by Patti Lacy
Shivering, Kai again proceeded to tiptoe, ever so slowly, to safety . . .
“There are spies everywhere.” Father’s voice was a teapot hiss. “Our neighbor. A second cousin. We are treading water in a bitter sea of betrayal.”
“China has changed.”
As Kai crossed her bedroom threshold, her parents’ voices thunder-rumbled. Five steps, four steps, three steps, she told herself, and I am safe from what I have heard. Kai climbed into the kang, but its quilted warmth no longer comforted. Until the rooster crowed, she tossed about, fomenting a plan to save all of them, especially a baby, full of innocence, of hope; things the Changs must preserve, or they, too, would die.
Kai leaned against the door of the juvenile director’s office in Fort Worth, Texas. Though her head cleared, her heart ached from memories she had not wanted to remember, much less express in words. Yet teary-eyed Joy had hungered, had thirsted, to know . . .
“So I was the baby,” Joy whispered.
Kai nodded. Should she reveal that only through her finaglings had Father relented? Could she chance staining Joy’s first impression of a good man, a kind man—a man who only labored to protect his family in the hopeless situation that so often was China, so often was life?
“What made my father change his mind?”
A soft hand found hers with a surprising grip for someone so petite. Kai’s skin tingled at the very touch. She smiled at Joy, who, despite grimy makeup, radiated an innocence that proclaimed survival of whatever China, whatever America, had done to taint it. Joy deserves the truth, and I will supply it.
“That night tears dampened my quilt. Yet my sisters—our sisters—slept as the innocent . . . and uninformed.”
Joy leaned close. Cigarette smoke twitched Kai’s nose. Another problem to face, but not today.
“At dawn, I peeked in on my parents, whom the fates had finally blessed with sleep.” Kai stifled a cough. “I roused my sisters and dragged them staggering and sleepy-eyed to an old banyan tree.” Memories birthed fresh tears; Kai swabbed them, hoping to rid herself of emotion. “I shared what I had overheard in the dead of night and begged my sisters to help me find a compromise that Father would accept.”
Joy’s eyes grew as wide, as rapt, as those of First Daughter and Third Daughter on that awful, wonderful dawn.
“As a red sun rose, we plotted our futures. The first step? We begged for the baby’s life. We did it, Joy, for two reasons. The fates had given recompense for our suffering. We could not anger them by refusing their gift.” Kai struggled to finish what she must say. “We also did it to save Mother, who could not bear another loss.”
“But you didn’t keep me. You sent me to . . . that place.”
That place. Kai’s shoulders sagged. So the neglect had imprinted Joy, despite how she and her sisters had tried to help by volunteering at the orphanage whenever possible. Her composure slipping, she called on a decade of memories to help her. The memories did not fail.
“We Chinese have a saying called yin yang. It does not translate well into English, but I will do my best. Yin yang is a quality that somehow incorporates opposite qualities into one being. Purity/filth. Good/evil.”
Kai wiped sweat from her brow and searched Joy’s face for a sign that recognition dawned. Joy barely breathed.
“Before, during, and after the Cultural Revolution,” Kai continued, “China symbolized yin yang in a way I haven’t seen before or since. I will never forget the day our mother limped home, half of her scalp shaved, the other half displaying a nest of hair so tangled, so filthy, it housed lice and dung beetles.”
Joy shuddered; another good sign. She could still feel the pain of others. Their youngest sister did not hate them beyond repair.
“Even after news of Mao’s death,” Kai continued, fortified by the intensity in Joy’s gaze, “the arrest of the Gang of Four, the reopening of schools, the return of sanity and a degree of peace to our home, yin yang struck again when Mother got pregnant. As I shared, the authorities would have forced Mother to abort you if they learned of her defiance. If a neighbor harboring grudges against our parents whispered to a Party member that a baby wail had penetrated a courtyard wall, that baby might have been seized and thrown into the river. But if—”
“Oh, how could they do it?” gushed from Lily.
As if innocents are not aborted every minute of every hour of every day in every country . . . Kai stifled the urge to defend her homeland, but for Joy’s sake, she could not be sidetracked. “If,” Kai continued, as if uninterrupted, “a healthy baby girl was left on the steps of an orphanage located in a nearby village, no harm would befall her.” Kai waited for Joy to wipe her eyes and refocus. “That, my sister, was—is—the reality of yin yang.”
Joy did not move. Did the child breathe?
Kai battled a sinking sensation. “We three sisters coaxed that compromise from Father and then swore on our ancestors’ graves to penetrate those orphanage gates whenever possible.”
Joy’s hands, which she’d been digging into her wrists in the habit of her mother, plopped into her lap. “I remember one woman . . .”
Kai clutched her throat to suppress a cry. Did Joy remember how they had salved her chapped bottom? How they had slipped her caramels when an orphan’s sickness—or death—distracted the staff? Dear fates, did Joy remember the Chang sisters?
“. . . or maybe she was an older girl. Her hair shone like it was lacquered.”
Nothing could stop Kai’s lip from quivering. “First Daughter, your oldest sister.”
“She always patted me on the back.”
Akin to an American full-body hug.
“She brought me special treats.”
“We all came, but First Daughter visited most.” Kai again struggled for composure.
“So they let you in but wouldn’t let me out?”
Kai nodded. “We planned to reclaim you when political winds changed. An old enemy of Father’s destroyed our dream. Years earlier, father had complained about her poor work ethic. She had a cunning ability to pit friend against friend, inflamed by her love of snitching!”
Joy began tapping her foot, surely wondering what this had to do with her.
“Father’s enemy wangled the plum job of orphanage director. Her insidious talent for sniffing out truth led her to suspect that we were your family. Oh, how that snake would fix her beady eyes on us when we came to volunteer!”
Joy froze. Did she remember that evil woman?
“Hints and innuendos slipped off the director’s forked tongue! Despite our caution, she discovered—or intuited—that our family had left you on the orphanage steps. Before we could reclaim you, Lily . . .” Kai’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment. She had done what she had intended not to do—call Joy by her real name.
Her sister paled. “My name was Lil-y?” She enunciated slowly, perhaps letting the two syllables roll about her mouth, her soul, to see how they felt. “I . . . I like that.”
“Bai he in Chinese. It is a beautiful, and useful, flowering herb.” Kai pressed on, afraid that she might break down if she paused. “Our plan—yes, we had a plan—was proceeding nicely. America opened its gates, as did Harvard, where I was studying medicine. Then a telegram arrived from China. Mother ill. Return home. With her dying breath, Mother begged me to go to you. Testify of our love.” Kai did not mention Mother’s necklace. A detention center was not the time or the place.
A tear escaped the corner of Joy’s eye, yet her expression did not change. Perhaps this story exhausts her as well as me.
Kai breathed deep and exhaled. “The day after her funeral procession, I biked to the orphanage . . . in time to see you leaving with the Powells. The orphanage director—how I hate her to this day—smirked at me. She seized the chance to give you, our most prized possession, to Americans. I am sure it stuffed her pockets with yuan.”
Tears cut deeper channels through Joy’s makeup.
Kai hurried into the next part. Oh, fates, please, help me! “Do
not blame your parents, Joy. They provided you with things we Changs did not have.”
Joy tore at her hair. “But I didn’t . . . I don’t belong!” A wail escaped her throat. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have slanted eyes here in Cowtown? Do you have a clue?”
Kai’s throat closed in frustration, from exhaustion. Do I have a clue, my dear sister? I changed my name just to avoid having it butchered daily by those who would not bother to learn its pronunciation. I am a magnet for snide comments about Chink friends when I go out with Caucasians. I watched seriously ill patients stalk out of the ER rather than be treated by a “slant-eye.” She laid a hand on Joy’s shoulder. “It will get better, I assure you.” She did not lie. Truly, it had gotten better.
Joy buried her head in her hands. Kai longed to do the same but just sat there, spent, staring at her sister.
A horrible grinding sound split the uncomfortable silence.
Hairs pricked on Kai’s neck.
The door flew open. There stood Nicole, the juvenile director, pale as Joy, who’d leapt from the floor.
“Siren’s sounding. Doppler’s spotted a twister near here.”
Twister? Texas slang for a tornado? Kai fought an instinct to grab Joy’s hand and flee. Training triumphed. “Where do we go?”
“Uh, we just congregate in that main area. Where y’all came in.”
Cubicle city? Kai swallowed hard. “Is there not a basement?”
“Welcome to Texas.” Nicole gave her a weak smile and held open the door.
Kai grasped Joy’s clammy hand and double-timed after Nicole. They joined a cluster of employees who were either staring at the floor or exchanging high-pitched giggles. Scared . . . or happy to escape work. “It’ll be all right,” Kai whispered to her robotic sister . . . and then begged the fates that what she said would be true.
9
Record time for a doctor visit. In only ten minutes, Gloria had registered, peed in a cup, stepped on the scales, been cuffed and puffed. If this fainting spell were truly nerves, as she and Andrew had discussed on the way over, she’d be back with Joy, barring a traffic snarl, within an hour . . .
The examining room door opened.
“Hello.” Smiling, Dr. Davies, the reed-thin female member of the practice, pulled Gloria’s chart from a rack on the door.
Gloria returned the pleasantry, difficult with Joy in jail and her head pounding. She wiped soggy palms on her paper gown and tried to calm down. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner they could reunite with their daughter.
Dr. Davies adjusted her glasses and studied Gloria before opening the chart. “Your husband called at the behest of a Dr. . . .”
“Chang Kai.”
Over wire-rims, the doctor’s eyebrows arched. “Don’t believe I’ve met him.”
“Her. She practices in Boston.”
“Hmm.” Dr. Davies crossed her arms and cocked her head, as if curious about the circumstances that had led a Boston doctor to send Gloria for an exam. Who wouldn’t be?
“According to your husband, you fainted and vomited.” The doctor tapped her file. “I also got the lowdown on your daughter. I’m sorry.”
Gloria blinked back tears.
“Your husband also believes your symptoms are stress-related.” Dr. Davies sat on a metal stool, rolled it closer to the examining table, and pulled a pen from her lab coat. “Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on?”
Gloria clutched the paper gown. “I’ve made a mess of everything,” she confessed. “Now I’ve caught a virus, though it’s really a good thing, and—”
“Gloria.” Dr. Davies smoothed her no-nonsense bob. “You’re not making sense. It’s good that you have a virus?”
“So we could leave Joy alone. With her sister and the police.” Words mixed with sniffles. “I mean, her sister’s a doctor, the one who had us call you . . .”
“I see,” said Dr. Davies, though her blank look made it clear she didn’t see at all. “Let’s talk about that later. Now, lie back so I can examine you.”
Gloria squeezed her eyes shut, but that brought images of Joy in the jail—with Kai. Without me. She stared at the ceiling until she heard the stool clank and Dr. Davies say, “You can sit up now, Gloria.”
Someone knocked on the door, sending Gloria’s heart off-kilter. She gripped the table. Her head spun, as did her stomach. Again.
A nurse handed a slip of paper to Dr. Davies and left.
Gloria rubbed her churning stomach and then smoothed her gown. What now?
“As the technician probably explained, I ordered blood and urine tests.”
“Um-hum,” Gloria mumbled, wondering if it would be rude to lie back down and curl into a ball while the doctor tried to talk to her.
“The electrolytes are okay. Your CBC shows that you are mildly anemic . . .”
“Um-hum.”
“But, Gloria . . . Gloria?” Dr. Davies pulled off her glasses and set them on the counter. Her eyes gleamed strangely.
“Yes?” Gloria struggled to show interest in whatever excited her doctor.
“There is one interesting result.”
“Um-hum?”
“That’s the urine test.”
“Um-hum.”
“I’d like to do an ultrasound to confirm it—”
Gloria’s skin tingled. Ultrasound meant a mass. A growth. Not stress-related.
“—but the urine pregnancy test was positive.”
Gloria let go of the gown she’d been clutching. She kept hearing the word positive, but her mind wouldn’t wrap around it and tie it in a bow. A pink bow. A blue bow . . .
“I’d hold off buying a crib, Gloria, but I won’t hold off on congratulations. You’re pregnant.”
“But I can’t get pregnant,” finally emerged from a cotton-candy-sticky mouth.
“I hear that all the time.”
Baby blue. Pretty pink. Colors swirled in Gloria’s field of vision and obscured all of Dr. Davies but her toothy smile. Again she opened her mouth, tried to talk.
Something buzzed. A siren?
The doctor clasped the file to her chest, as if it were classified. Strange . . .
A nurse whirled into the room. “Tornado warning.” She huddled with the doctor, as if to speak in confidence, but panic megaphoned her voice. “We’ve gotta get downstairs. Now.”
Gloria’s world tumbled, though she was still sitting up. She heard the doctor’s terse whispers but couldn’t get past the word pregnant. Had it been spoken a minute ago? An hour ago? Pregnant? She couldn’t get pregnant!
“Get her husband in here,” Dr. Davies ordered. “That stretcher in the storeroom. Bring it. Stat.” Her voice crackled like a bad phone connection. Sinking fast, Gloria battled to hear every word. “Get her clothes on. That gown is a mess.”
“It’s ridiculous to coop us up.”
“Like a stairwell’s safe.”
“No kiddin’.”
Gloria battled to open her eyelids, which felt as if they weighed ten tons.
“You know what it is? They’re bored over at the National Weather Service.”
“No kiddin’.”
Something weighed down on her, warm and soft and soothing. A blanket . . . and a hand, grasping hers. Even with her eyes shut, she’d know that hand anywhere. Andrew. Dear Andrew. Her lungs settled into their familiar rhythm.
“What a crock!”
Gripping Andrew’s hand, Gloria’s eyes fluttered. They weren’t alone!
People dressed in nurses’ smocks and casual suits clustered under a No Smoking sign, where two orderlies lit up nonchalantly. Gloria gripped the rails of . . . a stretcher? She was on it! Her lips tightened to combat a tremble that rattled metal rails. “Where are we?” She tried to sit up.
“You’re okay.” Andrew took hold of her shoulders and eased her back onto the stretcher. “But you fainted again. They wanted to take precautions.”
She’d fainted when they’d told her—exhilaration fizzed
every fiber. Infertile, thirty-five-year-old me. Pregnant!
“Andrew!” She tugged his sleeve. “Did the doctor tell you?”
His brow wrinkled. “The nurse just said you’d fainted.”
She reached for his arm. Missed. “Andrew, I’m—”
“Just relax.”
“I’ve relaxed for thirty-five years!” Words escaped in spurts. “We’re pregnant!”
“What! The vomiting . . . you mean . . . but I thought we couldn’t.”
Vomiting, the jail, their daughter . . . Gloria sat up. “Andrew, I’ve got to tell Joy.” She thrust her legs over the stretcher edge. “We’ve got to get her out of jail! Now!”
The smokers’ cigarettes hovered midair. Folks coughed and spluttered, politely averting their eyes.
“Gloria, cool it!” While holding her down, Andrew raised his eyebrows, head nodded toward the crowd.
Gloria shoved away Andrew’s hand and ignored a throbbing headache. Who cares what these folks think? I’ve got to get to Joy, talk to her . . . tell her about . . . Her mouth went dry. “How long have we been here, Andrew? What time is it?” All she could think about was Joy, who today had gained one sister . . . possibly another! How would Joy react to a change involving dirty diapers? Midnight wails?
“Around two thirty.”
The splotched walls and clouds of cigarette smoke pushed in to create a pent-up feeling. “What are we doing in here, anyway?”
“There’s a tornado warning.” Andrew again checked his watch. “It’s about to expire. Hopefully the doctor’ll clear us. We’ll head back to Joy.”
Gloria sighed. How would Joy take the news? A big mess had just become a massive mess . . . or maybe not. Until Joy had dyed her hair and grunged her dress, church families called her to baby-sit, claiming the kids loved her enthusiasm. A baby sister or brother might smooth Joy’s puffy-lipped resentment into a smile!
Gloria pictured Joy caressing a newborn’s downy cheeks. Babies had revitalized stalled marriages, restored health to ailing grandparents. New life might resurrect in Joy a spirit of trust, of love. A spirit I’ve smothered with my fear . . .