uses tongs to give me one. It’s warm and scented with roses. I accept with thanks but am confused about what to do with it. I peek at Alyssa to see her wiping her hands with the towel.

  She winks at me. “You’re going to make some joke about how fancy this is, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I say dryly, “because then you’ll send a box of these rose-scented towels to my hotel room tomorrow. But seriously, thank you for everything. I just wish there was something I could do for you.”

  Alyssa looks at me in surprise. “You don’t need to thank me for anything! This is as much yours as it is mine, remember? You’re my family.”

  Fondness for my cousin swells up in me. “I can’t believe I’m leaving in a month. I’ll miss you.” I never thought I’d be so sad at the thought of leaving Alyssa. It seems like just yesterday that I was being mobbed by her fans and cursing her name.

  Her face falls. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to face another family dinner without anyone my age to talk to.”

  Maybe there is something I can do for her. After all, this whole Romeo and Juliet thing must be getting old for Alyssa and Mimi. Patting her on the shoulder, I say, “I hear you.” Then I turn to the adults. “I was wondering if I could ask for a favor.”

  My aunt translates for my po po, and once Po Po understands my question, she agrees at once before asking what the favor is.

  My grandfather is more cautious. “What favor?”

  My heart beats faster. “I met some friends in the city, and I was wondering if we could invite them and their parents over for dinner sometime.”

  Alyssa kicks me under the table. Hard.

  Don’t worry, I try to telecommunicate to her. I’ve got this. After a second, she gives me a slow nod. Alyssa’s putting her trust in me. I’d better not blow this.

  My aunt’s mouth falls open and then snaps shut. She knows what I’m up to. Her gaze swivels to Alyssa and then back to me. My palms grow wet. According to Eric, it’s my aunt and his grandmother who’ve continued the feud through their high-society snubs. Accepting Mimi is one thing—but will my aunt accept the whole family? At last she says, “That’s an excellent idea.”

  My grandfather shrugs. “Shi ni de jia,” he says to my aunt. It’s your house.

  “Great.” Mentally, I crack my knuckles. Time to put those acting chops to good use. As innocently as I can manage, I say, “Their names are Eric and Mimi Liu. When should I invite them?”

  My grandfather pins me with a glare. “The Liu family?!”

  I pretend I don’t notice his outraged reaction. “I met Eric when I was sightseeing at the Forbidden City. He thought I was Alyssa!” I laugh. “Isn’t that funny? Anyway, we hit it off.” My request will make more sense if my grandfather thinks Eric and I are romantically involved. . . . Wait, that’s actually true. Well, I’m a better actor when I’m not outright lying. “I’d love to invite him and his sister over. I guess Eric already knows our family?” I lean back and watch my grandfather squirm.

  My aunt leaps into the breach. “I would love to have your friends and their family over to my house.” She holds my grandfather’s gaze as she stresses the part about it being her house.

  Way to go, Yi Ma!

  Po Po asks for a translation, and my aunt starts catching her up.

  Alyssa’s eyes are bright with hope and a dash of mischief. “Gemma won’t be in Beijing for much longer. The least we could do is invite her friends over before she leaves.”

  My grandfather has had enough. He bursts into Chinese. The gist of it is: “Over my dead body! You’re all ganging up against me! What kind of trick is this?”

  Well, it was worth a shot. My heart drops, but what did I think was going to happen? One dinner invitation wasn’t going to mend a decades-long feud anyway.

  Alyssa leans over and whispers, “Thanks for trying.”

  My aunt’s face is grim as she finishes her translation of the conversation for Po Po. Hopefully, she’ll say something to support us.

  Then Po Po bangs her hand on the table and glares at my grandfather. “Gou la!” Enough. She starts speaking rapid Chinese—too fast for me to follow, so Alyssa translates for me. “This feud has gone on long enough. We were all friends once, and Peng is dead now. I will not continue the war with his children or grandchildren. That war is in the past, and I will not allow it to damage our granddaughter’s happiness.” Po Po’s gaze shifts to Alyssa when she says the last part. Alyssa falters and barely manages to finish translating.

  I remember then what Alyssa had said about her grandmother. Po Po follows me on Weibo. The images of Mimi in the background of Alyssa’s Weibo posts. Holy shit. My grandmother knows about Mimi.

  “Jing tian wan shang, wo men qing Liu jia,” Po Po says. It’s a good thing that I know enough Chinese to understand that Po Po said that she will invite the Liu family over tonight. Because Alyssa is apparently too shocked to translate it for me.

  My grandfather gapes at my grandmother, but he doesn’t argue with her.

  “It’s settled then,” my aunt says. “We will welcome Gemma’s friends to our home tonight. After all, this is Zhong Qiu Jie—Mid-Au
tumn Festival. A time for reconnection and—” Suddenly, all the air seems to whoosh right out of her. “Family,” she finishes weakly, her gaze frozen on something in the distance over my shoulder. Everyone turns to look.

  It’s my mother.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I’m in such deep shit. But my feet don’t seem to register how much trouble I’m in. Because I’m running as hard as I can to where my mother is standing at the foot of a stone bridge. When I reach her, I burrow right into her warmth. “How did you know I was here?” My mouth is as dry as dust.

  “I know my daughter. I knew something was wrong.” Mom sounds mad as all hell, but her arms come around me to hold me tightly, and that’s all I care about. “And your agent finally coughed up the information that you were in Beijing for a movie.” She takes a deep breath. “Daughter, you lied to me.” Then she bites out each word again in Chinese. “Nu er, ni pian wo.” All in English and then repeated in Chinese.

  No doubt about it. Mom is definitely at DEFCON 1.

  “I’m sorry, Ma.” My chest rises and falls with a deep, fortifying breath. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  “But why?” she asks. “Why did you lie? Was it really because of the movie?”

  “At first, it was the movie,” I admit. “But then it was because I was finding out so many confusing things. And I still don’t know what it was that you did. Why you had to leave your family and China.”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” Her body tense as a wire, she’s already turning away from me and toward her estranged family. They’re too far away for me to see their expressions, but they must be freaking out about my mom’s sudden appearance.

  From force of habit, I’m about to let my mom evade my questions yet again. But then resolve crystallizes like ice in my stomach. I’ve fought too hard to know her past to wait any longer. I need to know why my mother was banished from her homeland—which was my banishment too, though I never realized it. No matter how painful it is, my family’s past is my inheritance. “Ma, tell me what happened. Please. Tell me your story.”

  My mom turns back to me. Gently, she cups my face in her hand. “My past is so painful, and I made so many mistakes. I don’t want to burden you with it.”

  “Ma, all my life I’ve wanted to come here—to China. To know where I come from and feel like I belong somewhere. But that’s not what happened when I first came here. Not until I met my relatives.” The rest of the family is still watching us from a distance, but I ignore them. This moment should be just for me and my mother a while longer. “Even then, there was something missing. Not knowing my past makes me feel . . . nanguo.” “Nanguo” is a Chinese word that means sad and uncomfortable all at once—like your skin is bursting from grief—and it’s exactly how I feel. “I won’t know where I come from and where I belong until I know your past.”

  “I see.” Tears sparkle in my mother’s eyes. “You have to understand—I grew up rich and spoiled in a place like this.” Her hand drops from my face, and she makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the rooftop pleasure garden. “I never thought of anyone but myself. The Tiananmen Square protests changed all that.”

  My body seizes up with astonishment. “You . . . you were there in Tiananmen Square? During the massacre too?”

  Her face empties of emotion. “Yes. I lost friends that day.” The thought of my mother fleeing from bullets and tanks in that bloody massacre sends chills through my body. Somberly, she says, “I was afraid I would lose your father that day.”

  “Dad?” My voice goes thready. “He was there too?”

  “It was how I met him—at the Tiananmen Square protests.”

  My mother being a revolutionary is one thing. But my kind, gentle father? There’s only one explanation. I’m dreaming all this, and any minute now I’ll wake up in a cold sweat in my hotel room bed. Surreptitiously, I pinch myself. Any minute now. “But,” I say as I fail to wake up, “you told me you weren’t there!”

  “I never said that.”

  No, what she’d said was that it was forbidden. Forbidden by my grandfather. And like an idiot, I assumed that meant she hadn’t been there. I remember what Eric told me. Your grandfather is a high-ranking Communist Party official. No daughter of his would have taken part in those protests. “Is that why you were kicked out of the family—because my grandfather didn’t want you at the protests?”

  “That was only part of it.” Her gaze narrows on the patio, where my grandfather watches us, and her voice drops, even though he can’t hear us at this distance. “My father—your grandfather—was a proud, powerful man, and Delun was nobody, a poor student.”

  “My grandfather didn’t approve of my father?” Anger sparks in me, even though my aunt had already told me this. But how could anyone not approve of my father?

  “It was worse than that.” My mom grips her hands tightly together. “Thousands were arrested after the massacre, and your dad was one of them. Your grandfather had him sent to a labor camp.” Just a moment—my dad in prison?! “Then your grandfather lied and told me that he’d had Delun executed as a counterrevolutionary. All to keep your father away from me.”

  Horror chokes my breath. Even after all I’ve learned about him, I still can’t believe that my grandfather would do something so awful. My stomach sickens sourly at the thought of my father in a labor camp—and my mother thinking he was dead. It makes sense now. My aunt’s refusal to see me when I first came to Beijing. My po po fainting from shock when Alyssa asked to go look for me.

  But it wasn’t because of what my mother had done. It was their own guilt. “My aunt and grandmother knew. They knew Dad was still alive in a labor camp. And they let you believe he was dead.”

  “Yes.” Just one terrible word. But it explains everything.

  Oh, my heart. My mother wasn’t cut off from her family. She’d left them. Because they’d betrayed her.

  “I got Delun out,” Mom says grimly. How in the world did my upright, law-abiding mother spring my father from prison? “But your grandfather had already sentenced him as an enemy of the people—so we fled to Hong Kong. Then we had to leave Hong Kong for the U.S. before it reverted back to China’s control in 1997. If we hadn’t, your father would have been arrested and imprisoned again.”

  Again, the thought of my father in prison makes me ill. Dad could have ended up like Eric’s grandfather, with his bent bones and ill health. But that’s not what happened to my dad. My mother saved him, and she lost her family and home because of it. “Ma,” I say, “it’s time to come home.”

  “They don’t want me.” Her voice is cold.

  “They do—at least Yi Ma and Po Po do. They’ll be on your side this time. But it’s your fight.” That was what Eilene had been trying to tell me—that she would be on my side, but it was my fight.

  Surprise flashes in my mother’s eyes. “What do you mean, Gemma?”

  I look at the small, distant figures on the patio. Po Po. Yi Ma. Alyssa. My aunt and grandmother stood up for Alyssa. They’ll stand up for my mother now. Eilene might have been right about me, but that doesn’t mean she was entirely right. It’s not always about learning to stand up for yourself. Sometimes, it’s not just one person’s fight. Sometimes it’s sisters and mothers and daughters together. Thousands of students facing down a tank in the shadow of the red Gate of Heavenly Peace.

  “I guess it’s my fight too, Mom. I came to Beijing against your wishes. The least I can do is fight for you to reclaim it as your home. Our home.” It’s my home too—lost before I was even born. “Thirty years ago, you lost your home. Don’t let my grandfather take it from you again.”

  My mom’s face opens in wonder. “When did you get so wise? So strong?”

  “That’s easy—I have you as a mom,” I say. “Now, are we going to kick ass or what?”

  My mother straightens her shoulders, and there’s a light in her eyes I’ve never seen before. I can totally see her as a revolutionary activist. “Yes, let’s go.”
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  Together, we walk to the table, where the others wait for us.

  My aunt, ghost pale, rises from her chair at our approach. “Mei Mei.”

  Alyssa clasps her hand to her mouth.

  My grandmother stands too, like she’s in a trance. “Nu er, ni hui lai la.” Daughter, you’ve returned.

  My grandfather stays seated, his face emotionless.

  My mother stops in front of the family she hasn’t seen in thirty years. Her body is trembling at my side. “Ma, Jie Jie.” She swallows. “Ni men zhi dao.” You both knew. That my father was alive. “Ni pian wo.” You lied to me. Because they’d let her believe my father was dead.

  Pale as death, Po Po sinks to her chair, and Alyssa casts a worried look in her direction. I remember what my cousin said about our Po Po’s bad heart, and anxiety worms into my stomach. Then Po Po stands up again. Tears pour down her wrinkled cheeks without her seeming to notice. “Nu er, wo dui bu qi ni.” Daughter, I’ve wronged you. “Qing ni hui jia.” Please come home.

  Now Mom is the one who seems like she’s about to collapse. Though I’m trembling with emotion myself, I hold her steady, my arm around her shoulders. “Ma, wo hui jia la,” she says shakily. Ma, I’ve come home.

  As if to herself, Po Po whispers, “Wo de nu er hui jia la.” My daughter has come home.

  Blinking away tears, my mother looks at my aunt, who gazes fearfully back at her. “Jie Jie.” My mom’s voice breaks. “Did you even try to find me?”

  “Mei Mei,” my aunt says in a voice so full of desperate love that my chest knots painfully, “please forgive me. I was so ashamed—that’s why I didn’t try to find you. But I always hoped you would come home. I’ve never forgotten you.”

  Heart weighted with pain, I touch the jade pendant at my throat. The pendant my aunt wanted to send to me at my birth—to honor a long-ago promise between two sisters. Do not forget. That was what my mother wrote on the back of the photograph she sent to my aunt. If only my aunt had looked for us then. If only she had found us. But she didn’t because she thought my mother would never forgive her. The jade burns like a coal against my clammy skin.