“No, I’ve got her.” Mill sprang up from his seat, wide awake now, from all the commotion. He held our daughter in a close cradle until her tiny wails subsided. She clung to him all throughout their lunch meal, him bracing her whole body’s weight with his left arm, like one of those new-fangled footballs. With his right hand, he swiveled his chopsticks and scooped up the food. Everyone ate in silence, but with haste. Nobody enjoyed the company, and it showed. After the last grain of rice in Fillmore’s ceramic bowl disappeared into his cavernous mouth, he belched.
He used his oily chopsticks to point at my mother. “No need to stay here, Mung. I know you told your daughter you’d spend the night, but you probably need to handle the burial details.” For a moment, I thought about visiting my empty shell in the graveyard. It fed my morbid curiosity of what death would look like, but I couldn’t wrap my head around myself floating in the air and another me wedged in the ground. Besides, what would I really go there to see? Some freshly turned earth? A mockery of my being? Everyone I wanted to interact with was right here before me.
My mother’s eyes dimmed.
“I’ve already had the body taken to the cemetery,” Fillmore said. “I can’t and won’t spare a stagecoach for you. My horses need to rest. Backbone of my business, after all. Besides, it’ll be a nice walk for you. Thirty minutes in the crisp air will do wonders for your figure.”
My mother balled her hands into fists. She prided herself on her stocky build, fit for tough labor in the not-so-gentle Fresno land. “I can help with the newborn,” she said. My mother dealt with death the only way she knew how, by focusing on the living. In fact, she’d been the one to take care of my grandmother after my grandfather had died from a farming accident.
“That’s Stella’s job,” Fillmore said. “But you reminded me, let’s name the little beast.”
“Her name is Jasper,” Mill said. He kept his voice steady, despite the irritation that showed in the throbbing vein across his forehead.
Fillmore cleared something deep within in his throat and spat a bright yellow chunk onto the table. Stella cleaned it up with a lace handkerchief without comment.
“It’s what Topaz would have wanted,” Mill said.
“It’s settled then,” my mother said. “Jasper is such a strong, sturdy name.”
“A boy’s name.” Fillmore shook his head and used his chopsticks to point at his wife. “Suggest a new one,” he said.
“What about Jasmine?” Stella said.
Fillmore nodded. “I like it. Fit for a girl.” He motioned to the cluster of empty bowls on the table. “She’ll be a delicate child, always needing my generous support.”
My mother tapped at the table with her knuckles. I could see the dark brown of her crinkly skin, worn by years in the sun. “I think Jasper’s better. It’s unusual, unique, and beautiful.”
“The baby’s just a girl,” Fillmore said. “Her name doesn’t need to be fancy. Jasmine’s a flower, easily trimmed if it gives trouble. The baby will need to know her place. Like you.” He pointed to the door.
My mother gritted her teeth, but she left without cursing him. How could she argue? There was no more family tie to the Woo clan with me gone. Fillmore could do as he wished. Even if that meant that her granddaughter’s name bore no resemblance to her dead daughter’s wishes. But my mother would find a way to get back at him. It wasn’t like her to leave without a fight.
CHAPTER 3
Red Egg & Ginger Party
WEEKS FLEW BY WHILE I was entranced by my daughter. I collected every gurgle from her throat and each sudden smile that appeared on her face, storing them up in my memory bank. Even her simultaneous feat of eating and pooping endeared her to me. I didn’t mind the bouts of gas that kept her awake at night, or her constant crying to get attention from those around her.
The same things wore thin on the rest of my family. Fillmore washed his hands of my child after the first day. Mill had attempted to last longer, trying to help out at night, but his work was hard. He grew drained from handling the horses and the coaches with little rest; soon he slept through the night, not even tossing around when our baby cried next to him. This meant that Stella had her hands full. It was even rougher when Fillmore announced that they would hold the traditional one-month-old birthday celebration.
Of course, there was only one place to hold a red egg and ginger party. The local Chinatown, a neighborhood bordered by Fresno, H, Ventura, and E Streets. Despite its focused name, Chinatown held a mish-mash of other cultures from various geographic spots: Germans, Italians, Mexicans, Japanese, and the Basque. Still, most of the buildings and landscaping sported an Asian flair. Rooftops mimicked pagodas, with their layered triangular stacks. Bright red paint covered many storefronts. Miniature statues of anything remotely Asian littered the sidewalks: koi fish, lucky turtles, and snaking dragons.
In fact, I crossed a pair of ceramic lions set near the brass door of the restaurant holding the party. The Hing Hop was the only place that could offer the ten-course meal Fillmore wanted for a child bound to his name. Even though red egg and ginger parties were usually reserved for male heirs, Fillmore made an exception to greet his granddaughter’s birthday. He always took every chance he could to flaunt his wealth to fellow Fresnans.
The banquet room held ten round tables, meaning approximately one hundred guests for the big event. Even my parents were invited on this grand occasion, although they knew nobody else in the room. The other invitees shot snide looks at the baby cuddled in Stella’s arms as my mother-in-law scuffled across the grimy carpet stained with soy sauce. The guests scooted their wobbly wooden chairs back to give them a wide berth. Such extravagance over a female, they whispered to one another, but I noticed that they ate the never-ending feast without a single complaint.
And when Fillmore and Stella walked by each table, with my baby girl in their arms (Mill stood awkwardly to the side), the guests toasted the lucky grandparents and then cursed my daughter. How extremely hideous, they would cry out, a typical traditional comment about a newborn, the better to keep away evil spirits from attacking the child. I saw some say the words with real glee, the spit shooting out of their mouths as they piled obscenities upon my child. I wanted to shove them with my thin arms, but all I managed to do was huff and inhale more air, making me sink closer to their ugly faces. I finally gave up. When my in-laws had long passed by their tables, I overheard some of the guests’ comments when they were free to talk in private:
“Aiyaa! The baby doesn’t have a Chinese name.”
“What do you expect? The man traded his own name for an English one.”
“Fillmore thinks he owns Chinatown.” A sigh. “Pretty soon he’ll take over the whole city. Maybe the whole country, so he can live up to his namesake.”
“Did you hear how he got his money? Stole a fist-sized nugget right under a gold miner’s nose. Talk about undeserved fortune.”
I agreed and felt smug inside. Even his “friends” didn’t like the great Fillmore Woo. I checked my parents’ faces to see if they’d heard any of the negative remarks and the bad attitude circulating the room. Maybe it would comfort them as they suffered, isolated, during the party today. They had gone weeks without getting permission to see their granddaughter, and now they had one chance, in the middle of strangers, to soak it all in.
I found my father in the most distant table from the center of attention, near the bathrooms full of urine reek. His face showed grim determination. He didn’t speak to any of his tablemates, but kept a solid stare at the wall behind me. I couldn’t find my mother seated near him, so I turned around to where his gaze went.
My mother fluttered in from behind a curtain there—it must have been a covering leading back to the kitchen. Her hands each held up a basket. They were huge containers, but her muscles had stayed supple from decades of carrying all kinds of Fresno fruit. She didn’t look strained at all. Her left arm carried red eggs: hardboiled treats dipped in the bright color to symbo
lize good fortune. In her right, she brought the ginger, all wrapped up in rice paper. That was odd. Usually the ginger was pickled, cut into little grainy slivers for guests to enjoy. Before I could move any closer, Stella’s small voice spoke to the crowd. “Hope you don’t mind.” She clutched my daughter closer to her chest. “I passed on the food duties to Mung Lo. She’s a much better cook than me.”
I felt a little more love for timid Stella. She had just complimented my mother, probably something Fillmore did not like, by handing the traditional preparation efforts over to the maternal grandmother. Maybe Stella was a sweet soul inside, corrupted only by marriage to her husband. Then I saw the heavy hollows of her cheeks and her sunken eyes, even under the carefully applied makeup. Or maybe she had desperately needed the help. Taking care of a newborn was hard. All I did during this past month was stare at my miracle girl until my eyes got heavy. I confess: I did get tired and dozed here and there, which Stella had not been able to do. While I slept, not only moments, but days would fly by. Time worked differently in this upper region, like Sage had told me. How it gushed. In fact, here it was already a month after my baby’s birth.
My mother smiled at Stella. “You’re too kind. I was more than happy to help. After all, she is of my bloodline.” My mother shot a glance at Fillmore as she spoke. His mouth twitched, but he had to stay quiet and save face. He had invited her to the function after all. Or at least his wife had.
“Oh, esteemed merchants and those of the higher class, I am but a humble fruit picker in your midst,” my mother said. I gaped at her. That didn’t sound like Mother. She was proud of her calloused hands and thought herself equal to anyone. As she prepared her next sentence, I saw a haze grow around her. It happened just like at the packing factory with Bao. A blur enveloped my mother’s being. Then I swore I saw a flash of thin gold go into her ear, but she didn’t flinch at all.
“In gratitude for Fillmore Woo inviting me to this extravagant event, I’ve prepared delicious boiled eggs and created hand-made ginger candies for everyone.”
She passed out her provisions with a slight bow to each guest, with Fillmore receiving the biggest egg and a uniquely gold-wrapped ginger candy. The bright red shells molted with a tight tap against the lotus-decorated porcelain plates; perfectly boiled eggs were cracked open. Behind the eggs’ pearl white exteriors, the yolks gleamed like golden suns. Not one of them showed a tinge of green, the sign of an overcooked egg. Everyone ate with satisfied munches. I could almost taste the combination of smooth egg white and velvet yellow yolk myself.
The guests unwrapped their ginger candies with trembling hands, envisioning the deliciousness awaiting them. Only my father remained still, his one arm wrapped like a straitjacket, tight across his stomach. I could smell the sweet tang of sugar and ginger waft up into my nose, but some other odor also made my stomach revolt. A pungent, dank earth smell.
The party-goers started biting into the concoction and smiled. They looked at one another, each mumbling a variation of, “The best I’ve ever tasted.” Only Fillmore seemed to have trouble with his candy. He looked at the guests around him, happily munching away and decided to bite down harder on his portion. I saw his jaw straining against the ginger candy. He wasn’t about to disgrace his own progeny by not eating the ginger. The ginger was meant to re-establish the right balance of yin and yang for the baby’s mother after childbirth. I laughed, but it was a hollow sound and didn’t even reach my own ears. The root would need to give me a lot of nourishment to bring me back to life.
Fillmore moved his mouth open wider and chomped down against the offending ginger candy. Crack. His tooth flew out of his mouth, arcing high over his table, and landed in the lap of a startled guest.
“What is this?” Fillmore took the offending ginger from his mouth and threw it at my mother’s head.
She dodged it with a nimble side step. “Jasper… the mineral,” she said. My mother cackled at him, her jagged laugh echoing in the silence of the great room.
“Woman, how dare you!” Fillmore took one of the cloth napkins on the table and stuffed it inside his mouth. I could see the dribble of red blood snaking down the white linen.
“Jasper’s apparently tougher than your teeth, Fillmore,” my mother said. “It’s a stronger name, a better name for my granddaughter.”
Fillmore glared at my mother and then gestured to his sons. Apparently, Andy had come home from boarding school just for the party. I had never met him because he’d been sent out of town (or was it out of state?) to secondary education. I moved closer to him to peer at his features. He had a gangly build compared to Mill. His shoulders seemed half the size of his brother’s, and his hands were almost feminine. They had that pale long-tendril look of a pianist.
From Mill, I’d heard all about Andy’s crazy antics as a kid and the reason why he’d been sent away for school. The last straw had been when Andy had taken one of the stagecoach stallions and tried to enter it into a horseracing contest. Fillmore shipped Andy out the next day to a new school. I remember that when Mill and I had married, Andy hadn’t even shown up to congratulate us—his education is too important, Fillmore had said. Academics was apparently more significant than a low-class wife, but not more important than a baby who carried the Woo name.
Understanding my father-in-law through his nonverbal commands, Andy walked over to my mother, but Mill stood there and shook his head. Andy gripped my mother’s arm, ushering her out, but before she left, she turned toward my father-in-law. “Beware, Fillmore,” she said. “You dishonor my daughter by not using the baby’s original name. Ill fortune will befall you.”
My father-in-law snorted at her remark. He was a self-made man and didn’t believe in much beyond his own two good hands. He gave a sharp glance at my father. “Kong, I trust you can see yourself out.”
My father nodded, and Fillmore brushed his palms against each other three times, as if cleansing his hands from dirt. I saw my father move in his slow, plodding way, following the invisible trail my mother had made. He seemed even older than his years as he shuffled off after her.
After my father exited, I was at a loss of what to do next. Should I go after my parents to check on their well-being? Or should I stay and see how events unfolded at the banquet? As it turned out, I had time for neither.
CHAPTER 4
Shedding the Past, Rule 1
MY SURROUNDINGS seemed to fade away as Sage appeared with her shrunken wings. The eyes plastered over her body gazed at me boldly. “It’s time,” Sage said. “The commandment is: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ You must submit your first rule to me.”
“What rule?” What had I gotten myself into?
“You need to set boundaries for your daughter,” Sage said. “How will you help her fulfill this commandment? What restrictions will you place on her?”
My mind seemed empty, an unscalable wall of blankness. Then an image flickered before me. The tiny altars that littered the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. The red boxes with their lit candles and plump mandarin oranges surrounding the fierce ceramic statues. Except neither my parents nor Mill’s family believed in those porcelain gods and goddesses.
My father-in-law prided himself on being a self-made man, and my own parents were too busy working to care about deities. They trusted only in what they could touch with their hands and see with their eyes. And the only quality fruit they gathered ended up in the hands of others, with the questionable remnants filling their own stomachs.
That left ancestor worship. Both Mill and my family couldn’t follow tradition and go on the usual holidays to sweep the graves of past relatives. Instead, they settled for honoring ancestors by using photos of their deceased loved ones. They bowed their heads and lit the fragrant incense before those black and white images.
Usually, they also left treats for the dead. These edible goodies were supposed to rise up to meet the deceased in the spirit world. I didn’t know if such a place even existed. Here I was, floa
ting around, and I hadn’t seen even a hint of any of my dead relatives. In fact, I felt very lonely in this isolated upper realm. Then again, I didn’t feel quite “gone” myself. All my senses remained intact, particularly that gnawing sense of hunger, for which I had to feed on vapors.
“My daughter will not participate in ancestor worship,” I said. What harm could it do?
Not one of her multiple eyes blinked when Sage responded. “So be it.”
***
A bright flash of white overwhelmed me, and I had to close my eyes. When they re-opened, it was the next morning. I hovered above Stella, who lay sleeping on her mat. She wore the same clothes from yesterday’s banquet, and her tangled hair covered her face. My daughter must have kept her awake all night. As if summoned by my thought, my baby burst into motion, and her piercing cry broke the previous quiet. Stella moaned, a long sound without end.
Although Mill rubbed at his eyes, he jumped up from his corner. “I’ll take her, Ma. You need to get some rest.” Stella nodded at her son, her eyes already drooping back to sleep.
Mill picked up our baby daughter, stepped around his snoozing mother, and lifted up the loose floorboard in the corner. It gave off a tiny squeak as he pulled on it. The spot beneath was our secret hiding place. Mill hid the worn leather kids’ saddle he’d fashioned on his own there, from the first horse he’d ever ridden, Thunder. The finest animal he’d ever touched, he claimed, and the only one he’d ever birthed, helping the mare as she pushed out the foal. I’d placed my best clay figurine in the spot, too—the one I’d made the day before our wedding. It was two figures: a male and a female, their hands raised high over their heads. Their palms touched each other and connected the two lovers, creating a roof above them. It meant home and shelter.
Now Mill picked up a thick packet, along with a blurry photograph of me, from the secret spot. He placed our daughter in her resting spot, a tiny trough filled with hay. Meanwhile, he gathered up two long strips of fabric, twice the length of his arms, and fashioned them into a baby sling. He slipped our daughter inside, and she snuggled up to his chest. Then he took the packet and photo, marching off into the crisp outdoors.
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