In the air floated a series of strange sounds, vulnerable and heartbreaking, like notes of his piano. A mockery of the jazzy past that had fooled me.
“A worthless girl,” Peiyu muttered, swaddled the slippery bundle in a few expert tugs, and put her thumb in the baby’s mouth to silence her.
I remembered what she had urged months before. After all these days of self-loathing and regret, I still didn’t know what to do with the baby. “Give her to me.”
“You shouldn’t. Once you hold her, you won’t let her go. She’s ruined your life. If you keep her, you’ll ruin the Shaos’ reputation.”
I shook my head, yet words failed me. The baby kicked, loosening the cloth that swaddled her, revealing a patch of birthmark on her right ankle. “Please. Just for a moment.”
Peiyu stared at the bundle. “What are we women? Only birth tools. Man takes us, puts his penis in us, and then goes on with his life with his other women. We are left to swallow our tears and raise his children. Yet children are no better. They have no gratitude, and they want to be fed and fed, want more and more.”
I wished she could say something else, or give me a pat, or tell me I had done well. Or maybe she would leave me alone and let me sleep in quiet. For I was spent, and my body was torn, and my tears wouldn’t stop.
There came that faint voice again, like that of a trapped animal. I elbowed up. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”
“I’m doing you a favor, little sister. You have no husband, no place of your own, no money. Your mother would have done the same thing if she were alive.” She was standing at the door.
“Come back. Let me at least see her. Please, let me see her.”
She wouldn’t come closer. I pushed, an agonizing pain shooting through my lower body. My arms gave out. “I can’t see. Let me see.”
Peiyu lowered her arms. I heaved, my damp hair in my mouth, craning my neck. A tuft of down, a pale face with red pimples—the thing gazed at me with Ernest’s eyes.
I slept, wept, and slept more. I drank little, ate little. Bound to the room, I was weak, drowsy. I hallucinated. I dreamed of Ernest’s eyes.
It was a chilly winter. I drifted through the days like the wind sweeping through numbed fingers. The pale morning light doodled at my feet as I rose from bed; the silvery twilight curdled as I padded across the bedroom to the courtyard and to the reception hall. When I gazed at Peiyu’s face, it was like seeing through a glass window. Where is she?
She wouldn’t tell me.
I had lost my daughter because I didn’t fight for her, because I didn’t love her.
Cheng’s voice came from outside the door. He had brought glutinous rice with chicken, which the entire household had devoured. He asked if I wanted to have some.
“Come in.”
In a white suit and a white panama hat, Cheng glided close to my bed, bringing blades of sunlight around him. He looked decorated, strong, and sophisticated as usual, but his voice sounded like he was choked. “What happened to you, Aiyi?”
I leaned on him. I was not asking for anything, not his sympathy or forgiveness, only a shoulder to cry on. It was such a comfort to smell his familiar cigarette scent, to know someone still cared if I wanted rice with chicken. I told him everything.
His fingers touched my cheek. His voice was surprisingly warm, surprisingly firm. “I know things didn’t work out with us. You have gone through a lot. I still want to take care of you, Aiyi, even if . . .”
For a man who couldn’t bear to see me walk in front of other men without a bra, it meant a lot.
Two days later, I married Cheng.
It was the eighteenth day of January. Life was strange. Since childhood, I was told I would marry Cheng. We had fought, played with crickets in the courtyard, and taken English lessons from our tutor while our parents chatted and drank jasmine tea in the family room. We were the Qing Mei Zhu Ma, blue plum and bamboo horse, loving friends from childhood and a destined couple-to-be.
Mother had told me repeatedly of my wedding day since I was little. It would be beautiful and beautifully fitting for a woman of my birth. A jade leaf growing on a gold branch.
I would put on white powder and bright-red lipstick to accentuate my beauty; I would step out of my room, my hair elaborately adorned by a thousand jewels, my neck decorated with at least three thick gold necklaces. A traditional red silk veil would drape over my head, and my fingers, glowing with a dozen gold rings, would lift the hem of a long dress for an easier walk. With each step, the bells, beads, and tassels on the veil would clink and peal, a melody of happiness and fortune. Someone, likely my maid, would give me a hand to guide me down the pebbled path to the central room, the courtyard, and then the fountain near the gate where a red palanquin would await with four lifters whom Mother had hired. As I came close, the musicians would play the lute, cymbals, drums, and French horn, and the fireworks would crack loudly; the throngs of family and relatives, all clad in festive red, would clap their hands, and the gate of my home would swing open, the red lanterns bouncing, and Cheng would take my hand.