Red Butterfly

by A. L. Sonnichsen

  China formally introduced its one-child policy in 1980, which means that, since that time, most Chinese couples have only been allowed to have one baby. Families who have more than one, by accident or by choice, are heavily fined, threatened, even bullied by government agencies. Over the thirty-odd years since this law went into effect, many healthy babies have been abandoned, maybe because they had the misfortune of being born a second child, or because of their sex (boys are traditionally prized in Chinese culture over girls). Even more often, children with any kind of physical difference are left by their birth parents, sometimes at the hospital, on a street corner, or outside a government building. In China, abandoning your baby is illegal, but since parents have only one chance at raising a child, they face enormous social and family pressure to produce a “perfect” offspring.

  I saw the fallout of the one-child policy for the first time when I visited the Fuzhou orphanage. The cribs in the baby room were crowded with healthy baby girls. I spent the morning holding toddlers and playing games. Later, as I passed a partially open, dark doorway, I heard a whimpering sound. It was what I found when I went through that door that changed my life forever.

  I peeked into the empty room and saw a newborn wrapped up tightly in a crib near the door. He had a cleft lip, a facial difference that’s fairly easy to fix with surgery, but because the orphanage staff didn’t have the correct bottle to feed him, or the money for surgery, he’d been left in that dark room to die.

  I was seventeen years old. I held that baby to my chest and wished I could take him home, but adoption wasn’t an option. I was in high school and there was a border between my home and this orphanage, not to mention miles of red tape. I didn’t know what else to do except, with many tears and prayers, lay him back in his crib and walk away.

  That experience planted a seed of sorrow in my heart. I was determined to come back someday, to make a difference in a Chinese orphan’s life.

  Seven years later, newly married and armed with a college degree, I was back in China to work in an international school. I’d only been in China a couple weeks when I got my chance to visit the orphanage in our city of Tianjin. Conditions there were much better than in the orphanage I’d visited years before in Fuzhou, but some problems remained—too many babies and not enough help. I’d been visiting the baby room for a few weeks when a new arrival caught my eye. She had a cleft lip and palate and reminded me of that tiny baby I’d had to leave behind in Fuzhou. I can relate to Kara’s mama in this way—it felt as if God reached down and placed this tiny child in my arms. I knew we were meant to be together.

  My husband and I brought that baby girl home to be ours, but, because of Chinese adoption regulations, weren’t allowed to adopt her right away. We spent a total of eight wonderful years in China, working and waiting. During those years, I volunteered with an organization that worked to improve conditions at the orphanage. Throughout this book, you’ve heard the echoes of stories I picked up during my time as a volunteer. Kara’s story is fictional, but so many real children set the precedent for her experiences. I heard of children being fostered by Western parents who were forced to leave China abruptly, of loving foster parents who had to give up their beloved children to new families, and of other families who brought abandoned children into their homes who never acquired the necessary paperwork for adoption. At the orphanage, I met children with limb differences like Kara’s and debilitating cerebral palsy like Xiao Bo’s and Lin Lin’s. All of these stories went into a melting pot to make Kara who she is.

  Our own story ended happily. After six and a half years of fostering our daughter, we were finally able to adopt. We now live in the United States, but fondly remember our years in the amazing country of China. I feel enormously fortunate to be able to share a story set in a place, among a people, and about a subject so very precious to me.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, God,

  for all your gifts, including this one.

  Thank you, Aaron,

  for loving me, for giving me writing time, for your listening ear.

  Thank you, sweet children of mine, all of you,

  for your hugs and kisses, for all your enthusiasm.

  Thank you, Mom,

  for giving me a unique view of the world, for always encouraging my writing.

  Thank you, Dad,

  for long walks and talks, for helping me find my True North.

  Thank you, Michelle and Steve,

  for shaping, inspiring, pushing me.

  Thank you, Nai Nai and Papa,

  for love and support in so many ways.

  Thank you, critique partners and cheerleaders, Christa, Caroline, Grace, Janet, Jesalyn, Julie, Krista, Kristin, Melissa, Melodie, and the Sub Club,

  for being amazing writers in your own rights, for sharing your gifts with me.

  Thank you, Maliya, Jimmy, Rosalie and Megan,

  for your beautiful, sometimes-painful, always-hopeful stories.

  Thank you, Papa, Kim, Patrick and Kimberly,

  for your support and expertise.

  Thank you, Mid-Columbia Gymnastics Academy,

  for giving me “office space” on the sidelines, for letting me use your electricity and your bathroom.

  Thank you, Kate,

  for crying when you read my work, for believing in me, for finding this book a home.

  Thank you, Amy June Bates, for your gorgeous artwork

  that made this story come alive.

  Thank you, Christian and the amazing team at Simon & Schuster,

  for loving this novel, for pouring your hearts into making it a beautiful, real book.

  Photo by Julie DeGuia

  A. L. Sonnichsen grew up in Hong Kong and then spent eight years as an adult in China. She now lives in Washington State with her husband and five children. Red Butterfly is her first novel. Learn more at alsonnichsen.blogspot.com.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,

  or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events

  or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2015 by A. L. Sonnichsen

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Amy June Bates

  Jacket design by Laurent Linn

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Amy June Bates

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  The text for this book is set in Arrus Std.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
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br />   Sonnichsen, A. L.

  Red butterfly / A. L. Sonnichsen.—First edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: In China, a foundling girl with a deformed hand raised in secret

  by an American woman must navigate China’s strict adoption system

  when she is torn away from the only family she has ever known.

  ISBN 978-1-4814-1109-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-1111-0 (eBook)

  [1. Novels in verse. 2. Families—Fiction. 3. Intercountry adoption—Fiction.

  4. Adoption—Fiction. 5. Foundlings—Fiction. 6. Abnormalities, Human—Fiction. 7. China—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.5.S67Re 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013050300