The Ninja Daughter

by Tori Eldridge

  No matter how annoyed I got with my mother, I could never deny that Violet Wong was a stunning woman.

  “You look beautiful, Ma.”

  “Oh?” she faltered, surprised by the compliment, then ran her manicured hands along her hair and hip as though some rebellious element might have miraculously sprung out of place.

  “Everything’s perfect. Really. You too, Baba.”

  If my mother resembled an exquisite doll, my father looked like a bear. And not the chubby teddy kind. Vern Knudsen was a blond grizzly.

  He stood at a respectable six feet, with broad shoulders, sturdy limbs, and powerful hands. When Rose and I were little, he used to balance my baby sister on one meaty paw while doing bicep curls with me dangling from the other. He had turned fifty in May, as Ma would in August, but the silken strands of his vanilla-blond hair had already begun to silver. He had a proud nose and kept his wide face smoothly shaven. His thin lips were quick to smile. His teeth were large and straight. And his eyes were the color of cornflowers on a bright summer’s day. So maybe he was more of a Disney grizzly. Either way, he was my Baba, and I loved him.

  I took in the ivory Hawaiian shirt and tan slacks. “Why’s everyone so dressed up?”

  Ma made an exasperated sound. “I knew it. She didn’t read any of my emails.”

  “She could have brought it with,” he said, leaving off the “her” as was his Midwest custom. Then he turned to me. “Got a change of clothes in that bag of yours?”

  The only items in my pack were the spy cam I didn’t use, the brush I used before I buzzed the gate’s intercom, and the empty space where my pants and jacket had been. The only reason I was suffering to wear them over my tank and shorts in this heat was to cover the bruises and scratches on my thighs and arms.

  Ma gave my pack a disapproving look. “I doubt she could fit a decent pair of shoes in that thing, let alone an outfit.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Vi. The dresses young women wear today seem pretty tiny to me.”

  “Anything would seem tiny to you. Trust me, Vern, an outfit worth wearing would take more room than that.”

  I rolled my bike toward the left-hand garage—there was another on the right—and leaned it against the side wall in the shade. The wrought iron gate had closed behind me, so I wasn’t concerned about theft. Mostly I wanted to avoid standing in the heat while my parents talked about me like I wasn’t close enough to hear. When I returned, I grabbed them by the arms and steered them off the stone paving and onto the cool white marble tiles of the entry hall.

  “Sorry I’m underdressed, Ma. But right now, I could really use some air conditioning.”

  Ma kept the house, a wedding present to her from my grandfather, at a chilly seventy-two degrees, regardless of the season or time of day. I used to beg for heat in the winter, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “California is so hot,” she would say—even if it wasn’t. Today, I had to agree. “Do you have any iced tea?”

  Ma patted her chignon for the second time and offered me a polite smile. “I’ll see. No promises.”

  The heels of her pumps clicked as she strode across the marble, past her home office on the left and the formal parlor on the right, and in front of the Gone with the Wind staircase that swept up to the second-floor balconies and bedrooms. While growing up with Rose, the mansion had felt like home. Without her, it felt cold.

  When Ma was out of hearing, Baba touched my chin with his giant thumb and turned it to the side. “What happened to your cheek?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your cheek. There’s glue on it.”

  I had forgotten about that cut. I had replaced Stan’s butterfly bandage with tissue adhesive after getting home from Kateryna’s. A slim red line could still be seen. “I caught it with a fingernail. The glue’s a liquid bandage. You know, so it wouldn’t alarm Ma.” I gave him a conspiratorial wink and hoped he would drop it. He didn’t.

  “Last I checked, you kept your nails trimmed shorter than mine.”

  I shrugged. “Hangnail. Doesn’t take much.” I took a few steps. “You coming?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I ignored the skepticism in his tone and kept walking. “Good. Because I’m thirsty.”

  He’d follow or he wouldn’t. At this point, I wasn’t sure which I preferred. While Ma scrutinized me with a critical eye, Baba observed everything without judgment. As a result, he tended to see things most people missed. I didn’t think he suspected what I did when I wasn’t helping in the restaurant or assisting his neighborhood friends with their oh-so-urgent internet needs, but I couldn’t be certain: Midwesterners held their cards pretty dang close to the vest.

  When I reached the kitchen, Ma handed me a glass of iced tea and motioned me toward the dining room. “Dinner is about to be served.”

  I looked back, hoping for a glimpse at what was simmering on the stove. “Oh my gosh, is that Coquilles Saint-Jacques? It smells heavenly. But don’t tell Baba I said that.”

  “I heard you,” he called from the dining room.

  “I was just being polite,” I called back, shaking my head at Ma so she would know I didn’t mean it. Then I whispered to the chef, “It smells delicious.” He nodded his appreciation and went back to stirring the sauce.

  Ma smiled and patted me on the back. I had praised her caterer. All was forgiven.

  “Why are the best cooks men?” I asked.

  “Because they’re the ones who like to eat.”

  “Ha! Speak for yourself. I love to eat.”

  A corner of her mouth curled as she launched into one of our infamous, silent exchanges.

  “I know you do, dear.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with food, Ma.”

  “I never said there was.”

  “And I exercise plenty.”

  “You exercise too much.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Who says I’m saying anything?”

  “I am.”

  “Then you’ll choose my meaning for me, won’t you, Lily?”

  Even the conversations we didn’t speak exhausted me.

  She inclined her head toward the dining room. “Shall we?”

  Was it my imagination, or did she look smug? I couldn’t be sure. While Ma and I had a secret language that thrived in silence, it didn’t mean I always understood her thoughts. She had a door in her mind that she either opened or shut. Sometimes it swung back and forth so quickly the communication broke into disjointed bits I found hard to follow. I tried to explain it to Baba once. He called it a mother-daughter thing and told me to enjoy it.

  Right.

  Weren’t mothers and daughters supposed to go shopping or gossip about past and future boyfriends? That’s how it worked on television. Not that I wanted those types of interactions. Shopping with Ma made me feel like a short-legged, chubby street walker. And the one time I tried to tell her about my college boyfriend, a brown-eyed California boy, she spent the next hour flipping through Hong Kong magazines, pointing out all the good-looking Chinese movie stars. As if Andy Lau or Huang Xiaoming were going to leave their spouses and marry me. And who was she to judge? She ran off with a Norwegian from North Dakota.

  I inhaled a calming breath and thought of Rose. It had been different with her. Ma and Rose gelled in a way Ma and I never did. She was always easier on Rose. Tight jeans became chic, short dresses stylish, and high school dating acceptable. The world turned upside down, and no one but me seemed to notice. Was it any wonder I didn’t enjoy the mother-daughter thing?

  Ma interrupted my thoughts. “What are you looking at, Lily?”

  “Huh?” I had stopped in front of a family photo hanging on the wall. It showed all of us together a few months after Rose had been born. “She was such a chubby baby.”

  “Ha! Rose was fat.”

  I laughed. “Cute though.”

  Ma stroked my arm. Even through the fabric, I could feel the gentleness of her touch,
as if she wanted to say more. I could have pried, but she wouldn’t have appreciated it. Rose’s murder had affected each of us in markedly different ways: Ma focused her frightening tiger mom energy onto all things Chinese, Baba poured his broken heart into me and the restaurant, and I became a protector of women and kept it from both of them. Who was I to pry into her motives? Instead, I gave her an out. “I can hear Baba’s stomach growling from here.”

  She smiled, this time with both corners of her mouth. “Then we better hurry.”

  By the time we rounded the corner, I was feeling pretty good about the evening. My parents had forgiven my tardiness and casual attire, and Ma and I had shared a couple of truly genuine moments.

  And then I saw him.

  “Why is Daniel Kwok sitting at our dining table?”

  I had clenched my teeth into a fixed smile, like an old school ventriloquist. Ma did the same.

  “Because he is our guest. Now go say hello.”

  I gave her my adoring daughter look. “We’re not done, you and I.”

  She raised her plucked brows high in feigned surprise. “Yes, we are, darling.” Then she turned back to the men and entered the room like a queen.

  I shook my head. It all made sense—the caterer, the fancy clothes, the barrage of emails I was kicking myself for not having read. This wasn’t a family dinner; it was an ambush. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad about my casual track suit.

  Daniel stood as I approached. “Hello, Lily.”

  “Daniel.” I spoke his name without inflection.

  He lit up as if I had gushed it with excitement. “It’s nice to see you again. You look terrific.”

  I could feel Ma gloating from across the table but refused to acknowledge her. If Mr. Kwok wanted to play the gentleman and seat me in my chair, I’d accept it like a lady. “Thanks. You, too.”

  I meant it: Daniel Kwok was a handsome man. He just wasn’t my type—way too Chinese. I preferred Caucasians. No surprise there, considering that I adored my father. But after Pete—with his caramel hair and gingerbread eyes—Caucasian men reminded me of everything I had thrown away. I didn’t deserve Pete’s kindness and love. But did I deserve a perpetual reminder of my mother? I hoped not. Daniel represented everything I did not want to become—obedient, deferential, and ambitious.

  He was the perfect Chinese son.

  And in his fitted black jacket, charcoal jeans, and white shirt that hugged his tall model’s physique like a celebrity in a Hong Kong magazine, he looked a helluva lot better than I did. No doubt Ma was thinking the same thing.

  “Daniel has just returned from Hong Kong,” she said.

  I glanced at Baba for support. He shrugged and cut a thick wedge of pâté for his bread. Apparently, he wasn’t part of this subterfuge. Or if he was, he was keeping these cards close to the vest as well.

  I looked back at Daniel. “Did you see my grandparents while you were there?”

  “I did. In fact…” Daniel paused to take out a jewelry box from his jacket pocket. “Your gung-gung gave me this to give to you.”

  I stared at the jewelry box. “Well, this is awkward.”

  “Lily!”

  “Sorry, Ma, but even you have to admit this is a little strange.”

  Daniel patted the air in Ma’s direction and smiled. “It’s okay, Mrs. Wong. Lily’s right.” Then he turned to me. “Your grandfather just wanted to save time and money on shipping. That’s all. He told me to tell you he saw it in a shop and thought you should have one of your own.”

  I opened the box and found a barrel bracelet divided into four rounded segments of jade, very similar to Ma’s. Each segment had been carved to represent the four celestial creatures of the Sì Xiàng, but unlike hers, each of my guardians had been carved on the appropriate color: bird on red, tiger on white, tortoise on black, and Azure Dragon on a bluish shade of green.

  “It’s stunning.”

  Daniel leaned closer. “The colors symbolize the seasons, directions, and—”

  “Elements. I know.”

  “I’m sure you do. Your grandfather told me to tell you that when you put it on, your wrist would become Huang Long, the precious Yellow Dragon of the Center.”

  I gasped. That part hadn’t occurred to me. But why would it? Yellow was the emperor’s color. I would never have presumed to think of my skin in this way. But yellow also represented the Earth element: grounding, authoritative, immovable. Was Gung-Gung sending me a message? It certainly felt that way. I just wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted me to know.

  I glanced at Ma to see if she had been privy to this surprise. She hadn’t. There was tension in her face as she struggled for neutrality. The only part of her body that gave away her emotions was the hand covering her own bracelet. Was she hiding it or reminding herself that she had hers first? Either way, I felt bad.

  My mother carried a lot of baggage. Not only was she the only living offspring, she had the temerity to be born female. The fact that her stillborn and miscarried siblings had also been female had not lessened the affront in her father’s eyes. Wong Shaozu would have no male descendants to carry on the family name, and more importantly, no sons to perpetuate the ancestral worship. His soul would forever roam without honor. The name Shaozu meant one who brings honor to his ancestors, but who would bring honor to him?

  Baba motioned at the box with the remaining crust of his bread. “Put it on, Dumpling. Let’s see how it looks.”

  I cringed. “I should be wearing something nicer than a running jacket.”

  Ma cracked a smile. “Actually, the black track suit might not have been a bad choice.”

  I smiled in return. It felt good to share another moment with Ma. Sometimes I got so wrapped up in my own family issues, I forgot about the pressure she had been under and the guilt she still carried.

  If Ma had followed her father’s instructions, she would have graduated from UCLA with a degree in finance, returned to Hong Kong, and attracted a worthy man from a family over-blessed with sons. That man would have been offered a financial empire as Ma’s husband if had he agreed to be formally adopted as a Wong. This sort of arrangement would have raised all sorts of incest issues in America, but in China, before the one child law, it would have made perfect sense. Ma’s future would have been secured, and my grandfather and his ancestors would have had a male descendant to honor them. Instead, Ma fell in love with an American agriculture student from UC Davis.

  I slipped the bracelet over my left hand and fastened the clasp. It looked far more beautiful against the black cuff of my jacket than it would have against my bruised skin. My right wrist looked even worse.

  I had intentionally crossed my left hand in front my right when the Ukrainian had tied them together, so the rope had scraped everything around my right wrist except the outside edge. It hadn’t made any difference to him how I had chosen to cross my wrists, but the left-forward Jumonji no Kamae fighting posture ended up making a big difference to me. Having my left hand in front while hanging from the scaffold had caused my right side to hang slightly back. That had given me a couple more inches with which to generate power for my kick.

  That was another reason I wouldn’t wear the bracelet on my right wrist: the only jewelry I tolerated on my dominant side were the ones I could use in a fight. Gung-Gung’s gift was far too fragile—such were the workings of a ninja mind.

  Daniel leaned closer than necessary to peer at the bracelet. “It suits you,” he said, beaming as if the gift were from him.

  “I guess.” The whole situation was annoying the hell out of me. Still, I couldn’t deny the bracelet’s stunning beauty. While the deep imperial green of Ma’s Sì Xiàng personified elegance, the bold colors of mine radiated strength.

  “Your grandfather knows you well,” said Ma.

  “Or he’s sending me a message.”

  She grimaced. “Or perhaps he’s sending one to me.”

  Could that be true? After all,
although Baba had given Rose and me Gung-Gung’s surname, he couldn’t turn us into sons. Gung-Gung’s soul would remain in jeopardy unless I made up for my mother’s failure by passing on the Wong name to my future sons. Was that the meaning behind this gift? Had Gung-Gung given me a stronger version of the bracelet he had given Ma to empower me to succeed where she had failed?

  As always, Baba rushed to rescue. “Well, I think it’s beautiful. Just like you.” Then he covered Ma’s hand and gave it a squeeze. She smiled and glanced up at him. In that brief exchange, I saw the depth of their love.

  I searched for a way to apologize that wouldn’t make the situation worse, but that was the problem with careless words, they couldn’t be unspoken. Meanwhile, Daniel fidgeted at my side. Poor guy was just an innocent messenger. I reminded myself not to kill him.

  “Thanks for bringing me Gung-Gung’s gift,” I said, emphasizing my grandfather. Innocent or not, I didn’t want Daniel expecting anything in return—at least, not from me. Whatever transpired between him and Ma was between them. My relationship with Violet Wong was complicated enough without getting involved with his.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As soon as the last fork was laid on the table, I made my excuses and left, claiming a need to ride off calories from a chocolate soufflé I had barely touched. Tension had killed my appetite. It also pumped up my adrenaline. I needed a release and figured twenty-seven miles on a bike would do it. I had just passed the halfway mark home when my phone started beeping like a garbage truck in reverse. It could only mean one thing: J Tran had entered my zone.

  I had chosen this particular GPS tracker system for the customization features that allowed me to set specific sounds to a variety of actions. Birds chirped when the target arrived at its home destination. An engine revved when the target moved after fifteen minutes of inactivity. A door slammed when the target came to a stop that lasted more than ten minutes. Dogs barked if the target entered a hot zone. And a truck backed up if the target came within five miles of whatever wherever I was. The first two sounds shut off after the initial alert had been given. The last two kept going until I shut them off manually. Neither could be ignored.