by Yiyun Li
The conversation was interrupted then when Roland’s friends joined him at the stable. The man who had wanted to botanize turned out to be a Pole working for the Soviet Union, but Lilia would not learn this until years later when she read Roland’s footnotes to this visit, which explained in vague terms that his endeavor was undermined by the betrayal of the Pole and his associates. What endeavor? It frustrated her that she would never find out. Had Roland been doing something illegal? He had brought these people to the inn and encouraged their stay. Mrs. Anderson could not find a record of a Roland Bouley attending the United Nations conference in 1945. Perhaps he was a spy, or a double agent. What a shame then that nobody got to hear his stories. They didn’t matter to the world. And what the world doesn’t care about, it wipes clean. People would say, Oh, forget about them. They’re water under the bridge now.
Lilia did not believe in such nonsense. And Roland did not, either, or else there would not be a book full of his words in her hands. And who belongs to the water in any case? You don’t drown people when they are alive, but you especially don’t drown them when they are already dead. Lilia remembered the tales from her great-grandparents, about the floods of ’61 and ’62: whole camps, with tents and their inhabitants, swept past; entire towns submerged; miners clinging desperately to tree trunks, singing folk songs in their mother tongues; cattle, horses, mules, dogs and cats, you name it, they were all in it together. Each retelling drained more horror from the flood, the way that the bones of an animal, after many seasons, become pristinely white.
Yet there was one tale Lilia never forgot, about a cemetery in the flood, all graves flushed open, caskets bobbing away. Had those caskets been built sturdily enough to float? Those bodies: Were they liberated, or still imprisoned in the caskets? Lilia did not believe that the dead rest in peace, but the dead should not be forced to share a flood, or an earthquake, or any kind of catastrophe, with the living. Lilia had long ago settled on her choice of cremation. She had told her children that it was more fair for all that she was not interred with any one of her husbands. What she really dreaded was to be confined to a single place, where you can always be found again.
UNLIKE LILIA’S OWN CHILDREN, KATHERINE visited regularly, oftentimes bringing Iola. A granddaughter, parading the hallway with a great-granddaughter in tow, never failed to inspire envy and jealousy among Lilia’s peers. She was touched by this devotedness, though not without pity. Wouldn’t it make more sense that children, when they grow up and have their own families, should become less of their parents’ children? But Katherine was never anyone’s child. A child, you let her go or she let herself go, but with a middle generation missing, a grandchild lingered in a grandchildly way.
Lilia thought highly of loyalty as a virtue, but not Katherine’s kind, which was a character flaw. Katherine’s loyalty was like her smile—you know she chose them because they were the easiest ways to accept defeat. As a little girl, she smiled readily, when a neutral situation did not request her to, or worse, when she was frustrated or embarrassed or in physical pain. How odd, this one doesn’t cry or throw a tantrum like a normal child, Lilia remembered thinking then; like there was a photographer only Katherine could see, who prompted her to smile in all situations.
During her teenage years, Katherine had not been difficult, and she would still follow Lilia around, going to the grocery store with her, weeding next to her in the garden, rocking herself on a stool when Lilia cooked, all the time chatting about her schoolmates and teachers, never choosy with details, seldom with malice. She had many friends, but none too close. She did not spend hours studying herself in the mirror. She did not sulk. Everything Lucy had been, Katherine was not. The sweetest child we’ve brought up, Gilbert would say, as though incredulous that life could still treat them with such generosity after Lucy’s death. But sweetness was never a commendation for any girl. That Katherine did not seem to hide anything as most children do—this had worried Lilia. What if they were bringing up a child who did not understand her right to secrets?
It annoyed Lilia that so many Bayside residents adored Iola unabashedly. She was the least eye-catching girl from Roland’s line, his blood three times diluted. Lucy had not been perfect. Her eyes—Lilia’s eyes—were disproportionally large for her face, which was narrow like her father’s. Conscious of that flaw, Lucy had studied the movie stars in the magazines until she settled on Dana Wynter, whose press shots Lucy would show the hairdresser. Katherine’s beauty was less striking. If Lucy could be called a piece of artwork—a piece of work she surely was!—Katherine was a decent replica. Everything about her was less sharp. The angle of Lucy’s cheeks was softened in Katherine’s face (and Roland’s jawline almost gone). Katherine’s eyes were not as cold as Lucy’s icy blue, but rather a bluish gray.
Iola was no more than a china figurine, pleasing in her cuteness—but that cuteness would mean little once she outgrew her little-girl-hood. More unforgivable, however, was that Iola was a child without depth. Lilia believed that a person was either born with that trait, or without, but Katherine never understood this. She, like many fellow mothers at Iola’s school, believed that by making her daughter do things, she would one day help the girl overcome that fatal inability to be.
“Welding?” Lilia said. For a six-year-old, Iola had a schedule that required professional management. Ice-skating, dancing, acting, violin, art, with the recent addition of an eight-week welding class, as Katherine had just told her. “What are you raising her to be, a blacksmith?”
“Different things, Grandma,” Katherine said.
“Welding sounds disreputable for a girl. What’s next? Butchering? Tanning? Wheel-making? If you want her to be useful I would suggest weaving, knitting, embroidering, or egg-painting.”
“Egg-painting sounds so nineteenth century.”
“My mother, your great-grandmother, won a contest once when she was in grade school.”
“I know, I know,” Katherine said. “Iola is a hundred years late for that activity.”
“Welding sounds medieval,” said Lilia.
Welding, Katherine explained, was part of a school program designed to empower girls. Lilia’s other children must have endured (or were still enduring) these nagging concerns of parenting. But her policy, when it came to her children’s lives, was “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“It’s between welding and coding, and I don’t want Iola to have too much screen time,” Katherine said.
Poor Katherine. She lived so timidly. Already her face showed the wear and tear of motherhood that you would associate with someone who had raised seven children. A heavy-hearted child, Katherine’s kindergarten teacher had once commented—that, despite Katherine’s constant smile. Lilia wouldn’t mind tying a bouquet of helium balloons around that heart.
Katherine studied the pictures—children and grandchildren, but no husbands—Lilia kept on the dresser, taking her time, a sign that she was getting ready to ask Lilia for something.
“How’s your marriage?” Lilia said.
Katherine gave a laugh. Now things were getting worse. Nothing good could come out of Katherine’s laugh. “What’s your plan for Thanksgiving?” she asked.
“No plan yet,” Lilia said. “Are you thinking of inviting me?”
“I was hoping someone already invited you.”
“Meaning one of my children?”
“Someone will invite you, right?” Katherine said. “I can drive you.”
“Thank you, but no, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“The thing is,” Katherine said, “I was wondering if Iola and I could come with you.”
“I can make a few phone calls, but why? What’s going on with you and Andy?”
“Oh, nothing new. I offered to go to marriage counseling with him,” Katherine said. “But he said the whole marriage counseling business was a scam.”
He had a point, Lilia thought, though as a rule she never sided with Andy. He worked as a marketing manager at a tech company; he’d had a failed marriage but no child. Lilia had not felt that it was her place to say anything when Katherine dated him. The first time Lilia met Andy, she had counted. He had only said three sentences that were not about himself during the two hours of the meal, and he had been the one talking nonstop.
“I know this feels like a big terrible thing now, but forty years down the line you may not even remember his name. You certainly will forget his face.”
“It’s my marriage we’re talking about,” Katherine said.
“Forty years is a conservative estimate,” Lilia said. “Give it a few years. Listen, I’ve lived long enough to be a three-time widow, and I can tell you this: If you want a long-lasting marriage you don’t start with love, or obsession, or any of that silliness. You can certainly end with all those things. And you’ll be happier. Trust me, next time you’ll begin in a different place.”
“Next time,” Katherine said. “You make it sound like buying a new pair of shoes.”
Shoes are better friends than men to women, but Lilia reminded herself she should be gentler with Katherine.
LILIA’S EXCUSE TO GO TO San Francisco was flimsy, and anyone who cared to point it out could have done so. She deserved a break, people would think, as she had been working so hard when Maggie Williamson and the two other girls were sick from German measles. Even Lilia’s father, for whom rest was not a word in the dictionary, did not say anything, but asked if she needed some money for the day’s outing. Surprised by his generosity, she said no, which she later regretted.
Lilia told everyone that she was visiting a jeweler to see to the ring her mother had left her. The ring was of pure gold, its dull hue an endorsement of its purity. It had been Lilia’s great-grandmother Lucille’s before she had given it to her eldest daughter, Lilia’s grandmother, who had then passed it to Lilia’s mother, also the eldest daughter.
The ring did not have an excessive value but it had come with a story. Great-grandmother Lucille had set out from Missouri to California with her husband two months after their wedding. He was a physician, drawn to the west, he had told people, by the stories of people dying in the gold mines due to the lack of medical care. He had not mentioned his interest in prospecting, which eventually would fail him as it would fail so many men of his ambition, costing him much of the fortune he had made as a doctor around the mining camps.
It took them eight months to reach Blanco Bar, and she had dispatched letters to her family, detailing the traveling. Later in her life she had got in her mind the idea of publishing the letters as a travelogue, but her correspondence had been lost after her parents’ deaths. Lilia’s mother must have been infected by the same bug, wanting to write a book herself. Who would read their books? Perhaps they never dared to ask themselves that.
The day after Great-grandmother Lucille’s arrival, a miner visited the inn where they were staying. He brought out a ring he had made himself. He had nearly died the previous year in a flood when the dam broke, he explained, if not for a felled tree that grabbed him from the current. He had made a ring, the gold coming directly from the ore, and he promised himself that he would give it as a present to the first lady he saw after the flood.
The story, like so many stories Great-grandmother Lucille passed on to her children and grandchildren, was shared by them—but the ring Lilia did not have to share with anyone.
Why do you need to see a jeweler, Lucille asked before Lilia left that morning.
It’s my business, Lilia said.
Are you thinking of selling the ring? If you are, I can buy it from you, Lucille said. As the namesake of Great-grandmother Lucille, she had always thought she had the right to the ring.
How can you think so low of me? Lilia said. The ring will stay in the family.
What do you even care about this family? Lucille said.
Lilia measured the distance between herself and Lucille. She did not think Lucille would grab her purse by force, but with a girl like Lucille you never knew. If you want to buy the ring, Lilia said, where would you get the money?
I can ask Hayes for a loan.
Lilia laughed. They both knew that Hayes, like their father, would not part with a penny.
I’m not selling it, Lilia said. You should stop thinking about what’s not yours.
But why are you taking it to a jewelry shop? Lucille asked.
I want to see if they can make it into a pendant for me.
Lucille glanced at Lilia’s neck. They were not the kind of girls to wear a necklace or a pendant, she knew Lucille wanted to remind her.
I may be able to wear it when I move to the city, Lilia said.
Lucille stared at Lilia. Lilia wished she could pinch Lucille, hard, and warn her about that look in her eyes. It was among the things that had driven their mother into a constant state of absentmindedness: their father’s nagging, the boys’ unintelligent bickering, Lucille’s harshness with everyone, Margot’s tears, the dangers threatening Kenny’s happiness.
So this is how things are, Lucille said. Now that Mother is gone, everyone is looking for a way to leave.
Hayes will never leave, Lilia said. Jack may stay. Kenny is still young. Neither you nor Margot will leave, at least for some time.
You don’t understand, do you?
What don’t I understand? Lilia asked.
You live with your head in the clouds, Lucille said. Just like Mother.
Lilia looked at the cloudless sky. The rainy season was over, and here were the long sunny days ahead. Better than keeping my head in the chicken coop and the laundry tub, she said.
Can’t you see your responsibility now?
We all have our share of chores. I do more than anyone, Lilia said.
I’m not talking about chores.
Are you saying it’s my turn to make this a happy family for everyone? Mother didn’t.
Without saying anything Lucille left with stiff strides.
Lilia resented that she was not the one to have walked away first. On the bus, though, she realized that the look in Lucille’s eyes was that of terror. Lucille, despite her sternness, was fiercely loyal to the family. Anyone defecting would crumble Lucille’s world, including their dead mother. But what could Lilia do for Lucille or anyone? She looked at the fields outside the bus, so much prettier if you didn’t have to toil in them. The same mother had raised them all. With the quarrels and fights among themselves, they had nevertheless shared a family life. Orphanhood they could not share.
Lilia turned her thoughts to Roland. In his eyes, the green hills and the blue oaks and the marshes would make California a poetic place. Why would she want to get stuck in a family that she had always wanted to leave behind, when she could be a pretty and carefree girl from California?
AT THE HOTEL FRONT DESK Lilia watched the receptionist place a folded note to Roland in a cubby that had the number “706” underneath. When she returned, she would check that cubby first to see if it was empty. She was in town for an errand, she had written on the hotel stationery, and she would stop by at three o’clock to say hello if he happened to be around. The paper, gilded and watermarked, made Lilia feel cosmopolitan, and the receptionist’s unquestioning agreeableness reminded her that not every encounter in the city required her to use her vigilance as though she was dealing with an unruly horse.
She asked for directions to the opera house. Since the weekend Roland spent on the ranch, Lilia had followed the news about the conference in the papers, which Mr. Williamson subscribed to for the guests, though rarely would someone open them. Most of the guests came to be away from news, of war or peace.
What are you looking for? Maggie had asked. The Williamsons, like Lilia’s family, were the kind to rely on the wireless for news.
Lilia said she was looking to see if there were any jobs she could apply for.
Are you serious about leaving? Maggie asked.
Why not? Lilia said.
Maggie sighed and said she could not imagine herself doing the same.
You’re not thinking of spending your whole life here? Lilia said.
They had been sitting on the back porch of the inn then, a Monday afternoon, slow for business. Maggie looked around. What’s wrong with here? she asked.
God help her if she cannot see anything wrong. But don’t you want to have something better? Lilia said.
Better how? Maggie said. Even if you find a job in the city, you still have to have a room and a bed, and you have to cook and wash and go from chore to chore, no?
If Maggie were Lilia’s sister she would’ve given Maggie a knock on her head, calling her an idiot, but Maggie was a loyal friend. You can come and visit me anytime, Lilia said. You can stay with me if you need.
Maggie nodded as though she understood the invitation. Lilia might as well have said, I’ll save you a seat in that movie theater called paradise when you have a day off from your boring life. Maggie would have nodded the same way.
Do you think you’ll marry soon? Maggie said.
Why? Do you want to marry? Who can we marry? We’re still young.
No, not me. Not yet. But my ma wondered if you would get married one of these days.
Mrs. Williamson was no more than a nuisance. But Maggie’s imagination didn’t even stretch beyond her mother’s harmless malice. If Maggie were told about Roland, what would she have said?
Lilia reached the opera house around lunchtime. She was hoping that the delegates would be released into the sunshine for a change of air. A British diplomat had been quoted in the newspaper about the sessions running until late at night, the delegates’ brains fogged up by cigarette smoke and sleep deprivation. Perhaps her own visit would offer a break that Roland dearly needed. Refreshing, he had called her the morning before they parted.