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“Really? Joy saw it: Who had the red face of a peasant on the covers of China Reconstructs and whose face was painted with love?”
As she speaks, images from the past tumble through my mind: May resting her head against Z.G.’s heart as they danced, Z.G. painting every last strand of her hair, Z.G. placing peonies around her naked body …
“I’m sorry,” she says. “That was cruel. I know you’ve held him in your heart all these years, but that was a girlish crush from long ago. Can’t you see that? Z.G. and I…” Her voice catches. “You had a lifetime with Sam. Z.G. and I had a few weeks.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I knew you had feelings for him. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
And like that I understand what’s been before me for the last twenty years. “Z.G. is Joy’s father.”
“Who is Z.G.?”
It’s the one voice that neither my sister nor I want to hear. I turn and there’s Joy, standing in the kitchen doorway, her eyes like black pebbles at the bottom of a bowl of narcissus. Her look—cold, expressionless, and unforgiving—tells me she’s been listening far too long. I’m devastated by Sam’s death and my sister’s version of our lives, but I feel absolute horror that my daughter has heard any of this. I take two steps toward Joy but she edges away from me.
“Who is Z.G.?” she asks again.
“He is your real father,” May answers, her voice gentle and filled with love. “And I am your real mother.”
The three of us stand in the living room like statues. I see May and me through Joy’s eyes: a mother—who has tried to teach her daughter to be filial in the Chinese way and brilliant in the American way—wearing an old nightgown, with a face red from tears, sorrow, and anger; and another mother—who has indulged her daughter with treats and exposed her to the glamour and money of Haolaiwu—looking radiant and elegant. Freed from two decades of secrets, May seems at peace, despite everything that’s happened tonight. My sister and I have fought over shoes, over who’s had the better life, and over who’s smarter and prettier, but this time I don’t have a chance. I know who will win. For so long I’ve wondered about my destiny. It wasn’t enough for me to lose my baby son and my husband. Now the tears of the greatest loss of my life roll down my cheeks.
When Our Hair Is White
I LIE ON my bed, a huge hole in my chest where my heart used to be. Destroyed, that’s how I feel. I listen to May and Joy murmur together. Later, I hear raised voices and doors slam, but I don’t go back out there and fight for my daughter. I don’t have any fight left in me. But then maybe I never did. Maybe May was right about me. I am weak. Maybe I’ve always been afraid, a victim, a fu yen. May and I grew up in the same home with the same parents, and yet my sister has always been able to look out for herself She grabbed at opportunities: my willingness to take Joy, Tom Gubbins’s offer of a job and what that turned into, her constant striving to go out and have fun, while I accepted the bad as merely my unlucky fate.
Later still, I hear water running in the bathroom and the toilet flush. I hear Joy opening and shutting her drawers in the linen closet. As silence finally settles over the house, my mind goes to deeper and darker places. My sister has made me think about things in a whole new way, but none of that changes what happened to Sam. I’ll never forgive her for that! Except… except… maybe she was right about seeking amnesty. Maybe not voluntarily stepping forward was a dreadful mistake on Sam’s and my parts, which resulted in terrible tragedy for Sam. But why hadn’t May told us she was going to report us, even if it was for our own good? I know the answer too well: Sam and I were always afraid of anything new. We were afraid to leave the family and go out on our own, afraid to leave Chinatown, afraid to let our daughter become what we said we wanted her to be: American. If May had tried to tell us, we wouldn’t have been able to hear her.
I know that, in the worst of my Dragon aspects, I can be stubborn and proud. Cross a female Dragon and the sky will fall. Indeed, tonight the sky has fallen, but I need to tell Joy that she is and will always be my daughter and that no matter what she feels about me or Sam or her auntie, I will love her forever and ever. I will make her understand how much she’s been loved and protected and how much pride I have in her as she begins her life. I have ten thousand hopes that she’ll forgive me. As for May, I don’t know if I can find a way to absolve her or even if I want to. I don’t know if I want to have a relationship with her at all, but I’m willing to give her a chance to explain everything to me again.
I should go out to the screened porch, wake them up, and do all this right now, but it’s late and it’s quiet out there and too much has happened on this terrible night.
“WAKE UP! Wake up! Joy is gone!”
I open my eyes to my sister shaking me. Her face is frantic. I sit up, fear pulsing through my body.
“What?”
“It’s Joy. She’s gone.”
I’m up, out of the room, and running to the screened porch. Both beds look to me like they’ve been slept in. I take a breath and try to relax.
“Maybe she’s gone for a walk. Maybe she went to the cemetery.”
May shakes her head. Then she looks down at a piece of crumpled paper she holds in her hand. “I found this on her bed when I woke up.”
May smoothes the paper and hands it to me. I begin to read:
Mom,
I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t understand this country anymore. I hate that it killed Dad. I know you’ll think I’m confused and foolish. Maybe I am, but I have to find answers. Maybe China is my real home after all. After everything Auntie May told me last night, I think I should meet my real father. Don’t worry about me, Mom. I have great belief in
China and everything Chairman Mao is doing for the country.
Joy
I take a breath, and the pounding in my heart slows. I know that Joy can’t possibly mean what she’s written. She’s a Tiger. It’s her nature to flail and strike out, which is exactly what she’s done in her note, but there’s no possible way she’s done what she’s written here. May seems to believe it though.
“Has she really run away?” May asks when I look up from the letter.
