She didn’t utter a word, but her eyes sparkled with pleasure. Next she opened a thin, long package to find a Little Twin Stars pencil case. When she looked inside the case and found it empty, she tossed it on her bed. Finally, she opened a small, green, shiny vinyl change purse in the shape of Keroppi the frog. Again, she investigated inside but found nothing. Ting-Ting gave her mother the change purse.
“Ting-Ting?” Wei Ling spoke in a strict tone of voice.
Ting-Ting looked up at me. “Xièxiè.”
“Bù kèqì.” You’re welcome.
After Ting-Ting packed the art set and pencil case into her backpack, the three of us left the guesthouse and walked down Sai Yee Street. I explained that I was taking them to a buffet at a new hotel near the Mong Kok train station. “Shénme dōu you.” I told Wei Ling the hotel buffet had everything. At three and a half months pregnant, I had an appetite that was hearty morning, noon, and night.
We started with the cold appetizer table. The requisite smoked salmon lay in thin slices on a silver tray, tiny capers sprinkled around its periphery. With a pair of small stainless steel tongs, I seized a few slivers of salmon and tried to capture some capers, but only managed a few. I didn’t want Wei Ling to see me struggle with a Western serving utensil, so I moved on to the cool sweet-and-sour cucumber salad. I returned to the table with a full plate. Wei Ling hovered over the dessert table, having bypassed the carving stations after she left me at the appetizer table.
As we ate, Wei Ling told me she was tired. “It’s hard being a single mom.”
“I’m sure, but you’re doing a great job.” I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a single mother so far from her family and without a support system, especially as divorce was still a new phenomenon in China. When I decided to meet Wei Ling and Ting-Ting, it had been with the intention of showing Ting-Ting what it would be like to have a stable mother. But now I could see Ting-Ting already had that. Wei Ling appeared to be a tired but hardworking, dedicated mother. She was doing the best she could, and certainly better than I would have done in her situation.
All the time I had been with Cai, I had been trying to be the kind of wife to him that Wei Ling hadn’t been. But now that I was getting to know her, I felt confused. Had Cai misrepresented the circumstances of their divorce? Where was the self-centered Wei Ling he’d depicted back in our graduate school days? Or maybe Wei Ling had changed her ways after their divorce. Cai did tell me that Wei Ling claimed she’d never found another guy like him. So perhaps she regretted her past behavior and was making amends.
When I finished paying the waitress, I looked at my watch discreetly. We still had two hours before their ferry departed for Zhūhâi.
“Do you want to go back with us to the guesthouse to get our things?” Wei Ling asked. “Then we can go to the pier if you have time.”
“Of course, I would love to.” I wasn’t ready to say good-bye yet. The afternoon had turned out so unexpectedly well. There was still more I wanted to know about her, and I wished they were staying in Hong Kong longer so we could spend more time together. I felt closer to her than I did to Cai’s three sisters in Hubei, whom I’d known for several years.
We made a quick stop at the guesthouse to pick up their luggage and Ting-Ting’s backpack. Outside again, the three of us squeezed into the backseat of a red Toyota Crown Comfort taxi. While Ting-Ting worked on her coloring book with the crayons from the Hello Kitty art set, I asked Wei Ling if Ting-Ting knew about her future sibling.
“Yes, she knows.” Wei Ling smiled demurely, her eyes warm. As our taxi inched its way down Nathan Road and made a beeline for the shopping mall that housed the ferry pier, Wei Ling reached for her wallet. I motioned for her to put it away and insisted on paying. After protesting a couple more times, she finally relented.
Once we arrived at the gate, Ting-Ting saw their tour group, mostly teachers from their school. She ran up to one of the women, her backpack and puffballed braids swaying back and forth. Wei Ling and I stood with their two pieces of carry-on luggage.
“I think it’s almost time for us to board the boat.” Wei Ling gently held my wrist. “Thank you so much for lunch and the gifts for Ting-Ting.”
“Thank you for meeting me. I had a great time,” I said. Then I handed her an envelope with the money Cai wanted to give to Ting-Ting. Without saying a word, Wei Ling gave me a quick hug with her slender arms and gathered her luggage. I accompanied her to the gate to say good-bye.
I hugged Ting-Ting tightly and found myself tearing up a little bit. Just when she seemed to be starting to warm up to me, it was time to part ways. Ting-Ting was a guarded child, and rightfully so. Now I wished I could have spent more time with her. Maybe then I could have gotten through to her more. If only Cai and I could stay in Hong Kong longer.
“Have a good trip home, Ting-Ting. Maybe you can visit us in America some day out,” I blurted out.
Ting-Ting looked up at me, beaming. She then faced her mother, her eyes inquisitive.
“That would be nice,” Wei Ling said.
Although Cai and I had never discussed Ting-Ting visiting us in San Francisco, it suddenly made perfect sense. I stood at the gate, as we waved to each other once more while they headed toward the ship. Without moving, I daydreamed about my future relationship with Ting-Ting. I would be part stepmother, part best friend. I could help her as she navigated American customs and, at the same time, keep her grounded in her Chinese roots.
I imagined her visiting during summer vacations to spend time with us, which would also give Wei Ling a chance to enjoy some time to herself. And in my naïve fantasyland, Ting-Ting and I would attend Chinese musical and dance performances with her young sibling and catch the latest art film from China when she reached her teens, all while Cai worked hard as a successful academic, returning in the evenings to hear about our day as our family of four or more clamored around the vivacious dinner table. I left the ferry pier full of hope.
Chapter 27
Quiet in Kowloon
The streets of Kowloon were quiet on Saturday mornings, compared to the weekday rush of commuter traffic and the noise of schoolchildren chatting fervently with one another. Now, elderly residents hobbled along on their weathered feet, returning from tai chi in one of the tree-lined neighborhood parks. A hunchbacked woman pushed a flat cart piled high with cardboard sheets and crushed drink cans past me as I exited the double-decker Kowloon Motor Bus near St. Teresa’s Hospital.
Old and silent, St. Teresa’s seemed deserted at this early hour. I found the information desk, staffed by three olive-skinned European nuns who wore habits à la Sally Field in The Flying Nun. The nuns’ Cantonese was impeccable as they spoke to an elderly Chinese couple.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find the radiology department?” I asked in English when it was my turn.
The nuns didn’t answer. The shortest one walked around to the front of the desk and in very broken English asked me to repeat my question.
“Radiology?” I said slowly and ran my hand over the light jacket that cushioned my abdomen from the gentle Hong Kong winter. “Ultrasound?”
She pointed down the hall. “Straight, then left.”
“Thank you, I mean, m’goi sai. M’goi.”
The nun placed her hands together and bowed her head slightly.
I followed the windowless hall and found the radiology department off to the left at the far end, just as the nun had directed. Soon after I checked in with the receptionist, a technician called my name, though I was the only patient in the waiting area.
“When you get in the room, take off all your clothes except your underpants, and button the gown in the front,” the female technician said. She opened the door of the examining room and turned on the light. “Are you going to find out the gender today?”
“No. We want it to be a surprise.” In China, hospitals weren�
��t allowed to reveal the gender of the baby, but that wasn’t the case in unrestricted Hong Kong.
The tech marked a page in my chart and placed it on the desk near the ultrasound machine. Then she left, leaving me in the dungeonlike room. Ten minutes passed before a lanky man in his late thirties entered. He introduced himself as Dr. Leung.
Leung squirted a cool, clear gel on my naked abdomen, dimmed the lights, and started the scan. He typed notes in the computer as he explained to me what he saw. “I see all ten fingers and ten toes. Your baby is very active. Lots of tumbling.” He chuckled.
I tried to look at the scratchy gray screen, but couldn’t make out head or toes from the image.
“And your baby has three legs,” he said, giggling.
“Three legs?”
“But one isn’t a leg.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s something between the legs. Congratulations, Mrs. Cai; you’re having a boy!” His eyes beamed back at me through the rays of light flickering from the ultrasound screen.
I didn’t share his smile, since Cai and I had decided not to learn the gender in advance and I wasn’t particularly thrilled that Dr. Leung had ignored my wishes. But now that I knew, my pregnancy seemed real. Cai and I were truly having a baby, not just a blob on a screen.
When I returned home to Sunshine City, I knew it was still too early to call my parents in Chicago, a time zone a half day behind. I would wait until later to phone and tell them that their first grandchild would be a boy. But Hidden River and Hong Kong shared the same time zone, so I opened my address book and dialed the long number to Mama and Baba’s apartment.
“Wèi?” Mama answered.
“Mama, ni hao.” No one else with an American accent called them, so it was fairly obvious who I was after my first uttered syllable. Mama yelled out to Cai, who picked up the other phone in their apartment.
“How was your appointment? Is the baby okay?” he asked in Mandarin for the benefit of his mother, still on the line.
“Everything’s fine.”
“That’s great news!”
“Yes. But the doctor did find something,” I said.
“What?” Cai asked in a panicked whimper.
“He said the baby has three legs.”
“Huh?” Cai gasped. Mama didn’t reply.
I spoke in my most serious tone. “The third leg isn’t really a leg.”
When they didn’t say anything, I couldn’t keep up the act and giggled. “It’s something else.”
Mama shrieked with such force I thought she’d faint.
“Thank you,” Cai squealed. “I really wanted a girl, but this is great. Of course it’s nice to have a boy.” He started crying.
In the background I could still hear Mama screaming, probably telling Baba the good news.
Cai continued to cry and thank me. Mama picked the phone up again. “Su Shan, xièxiè ni, xièxiè ni.” Thank you so much.
I knew Cai and his parents would be happy we were having a boy, but I never dreamed they’d react as if they’d just won the lottery. How would they have responded to news of a girl? Had Cai only said he wanted a daughter because he didn’t want to jinx his chances for having a boy? In Chinese culture, only a son of a son counts as a true grandchild, a sūnzi. Sons of daughters belonged to their father’s family. And daughters belong to their future husband’s family. Since Cai was an only son, our baby would be Mama and Baba’s only true grandchild. I could only imagine that Mama would resume her bid to care for our baby in Hidden River.
If the husband is angry,
Let not the wife be angry in return,
But meekly yield to him,
And press down her angry feelings.
—Ban Zhao
Instruction for Chinese Women and Girls
Chapter 28
Settling into San Francisco
The house on Newhall Street faced an abandoned warehouse and a chain-locked parking lot. Squeezed between two identical three-story homes, our brown stucco house stood on the border between old and new, between the new development mainly occupied by Chinese families and an old industrial center about to be bulldozed because of the growing housing demand in the landlocked city.
When we first opened the front door and entered our new house, the only furniture inside was a set of twin mattresses that my uncle Budgie had ordered for us as a housewarming gift. Besides being the chief sales agent for the development, Bob also served as caretaker and concierge. He’d let in the delivery crew with the mattresses before we’d arrived in San Francisco. And on our first morning in our new home, he directed us to a mall seven miles out of the city where we could buy new furniture and other household necessities like linens and kitchen supplies.
Although the distance from our house to the mall wasn’t great, the whole trip—bus, train, and another bus—took about an hour. Cai and I arrived at the Tanforan shopping center and headed toward Sears. Four hours later, we held receipts for two queen beds and mattresses, two twin bed frames, a sofa bed, a dining room table and chairs, a kitchen table and chairs, a coffee table and end table set, an entertainment center, and a large-screen television on which Cai could watch the free Chinese stations. The furniture wouldn’t be delivered for six weeks. The TV and do-it-yourself entertainment center would arrive in a few days.
“Thank goodness Budgie bought us those mattresses,” I mused as we left the store. “At least we can sleep on them until our bed arrives.”
Since we were to take public transportation home, we only bought as many kitchen and bathroom supplies as we could carry in our arms. Cai managed most of the bags because he didn’t want me to overdo it. Pleased with our efficiency, I leaned against a tree in the small patch of grass where we had exited the bus that morning from the Colma BART station. The bus stop sign listed neither times nor frequency of service, but I figured we were to board the return bus here, too.
Cai frowned after we’d been waiting twenty minutes. “I’m not sure it’s coming. It should have been here by now.”
“Maybe it doesn’t run so often at this time of day? It’s not quite rush hour. We probably need to wait a little longer.”
But as the minutes ticked on, I, too, wondered if the bus had stopped running or if it didn’t come to this stop in the afternoon. Maybe there was another stop for the return trip. I wished I had asked the driver that morning.
Cai’s lips turned down and his eyes tightened in serious concentration, yet his gaze was distant. After ten more minutes of silence, a taxi parked near our patch of land. The driver left the car and rushed away before I could catch his attention. Cai didn’t seem to notice the taxi; he barely wavered from his zombielike state.
If the driver didn’t come back in ten minutes, I would walk back to the mall and call a cab. I imagined myself weaving through the shiny metallic cars, sparkling in the sun like Christmas tree ornaments, while Cai remained in his comatose stance. But then a man came out of the Sears exit. Please let it be the cab driver, I prayed. He continued in our direction and soon enough I saw that it was indeed the driver.
I waddled to the taxi. “Are you free?”
“Where are you going?” the middle-aged man asked.
“Just to the Colma BART station.”
“Hop in.”
Cai snapped out of his daze and entered the car after me, loading our bags between us in the backseat. Once we arrived at the BART station, the rest of our trip would be easy.
Inside the Colma station, I glanced up at a red-lettered screen hanging above the platform. My pulse quickened when I saw that the next San Francisco–bound train would arrive in twenty minutes. Maybe Cai wouldn’t notice it, and the train would come well ahead of schedule. But then I saw Cai eyeing the sign.
“Ay yo. This is terrible.” Before I could say something to calm his worries, he turned his face
away. Sure it was frustrating that the train ran infrequently after we had stood waiting for a bus that never arrived, but certainly Cai had waited for trains or buses in China.
I thought I heard a whimpering sound. The other people on the platform weren’t close to us, so it had to be coming from Cai. But he was still turned away from me and I couldn’t see his face. With his head lowered and his shoulders drooped, it looked like he was crying. That couldn’t be right. Cai would never cry over a delayed train.
But then I heard sobbing sounds.
“Cai?”
Turning around, he had tears pouring from his eyes.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s not convenient here.” He sobbed. “It’s not like Hong Kong.”
“It’s okay,” I said, patting his shoulder. He still held most of our bags. “We haven’t been here for twenty-four hours and don’t know our way around yet. It’s normal to feel disoriented when you move to a new place. But it will take longer than a day to adjust.”
Cai turned away and continued to cry, his profile visible to me. I thought back to Cai’s first day in the United States, when we’d arrived at my parents’ home two years earlier. Back then, I had assumed that Cai would see the United States through my eyes, but I soon realized that he would form his own opinions, just as I had about China. And while I, too, now felt frustrated that the public transportation wasn’t as convenient as in Hong Kong, or even China for that matter, I knew we would adjust soon enough. I just had to remember to stay optimistic.
“I don’t know how long I can stay in America.” Cai sounded so hopeless.
Don’t jump to conclusions. I wanted to take him by the shoulders and plead with him. After everything we’d purchased that day, plus the huge expense of the house itself, he couldn’t be serious about leaving and moving back to China. Even so, it worried me to hear him talk this way now that I was well into my second trimester. I wanted nothing more than to put down roots. Besides, I’d never wanted to live in China in the first place, so Cai’s talk about returning there put knots in my stomach.
Good Chinese Wife Page 18